Posted on 04/11/2019 9:18:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
Corey Booker and some of his Senate colleagues would like to introduce a new area of government regulation in the tech industry. We need to be keeping a closer eye on the development of Artificial Intelligence, but not because of the coming robot revolution. The problem, you see, is that the computer algorithms are (wait for it)… racist. And that justifies some sort of government oversight of the tech sector beyond what we already have in place today. (Associated Press)
Congress is starting to show interest in prying open the “black box” of tech companies’ artificial intelligence with oversight that parallels how the federal government checks under car hoods and audits banks.
One proposal introduced Wednesday and co-sponsored by a Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Cory Booker, would require big companies to test the “algorithmic accountability” of their high-risk AI systems, such as technology that detects faces or makes important decisions based on your most sensitive personal data…
“When the companies really go into this, they’re going to be looking for bias in their systems,” [Senator Ron] Wyden said. “I think they’re going to be finding a lot.”
I’d like to have more fun with this subject, but the fact is that Booker and Wyden are right about some of this software, at least in some cases. There are still big problems with facial recognition programs, for example. I wrote about Amazon’s facial recognition software back in January and the results of independent testing were pretty shocking.
Researchers found that the Amazon software was able to correctly identify a person based on a scan of their face with zero errors… but only if the subject was a white male. White females were not correctly identified seven percent of the time. The same test done on black or Hispanic male subjects produced an even higher error rate. And by the time you get around to black women, in nearly one-third of the test cases, the software wasn’t even able to identify them as being women, let alone get their identity correct.
So the question is… why? No matter how “intelligent” the software may seem, it’s still only emulating intelligence. Until the AI eventually wakes up, it doesn’t form opinions or preferences and thus is incapable of becoming “racist” on its own. So it must have either inherited these preferences from somewhere or there’s a flaw in the programming we haven’t figured out yet. Might the programmers have some sort of unconscious (or perhaps conscious) bias that steers how they develop the program? Could it be that some faces have fewer differences in the number of data points be collected? (There have been studies that suggest some races have a wider variety of nose sizes and shapes based on the climate where those races evolved.)
Either way, this is a mystery I’m sure we’ll eventually solve. But should the government be introducing regulations to prevent racist software from infiltrating every aspect of our technological lives? That point is probably moot. There’s nothing Congress likes more than something new to regulate.
Translation: Any objective algorithm that doesn’t specifically have programming for racism in it, must be racist.
Which sounds ironic, if not patently false, to anyone who thinks logically. But to the activist mind, you need to fear lack of activism.
It identified them as "meat popsicles."
Booker’s definition of racism is the opposite of the traditional one. For him, to be non-racist, you have to be obsessed with race, and prefer some races over others.
They all look alike to AI, right?
It’s none of government’s business
Let these companies start losing money, and they’ll figure out how to do it right themselves.
It is almost as if the Democrats are in an actual fight AGAINST objective reality...
AI is still smarter than the brightest Democrat.
No wonder they’re mad.
[ Researchers found that the Amazon software was able to correctly identify a person based on a scan of their face with zero errors… but only if the subject was a white male. White females were not correctly identified seven percent of the time. The same test done on black or Hispanic male subjects produced an even higher error rate. And by the time you get around to black women, in nearly one-third of the test cases, the software wasn’t even able to identify them as being women, let alone get their identity correct. ]
It’s called CONTRAST..... as in lighter skinned people have higher contrast levels in their faces than dark skinned folks.
Tribal trust is easier to read when facial expressions are easier to read.... This is a fact many sociologists have know for a long time, but it is considered racist these days...
Anything that proves what we have been saying is now called racist. Exams and tests have proven over and over again that there is a disparity in IQ by race. The test is objective, and is not biased by race.
AI has no bias. It acts strictly according to rules. These rules, applied fairly, will show a definite disparity in outcome. This is not racism.
FR: Never Accept the Premise of Your Opponent’s Argument
Patriots are reminded that the only race-related right that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect deals only with voting rights, evidenced by the 15th Amendment.
15th Amendment:
"Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.Section 2: The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation [emphasis added].”
Since there is no clear connection between artificial intelligence issues and voting rights imo, by politicking for so-called artificial intelligence in the name of racial bias, Ivy League school-indoctrinated Sen. Booker is unthinkingly trying to unconstitutionally expand the powers of the already unconstitutionally big federal government imo.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Constitutionally low-information Senator Booker and his colleagues are distinguishing themselves as examples why the ill-conceived 17th Amendment should never have been ratified.
Remember in November 2020!
MAGA!
That’s my boy!
Are you sure that’s not her twin?
Of course, you could change the ranking by subjectively including which nations succeeded by 'exploiting' other countries, people and resources, 'waging unjust wars', slavery, discrimination, etc. Then you would get different results.
He who controls the algorithms controls the output.
White complexions might simply be more visible to the cameras, offer more contrast, etc.
Women tend to use much more make-up than men. They may dye their hair, adopt a completely different hairstyle, wear different earrings, wear or discard false eyelashes, etc., thus greatly changing their appearance. It makes sense that the software might not be able to match up a woman as she appears today - after a major "make-over" - with the archived photo.
A machine or sotware program cannot, of course, be "racist" - but actual real-world considerations (like the aforementioned factors) as well as implicit bias on the part of the sofware programmers will certainly play a role.
I, for my part, am more concerned about the ability of the software to distinguish human beings from Replicants. The Voight-Kampff Test doesn't seem to be all that reliable when it comes to the new Nexus-8 models.
Regards,
I agree completely. How do you ‘objectively’ define success? Its impossible to unmarry language from the human (subjective) concepts that they represent. In it’s purest sense, for AI to be objective, it would have to have never been created or the least bit influenced by human intelligence at all. But you wouldn’t want to encounter such an AI, I suspect.
Let’s also just note here my opinion, again, for the record, that what most people call Artificial Intelligence is really just adaptive programming. It’s not true AI that can not only adapt it’s limited processes, but can alter it’s own programming, scope, and even ‘grow’ or develop totally new functions
By the way, were the different examples of historical success that you mentioned the Roman Empire versus 20th century United States?
Problem is that darker skins have less contrast, and it probably bleeds below the level of contrast necessary to reliably distinguish faces.
As far as females go, I would guess a larger variety of hairstyles plus the application of makeup would explain the difficulty there.
The problem is that it is also not PC.
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