September 2023 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

The lessons of Chile’s struggle against Big Tech

by Daniela Tafani

The lessons of Chile’s struggle against Big Tech Salvador Allende’s greatest legacy is his attempt to democratise technology By Evgeny Morozov<https://www.newstatesman.com/author/evgeny-morozov> <https://www.newstatesman.com/author/evgeny-morozov> On 1 August 1973, a seemingly mundane diplomatic summit took place in Lima, Peru. But there was nothing remotely mundane about the summit’s revolutionary agenda. The attendees – mostly high-ranking diplomats from Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru – aspired to create a more just technological world order. A world order that may have prevented the rise of Silicon Valley – and of Big Tech along with it. A good first step, they thought, was to join forces and explore ways to curb the growing influence of multinational corporations. This was particularly pressing in the realm of advanced technologies, the majority of which originated from the US and western Europe. These technologies often had to be imported to Latin America at exceedingly high costs. One study found that between 1962 and 1968 Chile alone saw its payments for tech services doubled, with the country’s companies paying for many expired or non-existent patents. It was in order to avoid such absurd external obstacles that the five nations gathering in Peru had signed the Andean Pact four years earlier. A regional free-trade agreement of a radical, almost extinct kind, it aimed to facilitate the collective pursuit of industrialisation and economic development. Through it, the five countries would pool their political power and try to avoid the steep costs associated with importing foreign technology. The pact also fostered the establishment of joint research and development projects to create domestic alternatives. Orlando Letelier, then serving as foreign minister under the socialist president Salvador Allende, led the Chilean delegation. His speech in Lima echoed the radical aspects of Allende’s technology agenda, noting that “we live in a world where the Roman concept of property, when applied to technology, fosters exploitation”. Letelier highlighted the increasing technological dependence of the region. “Today,” he lamented, “approximately 500 multinational corporations control 90 per cent of the world’s productive technology.” To mitigate such disparities, Letelier called for the creation of a new international institution. It would facilitate developing countries’ access to the benefits of advanced technology and research, including patents, in a manner akin to how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) grants them access to financial capital. Admittedly, this proposed International Technology Fund would need to adopt a less prescriptive approach than the IMF and be less subordinate to the US<https://www.newstatesman.com/world/americas/north-america/us>. Here was a blueprint for an alternative technological world order, informed by an insight lost on most of today’s technology analysts: a country’s technological backwardness is often the result of long-running geopolitical and geoeconomic factors – it almost never stems simply from rigid bureaucracy or the lack of an innovation culture. In other words, success in the global technology game was a factor of a country’s power and sovereignty, not of its inventiveness and openness to new ideas. In the new global system envisioned by Letelier and Allende, each nation, including those currently referred to as the Global South, would eventually be capable of developing their own unique industrial – and technological – stack. This strategy would prevent them from having to rent various technologies – think of cloud computing or artificial intelligence today – from the multinationals, thereby halting the cycle of their own technological and economic dependency. But this vision was never realised. Merely six weeks after the summit in Lima, on 11 September 1973, Allende’s government was toppled in a military coup that ushered in General Augusto Pinochet’s cruel dictatorship. Orlando Letelier spent the next 12 months in brutal concentration camps, alongside many other prominent members of Allende’s administration. Upon his eventual release and exile to the US, Letelier fervently pursued the anti-Pinochet cause. He became a vehement critic of the neoliberal economists advising the Chilean government at the time, known as the Chicago Boys. A month after the Nation published his major exposé on Milton Friedman and his followers – an essay that showed the bankruptcy of their solutions to Chile’s economies woes – Letelier met a tragic end. His car was blown up in Washington, DC, on direct orders from Pinochet’s regime. One month later, Chile dropped out of the Andean Pact. This was the end of Chile’s ambitious – and completely forgotten – struggle to reclaim technologies from Big Tech and Big Capital. As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Chilean coup, it’s tempting to see Allende as a tragic but hapless figure, who spent most of his short-lived presidency fending off efforts to unseat him. It’s true that the ambitious agenda outlined in “40 Measures” the famous electoral programme of Allende’s six-party Popular Unity coalition, was secondary to the government’s efforts to survive the onslaught of the CIA, multinational companies, Chilean oligarchs and various far-right terrorist movements. And yet, for all the problems and crises, there were