Re: [Wiki-research-l] feedback appreciated

[Leila Zia]

[The views below are my views and not necessarily the views of my
employer, the Wikimedia Foundation.]

Hi Caroline,

Here are a few feedback points on my end:

* I'm not sure what the ultimate goal of the piece is: to raise
awareness about the issues around machine learning and artificial
intelligence, or to say that Elon Musk doesn't know the real
challenges of AI, or to have a (friendly?) conversation with him, or
something else. I would focus on one goal, and I would personally go
with the first goal as it's an important one (and I know you know
it:).

* Assuming that the goal is the first one:

** There are a few instances that you claim the future where machines
can replace humans will never be here. You are basically claiming that
artificial general intelligence (AGI) research will not result in what
its aim is. This is a big claim: if you say it, you should prove it.
:) I personally recommend staying away from this line of claim,
because it's hard to prove, in fact, there may be such a future.

** In some dimensions, the future that Elon Musk is concerned about is
very near (in some it's potentially very far, and it's good to plan
for now: see the next point): the self-driving cars are one example.
It is safe to say that they are here (it's the matter of when and not
if). It is not hard to imagine all the traffic of a state in the U.S.
such as California to be replaced with self-driving cars in some
years, and these combinations of machines can cause serious harm. This
can be due to ethical gaps, privacy and security gaps, etc. Once you
enter the military world, there are even more real examples that
again, are either being used or can be used relatively soon. The
concerns around a distributed system of machines making decisions
about what the next target is and how to react to it are very real and
along the lines of what Elon Musk may be concerned about.

** The regulations have been forming in a reactive way in the past
decades and this is a problem on its own, imo. It is reasonable to say
that now that we have time and control over where we are heading,
let's make sure we regulate things at a pace that we don't end up
getting surprised and over-regulate, for example.

** I personally would skip the whole conversation style in this kind
of article. In some of your audience, including me, it creates a first
reaction of "yes, we taught him a lesson." which is (hopefully)
quickly followed by: "but wait a minute, this person has so many great
achievements and the media may have been exaggerating his views based
on isolated comments." I cannot think that Elon Musk doesn't see many
of the issues that the not-fully-informed/educated machine learning
implementations can cause and you have listed. If the point of your
piece is not to tell him he's wrong, then I would reconsider the
style.

I hope this helps. :)

Best,
Leila

--
Leila Zia
Senior Research Scientist
Wikimedia Foundation


On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 9:50 AM, Caroline Sinders
 wrote:
> hi all,
> i just started a column with fast co and wrote an article about elon musk's
> AI panic.
>
> https://www.fastcodesign.com/90137818/dear-elon-forget-killer-robots-heres-what-you-should-really-worry-about
>
> would love some feedback :)
>
> best,
> caroline
> ___
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] feedback appreciated

[Heather Ford]

This is excellent, Caroline. What a powerful piece.

You may want to read Angele Christin's paper that just came out in Big Data
and Society that complicates the notion of judges accepting algorithmic
reasoning wholesale in making decisions.

http://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/SPgDYyisV8mAJn4fm7Xi/full

Best,
Heather.

Dr Heather Ford
University Academic Fellow
School of Media and Communications , The
University of Leeds
w: hblog.org / EthnographyMatters.net  / t:
@hfordsa 


On 26 August 2017 at 02:50, Caroline Sinders  wrote:

> hi all,
> i just started a column with fast co and wrote an article about elon musk's
> AI panic.
>
> https://www.fastcodesign.com/90137818/dear-elon-forget-
> killer-robots-heres-what-you-should-really-worry-about
>
> would love some feedback :)
>
> best,
> caroline
> ___
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
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[Wiki-research-l] feedback appreciated

[Caroline Sinders]

hi all,
i just started a column with fast co and wrote an article about elon musk's
AI panic.

https://www.fastcodesign.com/90137818/dear-elon-forget-killer-robots-heres-what-you-should-really-worry-about

would love some feedback :)

best,
caroline
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