AI to quarantine ‘hate speech’. Thoughts?

[Lumene]

I can see good and bad uses of this:

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/online-hate-speech-could-be-contained-like-a-computer-virus-say-researchers?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2020%20December&utm_content=Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2020%20December+CID_3d240d5c05ef785a8709e642a2a4373e&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Read%20more

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/online-hate-speech-could-be-contained-like-a-computer-virus-say-researchers?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2020%20December&utm_content=Cambridge%20Research%20Bulletin%20Friday%2020%20December+CID_3d240d5c05ef785a8709e642a2a4373e&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Read%20more

More algorithms to control our lives? Oh Goody!

(What could possibly go wrong?)

Depends on who writes the programme and decides what is hate speech..

Algorithms are notoriously prone to bias though

And this one would be ripe for it.

So I'm guessing die in a grease fire will be fine but were you born a man not fine.....it would be interesting to play with see what I could get away with...

For example to call someone a wanker you could te them to go play with their monkey? Ask them if they would go away and bang the bishop? Might be too obvious

I'm a vegetarian but those look like meat and two veg to me? ....

Is that an apple Adam?

Well Twitter seems to be successfully silencing women with its algorithms already. Or did a human being make this decision?
twitter.com/cupwomenspledge/status/1201496393464066048?s=21

With the trials of facial recognition technology and social credit schemes in parts of China, the re-education camps where the Chinese government is detaining the Urghur Muslim population, the exclusion of Muslim refugees from India's new citizenship law and the current limiting of women's sex based rights and free speech, being upheld extraordinarily well by certain social and mainstream media, these uses of technology are not just showing the potential for misuse, but are bitterly frightening forms of control over free speech.

If you don’t twit, here’s a pic

The cautionary tale of the program Cybersitter and the journalist who complained that it classified support for the US Equal Rights Amendment and other feminist causes as 'Extremism & Terrorism.' When he persisted in criticisim, he was blocked too.

Well to go all conpiracy theory, David Icke said that that AI was going to be used by a global elite a to control the lot of us, a bit like the Matrix or the Borg hive mind.

Ideas like transgender are part of the push to deny reality or summat. And quite frankly, if anyone believes that men can be women, their mind is ripe for takeover, isn't it?

Quite frankly, any idiot who does believe that deserves to be

these uses of technology are not just showing the potential for misuse, but are bitterly frightening forms of control over free speech

Well said. Also, the article suggests that the algorithm will identify a source as being likely to produce ‘hate speech’ which is not defined. Think about that. This forum for example. Which is considered a veritable cauldron of hate speech by a certain lobby....

Not a positive development at all.
Far, far too easy to misuse with appalling consequences.

@MrsSnippyPants
I looked at that tweet, managed to find the petition but it took me to paypal and tried to charge me 25USD to sign?!

Sure if a team of radfems trains. If a team of Silicon Valley white high income beardy types does?

Also since misogyny isn’t considered hate speech (because it would then comprise 95% of hate speech) I’m going to say no.

Thanks for letting me know WyeWoman but it does not cost anything to sign.

I think iPetitions has donation pop ups that I don't see as I use an ad and pop up blocker.
Nobody I know has had trouble signing it. If anyone can grab a screenshot it would help? The pop up can just be closed down.

Ah, I have just tested it on another browser. The donation request comes up AFTER you have signed it by giving your name and email address.
You can safely ignore it, it is an iPetitions donation request, NOTHING to do with the petition itself. A number of other parties have also hosted their petitions on the site.

Depends on who writes the programme and decides what is hate speech

Agree. I worry about the small number of women’s voices in AI and tech in general (eg twitter, Wikipedia).

I'd rather not regulate "hate speech" than allow this sort of thing. In fact I rather thought the control of hate speech, apart from speech actually encouraging violence, was still controversial. When did that change?

Yes, I don't think that speech should be regulated, other than speech that directly incites violence.

I don't believe I have a right not to be offended, and I think the benefits to me of quarantining my ideological enemy's voice is far less than the cost to me in the future of having my own speech quarantined.

I wouldn't trust Silicon valley types with this for a minute. I mean, Twitter already does kind of quarantine some speech - and who's speech is it ? Women's speech. What speech is allowed to remain ? Mens speech, including vile threats to and about women, porn, and MAP vomit inducing propaganda. Doesn't seem like a safer world to me!

What could possibly go wrong allowing a group of privileged white American men to decide for the rest of us what level of free speech we should be allowed?

I’m reminded of the film Hidden Figures, where one of the black female back-office mathematicians supporting the space programme saw the future was computing & taught herself (and colleagues) programming languages. Its almost like we need to start the fight back by getting more women into tech and building our own platforms with sensible algorithms. Given the choice, most of the rest of the population would vote with their feet. We only tolerate these products (like Twitter) because there are no alternatives.