plenty of radical, utopian and even otherworldly initiatives that still have the power to inspire us today. Surprisingly, many of them had to do with technology; Letelier’s push for the tech equivalent of the IMF was just one of many examples. Common to all of them was an understanding of technology through the lens of geopolitics and heterodox economics – a lens that got destroyed by the global neoliberal transformation that followed the coup. While Pinochet embraced the Chicago School of economics, Allende’s government was the beneficiary of what might be called the Santiago School of technology. And as we contemplate a post-neoliberal future, free of the Chicago Boys’ influence, we have much to learn from these humbler but wiser Santiago Boys. The Santiago School owes its existence to the fact that the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Cepal) is headquartered in the Chilean capital. For the first few decades after its launch in 1948, this institution challenged the mainstream account of free trade – and technology’s role in it – which has been espoused by economists in Chicago and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Imagine a richer country selling cars to a poorer one, which, in turn, reciprocates with bananas. As the two specialise and introduce technological innovations, prices of both commodities fall. Everyone is happy; progress marches ahead. The Cepal economists disagreed with this rosy prediction, arguing that, over time, the developed countries tend to come out stronger from such trades. First, technological innovation benefits the car manufacturers more than it helps the banana growers; you can’t 3D-print tropical fruit. Second, rich countries that typically produce more advanced goods also have powerful trade unions, who, in defending the interests of their workers, also prevent the prices of cars from adjusting as swiftly as those of bananas. The Cepal economists argued that, in a world of ever-sophisticated technology, free trade favours the rich and the powerful: over time, it takes more and more Latin American bananas to pay for one European car. To quote one important participant in this debate – the former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso, then a mere academic – the invisible hand of the market resembles that of the wicked stepmother: instead of correcting inequalities, it aggravates them. Hence the Santiago/Cepal dissent to the free-trade vision of Chicago: instead of accepting free trade and eliminating tariffs, developing countries should use trade and industrial policy to manufacture more of their current imports domestically. Maybe not the whole car yet but, say, the steering wheels and the tyres. This policy, known as import-substitution, quickly earned the support of reformist governments all over Latin America. It was easily the hottest policy idea of the 1950s. But a decade in, some dissenting Santiago-based economists and sociologists – many of them, such as Cardoso, were Brazilians fleeing the country’s own military coup of 1964 – began to grasp its limits. For one thing, you can’t simply make steering wheels the way one grows bananas: it requires expensive machines and the kind of know-how protected by intellectual property laws. If a country simply imports them from the US and western Europe – all in the hopes of “industrialising” and building advanced industries – it risks developing an even greater dependence on the advanced economies and multinational corporations. This radicalisation of the initial Cepal agenda became known as dependency theory, taking Santiago by storm. It couldn’t be otherwise. Between 1960 and 1970, Santiago emerged as a haven many radical European and Latin American intellectuals – the “capital of the left”, as some christened it. Alain Touraine, Manuel Castells, Armand Mattelart, Franz Hinkelammert, Ruy Mauro Marini, Maria da Conceição Tavares: international leftist intellectuals of all kinds made Santiago their home (and that’s not even counting impressive domestic talent, from Pablo Neruda to Marta Harnecker). For all its flaws and inconsistencies, dependency theory got one thing right: it correctly identified technology as the latest frontier of power and accumulation – and doing so a good decade before Apple was even founded. As Andre Gunder Frank, a Chicago-trained German economist who defected from the neoliberal camp to teach in Brazil and later Chile, wrote in the mid-1960s, “American technology is becoming the new source of monopoly power and the new basis of economic colonialism and political neo-colonialism.” He may as well have been talking about quantum computing, 5G or artificial intelligence. The Santiago School saw the fight for technological sovereignty as fundamental to any meaningful economic sovereignty – and, with it, national development. Without its own technological and scientific base, a country that assembled cars was as dependent as a country growing tropical fruit. As the Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro – a friend of Allende’s and a distinguished member of the Santiago School – put it at the time, there’s not much difference between being a banana republic and a Volkswagen republic. The reason why the Santiago stance on technology seemed so radical was, in part, because it undermined the rosier orthodox account furnished by modernisation theory, which shaped so much of Washington’s stance in the Cold War. From their perches at MIT, Stanford and the Rand Corporation, modernisation theorists argued that technological and economic progress went hand in hand. Thus, as long as countries could arrive at a “take-off” point – mostly by borrowing the solutions that had worked in North America or western Europe – their upward developmental trajectory was assured. The Santiago School disagreed, seeing foreign control over technology as a key bottleneck on the road to development. Instead, they advocated building up a nation’s own technological capacity, for, as Allende once colourfully put it, “We have a right to our own solutions.” But it wasn’t just a matter of trade and industrial policy, as Cepal had been preaching for decades. It also involved confrontations with multinational companies that stood in the way of technological progress; the radicalisation of engineers and scientists who often hid behind the neutral veneer of science; and experimentation with new computer-based tools of planning and management to show that bureaucracy can be just as effective at managing the economy as the market. Chile was naturally the main testing ground for the policy prescriptions of the Santiago School. For example, a year or so before Allende came to power, Chile established a government agency called the Institute for Technological Research (Intec). It was tasked with helping national companies and ministries acquire domestic technological expertise. In essence, Intec centralised technological expertise in a single government agency and made it available to industry. This was to reduce Chile’s dependence on foreign technology and expertise, all while building up local capacity. In a sense, Intec was the anti-McKinsey<https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2022/11/mckinsey…> of its era. Instead of helping to downsize the public sector and make it more market-friendly, it leveraged the knowledge of designers, scientists and engineers to serve national development. Intec was housed in a much bigger institution of the Chilean state – the State Development Corporation (Corfo). Its remit had been to mobilise domestic and foreign capital to spearhead the development of important new industries, such as steel-making, crucial to Chile’s industrialisation efforts. Corfo partly shared in the Santiago School agenda, but it was also closely tied to Chilean industrial capital. As a result, it became a frequent target of attacks from the left – including from a young senator called Salvador Allende – who thought it was not strategic enough, especially when it would spin off and privatise the industries it had nurtured. When Allende came to power, it finally became possible to radicalise Corfo, and use it to accelerate Chile’s pursuit of technological sovereignty. This is, for example, how the Allende-era Corfo launched the National Electronics Company, which was tasked with building a semiconductor plant in the north of the country. This would have allowed Chile – once a mere exporter of nitrates and copper – to become a technologically sophisticated economy capable of meeting its own development needs. Had Allende been allowed to enact the other policy prescriptions of the Santiago School, Chile may have evolved into a South Korea or Taiwan of Latin America. Unlike them, though, Allende’s Chile was not a right-wing authoritarian state that suppressed workers’ rights in favour of industrialisation. The coup destroyed this possibility of a left-wing – and fully democratic – industrialisation in Latin America. Allende’s pursuit of technological sovereignty required much more than dispatching Intec consultants to rationalise production. He also needed to be confrontational, not least because some of Chile’s most important telecommunications, including telephones and telexes, were in the hands of the very foreign technology multinational that the Santiago School saw as detrimental to national development. That company was ITT, and, by the time of Allende’s election in 1970, it had a highly controversial reputation in the region. With roots in Puerto Rico and Cuba, ITT quickly established itself on US territory. During the 1920s, it used its founders’ connection to Wall Street to rapidly expand in Latin America (this greatly helped the American state win the battle for global telecom supremacy against the UK). By the early 1950s, ITT was widely disliked by many of its local customers, who complained that it was charging exorbitant fees but barely invested in infrastructure upgrades. As a result, local economies stagnated: left to the forces of the market, telecommunications – an important factor of economic development – became an obstacle rather than an enabler. The young Fidel Castro – then an aspiring lawyer – even sued ITT’s local subsidiary in Cuba; his law firm won the case, but it was reversed by the country’s dictator Fulgencio Batista. As a consequence, ITT was one of the first companies Castro nationalised in 1960 (shortly after the Cuban Revolution that concluded a year earlier brought him to power). Castro’s boldness may have inspired Leonel Brizola, a radical governor in Brazil, who in 1962 proceeded to do the same with ITT’s local properties in his state. There seemed little desire to let these Latin American techno-nationalists do as they pleased. The company mobilised its allies in Washington – and humiliated Brazil into paying a hefty price for such nationalisation, while Brizola and his brother-in-law, the country’s then leader João Goulart, were painted as communists siding with the Soviets. Two years later, Goulart was overthrown by the Brazilian military. None of this deterred Allende. During his 1970 presidential campaign, he promised to nationalise the firm and put engineers – rather than managers – in charge of strategic decisions there. ITT gave money<https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP91-00901R000600100004-0.pdf> to Allende’s political adversaries in Chile to try to prevent his victory. When Allende did win, it kept looking for ways to destabilise him – including by pressuring Washington to cut off its loans to Chile and suspend technical aid. So Allende simply went ahead and took over the company. By today’s standards, it was an unprecedented blow against the power of Big Tech. From now on, ITT – just like hundreds of other strategic companies nationalised by Allende’s government – would be run from Corfo, the State Development Corporation. And its focus would be the national development strategy, not boosting profits. This proved easier said than done. The initial phases of Allende’s revolution were so exciting that workers at many enterprises that were not initially deemed strategic – including a caramel factory – demanded that they be taken over as well. Second, the US ambassador – and he surely wasn’t alone – did his best to deprive Allende of cadres who could run these nationalised firms. This was done by spreading what today we would call “fake news”: that Allende would eventually close the borders and prevent managers and engineers from leaving the country – so they had to move out now. This was the context in which Allende embarked on a startling initiative to use computers and telex networks to make up for the lack of qualified managers: Project Cybersyn. While its history has been masterfully explored by Eden Medina in Cybernetic Revolutionaries (2011), it’s important to emphasise the broader intellectual and policy links between Cybersyn and the Santiago School. First of all, many of Allende’s young economists and engineers were steeped in the world of dependency theory. Some of them even brought courses on development and dependency to the engineering faculty of their universities. Once these youthful technocrats moved to government positions in the Allende administration, they surrounded themselves with many of the Brazilian dependency theorists who were in exile in Chile at the time. Others, such as Andre Gunder Frank, were in Santiago to offer advice and criticism. Second, Cybersyn was a project that grew out of Corfo and was housed in Intec, Chile’s state-owned consulting firm. The German designer of its Operations Room<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine>, an Intec employee, was an avid reader of dependency theory as well, citing Gunder Frank in his essays. Third, Cybersyn was meant to furnish the software for the practical realisation of the theoretical aspects – such as the nationalisation of ITT (which also ended up in Corfo) – preached by the dependency theory. And just as the Chicago School and neoliberalism eventually found allies in Silicon Valley’s platforms, the Santiago School and its brand of technology-aware dependency theory made good use of socialist cybernetic software such as Cybersyn. The realisation of that original Santiago vision today would certainly require newer and better software. Yet the approach’s basics – the idea that technology is geopolitics by other means; that technological progress is no guarantee of social and economic progress; and that power is what allows some countries to innovate and condemns others to stagnation – remain highly relevant in our own world of Big Tech. Granted, Allende was hardly a tech wizard. In fact, he made plenty of tech blunders – at one point even inviting ITT to check his office for bugs. Yet it was under his leadership that a minor Latin American country systematically pursued a geopolitically informed technology policy – and didn’t shy away from confronting powerful corporate actors. It’s this bold stance – combined with an intellectually dynamic framework – that made Allende’s demise a tragedy. The 1973 coup not only deprived Chile of its precious democracy – it also robbed us of a world in which countries could stand up to powerful companies, defend their own technological sovereignty, and harness innovation to build a more equal and just world. Instead, the problems that affected Chile in the pre-Allende period became the problems of the whole world – or, at least, the world outside Silicon Valley. What the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano – a friend of Allende and part of the broader Santiago School universe – wrote of his region in his classic Open Veins of Latin America (1971) still rings true: “Latin America is condemned to suffer the technology of the powerful, which attacks and removes natural raw materials, and is incapable of creating its own technology to sustain and defend its own development.” Only today, his insight applies to the whole planet. What we got instead was a world run by half a dozen ITTs – all legitimised through the notion that innovation is a matter of ideas and ideals, not of sheer power relations and military strength. For all his shortcomings, Allende, who won the Chilean elections despite opposition from both ITT and the CIA, knew that innovation in the real world was not at all like this. And that’s why, for all his contributions to democratic socialism, his greatest legacy may be in mobilising the Santiago School, showing the world a path towards democratic technology. https://www.newstatesman.com/the-weekend-essay/2023/09/salvador-allende-fig…

Sept. 11, 2023

Re: [nexa] Soluzione anti-porno per i minori. Roccella: “Sarà concertata con le parti e il blocco sarà automatico”

by 380°

Buongiorno Daniela, non so se ringraziarti per i riferimenti o se metterti in "blacklist" perché preferirei rimanere all'oscuro, tranquillo nella mia /beata/ ignoranza :-D Daniela Tafani <daniela.tafani(a)unipi.it> writes: [...] > Ieri alla riunione presso la presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, tra le applicazioni sul mercato è stata citata Yoti. La soluzione funziona così: l’utente fa un selfie, lo manda alla piattaforma specializzata solo nell’accertamento dell’età degli utenti, che, attraverso algoritmi di intelligenza artificiale, si assicura che sia una persona reale, e non un bot o un’immagine in 2D, e poi stima anche l’età, rilasciando lo “score”, per esempio 18+, 13-,25+… Se fosse vero e non una balla giornalistica, anche solo /citare/ in una riunione del Consiglio dei Ministri che siffatta applicazione possa essere una possibile soluzione è da deficienti funzionali: ritiratevi a vita privata, ieri! ...e lo score 25+ che diavolo sarebbe?!? C'è qualcuno che sta pensando seriamente di introdurre un "rating" 25+? > La società garantisce un’accuratezza senza errori, veloce e istantanea e sulle persone dai 13 ai 24 anni può sbagliarsi al massimo di 2 anni. Il tutto senza la richiesta di documenti d’identità. Accuratezza senza errori sulla stima dell'età da un riconoscimento facciale, che CIALTRONI... in cambio delle foto di minori, poi! Ma che c...?!? Una soluzione demenziale a un problema INESISTENTE: SORVEGLIARE l'accesso a siti "rated" da parte di ragazzini dai 13±2 anni in su (o anche oltre, tipo 25+?): di lasciare che se ne occupino i genitori proprio non vi va giù eh? Non riuscite proprio a guarire da 'sta sindrome ossessivo-compulsiva foucaltiana da "Sorveglianza e punizione" contro "La volontà di sapere" [1] (l'eterna lotta /di/ Thanatos /a/ Eros), mannaggia?! ...poi non vi stupite se, anche attraverso l'uso di sofisticaticatissimi francesismi, a furia di dai e dai vi ci mandiamo sul serio. Saluti, 380° [1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#1975-1984:_Sorvegliare_e_puni… -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

Sept. 11, 2023

La macchina della verità alle frontiere dell'Europa...

by Maurizio Borghi

WIRED *La macchina della verità alle frontiere dell'Europa è stata un assegno in bianco * *I documenti su iBorderCTRL dimostrano la Commissione europea era a conoscenza dei rischi di sperimentare un algoritmo per identificare le bugie analizzando i volti. Ma ha finanziato lo stesso il progetto * _____________ Mentre *assegnano 4,5 milioni di euro del programma di ricerca Horizon 2020 a iBorderCTRL*, una *sorta di macchina della verità da usare alle frontiere*, gli esperti della *Commissione europea sanno già che questa tecnologia* di *analisi dei micro-movimenti del volto* e d*i identificazione delle bugie*, una sorta di *Lie to me*, la serie tv con Tim Roth, in versione algoritmo, potrà porre dei grossi problemi. Tanto che nello stesso documento con cui finanziano il progetto, datato 18 gennaio 2016, scrivono che “*la proposta si affida pesantemente a un sistema automatico di rilevazione delle bugie, che pone una serie di rischi che non sono adeguatamente affrontati**”.* ..... [Continua qui] https://www.wired.it/article/iborderctrl-macchina-verita-europa/ -- _______________ *Maurizio Borghi* Università di Torino https://www.dg.unito.it/persone/maurizio.borghi Co-Director Nexa Center for Internet & Society <https://nexa.polito.it/>

Sept. 11, 2023

Re: [nexa] ‘Life or Death:’ AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon

by 380°

Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> writes: [...] > E, chiaramente, il capitolo rilevante nelle condizioni contrattuali > che vincolano OpenAI all'utente dei suoi servizi: > https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use#7-indemnification-disclaimer-of-wa… > > ---------8<--------- > > 7. Indemnification; Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitations on Liability [...] > Faccio presente che queste sono le classiche condizioni contrattuali > presenti in praticamente ogni software, tranne che in specifici > settori, decisamente verticali, normati e contrattualizzati > diversamente: la famosa clausola "as is". Sì ma attenzione che in questo caso non stiamo parlando di programmi ma di _servizi_; sebbene moltissimi servizi o (parti di) prodotti siano forniti/prodotti utilizzando programmi, questo NON solleva chi fornisce servizi/prodotti dalle proprie responsabilità civili e penali nei confronti degli utilizzatori ("consumatori" o professionali) di quel servizio o prodotto. IANAL, ma l'intero paragrafo «7. Indemnification; Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitations on Liability» dei termini di servizio [1] di ChatGPT è una **cialtronata**, al mimite delle clausole vessatorie: meriterebbe di essere invalidato l'intero contratto. Tipo: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- (a) Indemnity. You will defend, indemnify [...] (including attorneys’ fees) arising from or relating to your use of the Services, [...] (b) Disclaimer. THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS.” --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Suvvia OpenAI: siate seri! La famose clausole "as is" della licenza GNU GPL v3 dicono: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- 15. Disclaimer of Warranty. THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, [...] OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 16. Limitation of Liability. IN NO EVENT [...] THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. 17. Interpretation of Sections 15 and 16. [...] closely approximates an absolute waiver of all civil liability in connection with the Program, unless a warranty or assumption of liability accompanies a copy of the Program in return for a fee. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt) Non solo non stiamo parlando di un servizio/prodotto ma di un programma, stiamo anche parlando di _licenza di distribuzione_ di un'opera tutelata dal diritto d'autore, che NON è un contratto come lo sono per esempio le EULA o i contratti di trasferimento dei diritti d'autore; infatti, la licenza stessa spiega che il programma può essere accompagnato da garanzia o assunzione di responsabilità (civile) in cambio di un onorario: quello /sarebbe/ un contratto [2] (e sarebbe relativo a **un servizio** aggiuntivo alla fornitura del programma)... ma sempre IANAL :-) Cordiali saluti, 380° [1] https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use [2] e avrebbe un onorario **parecchio** onorabile, giustamente -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

Sept. 9, 2023

Re: [nexa] ‘Life or Death:’ AI-Generated Mushroom Foraging Books Are All Over Amazon

by 380°

Ciao Giacomo, «e intanto il tempo se ne va...» Giacomo Tesio <giacomo(a)tesio.it> writes: > On Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 12:42:14PM +0200, 380° wrote: [...] >> >> Il mer 30 ago 2023, 08:44 Giacomo Tesio <giacomo(a)tesio.it> ha scritto: >> >> >> >> > Chi ha eseguito il software programmato statisticamente (il CdA di >> >> > OpenAI/Microsoft etc...) >> >> > è responsabile delle morti causate dall'errata interpretazione di quella >> >> > sequenza di caratteri >> >> > come un "testo" portatore di sognificato. >> >> > >> >> > Tale responsabilità deriva dalla scelta di realizzare e mantenere in >> >> > esecuzione >> >> > un software progettato per ingannare chi lo usa imitando il testo prodotto >> >> > da un essere umano. >> >> Giacomo sai benissimo che per poter utilizzare qualsiasi servizio, anche >> quelli di OpenAI, gli utenti accettano le condizioni di servizio e in >> quelle ci sono scritte un sacco di cose... che hanno valore giuridico > > Qualunque clausola di qualsiasi contratto che sollevi uno dei firmatari > dalle proprie responsabilità penali è nulla in Italia. > > Di più: qualsiasi interpretazione di qualsiasi contratto che sollevi uno > dei contraenti dalle proprie responsabilità penali è RIDICOLA in > Italia. Ma certo Giacomo, come non potrebbe essere così, su questo non ci può essere che unanime consenso. [...] > Quindi ribadisco: qualsiasi cosa ci sia scritta sui termini del > servizio, se una persona incapace di intendere o un minore venissero > istigati al suicidio dall'output che OpenAI pubblica sul proprio sito > web in risposta ad un qualsiasi loro "prompt", la responsabilità di > quell'omicidio ricadrebbe sui vertici dell'azienda. [1] Sì Giacomo, hai ragione; il fatto è che le considerazioni che io ho espresso nella mia email precedente (quella a cui tu rispondi) sono _circostanziate_ al caso in oggetto, ovvero la vendita di libri generati utilizzando servizi (di terzi) come ChatGPT. In effetti nel messaggio precedente ho scritto --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Tu stai seriamente ipotizzando che Qualcuno™ può pensare di accusare un dirigente di OpenAI nel caso qualche cazzata sparata da ChatGPT causi (indirettamente?) la morte di una persona? Tipo la morte di un /bimbo/ a cui ChatGPT risponda che per digerire meglio un tizio dell'Illinois una volta ha bevuto un bicchierino di candeggina?... tanto per spararla grossa anche io? --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- e in questo caso sono io ad aver fatto confusione e ti chiedo scusa, anche se a mia parziale discolpa noto che nel P.S. avevo chiarito meglio il mio pensiero. Nel caso in cui l'"utente finale" (non mi piace "consumatore") usi _direttamente_ il servizio, è il titolare di quel servizio che deve risponderne civilmente e penalmente. Nel caso dell'istigazione al suicidio faccio comunque notare che: 1. la clausola "1. Registration and Access" dei termini di utilizzo [1] di ChatGPT occorre dichiarare di essere maggiorenni o di avere più di 13 anni e il consenso dei genitori o dei tutori. 2. soprattutto che [2]: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- L’elemento psicologico del reato consiste nell’accordo di volontà tra i due soggetti, che per il soggetto punibile si concreta nella volontà di determinare o istigare o agevolare il suicidio altrui, ovvero sia nella volontà precipua di tenere la condotta criminosa per conseguire quel determinato effetto. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Come giustamente dici tu, il software che fa funzionare il servizio non è soggetto, tantomeno il servizio può essere soggetto: il soggetto è il titolare del servizio... ma come si fa a dimostrare la "volontà precipua di tenere la condotta criminosa" del soggetto? Comunque sia, siamo andati OT rispetto all'oggetto (pun intended) originale di questo thread e a quello dovremmo concentraci, IMO. [...] Tornando quindi al caso in oggetto, occorre considerare che i termini di servizio [1] dicono: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- 2. Usage Requirements [...] (c) Restrictions. You may not [...] (v) represent that output from the Services was human-generated when it is not or otherwise violate our Usage Policies; (d) Third Party Services. Any third party software, services, or other products you use in connection with the Services are subject to their own terms, and we are not responsible for third party products. 3. Content (a) Your Content. You may provide input to the Services (“Input”), and receive output generated and returned by the Services based on the Input (“Output”). Input and Output are collectively “Content.” [...] you can use Content for any purpose, including commercial purposes such as sale or publication, if you comply with these Terms. [...] You are responsible for Content, including for ensuring that it does not violate any applicable law or these Terms. [...] (d) Accuracy. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly evolving fields of study. We are constantly working to improve our Services to make them more accurate, reliable, safe and beneficial. Given the probabilistic nature of machine learning, use of our Services may in some situations result in incorrect Output that does not accurately reflect real people, places, or facts. You should evaluate the accuracy of any Output as appropriate for your use case, including by using human review of the Output. 6. Term and Termination [...] (b) Effect on Termination. Upon termination, you will stop using the Services and you will promptly return or, if instructed by us, destroy any Confidential Information. The sections of these Terms which by their nature should survive termination or expiration should survive, including but not limited to Sections 3 and 5-9. [...] 9. General Terms (a) Relationship of the Parties. These Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture or agency relationship between you and OpenAI or any of OpenAI’s affiliates. OpenAI and you are independent contractors and neither party will have the power to bind the other or to incur obligations on the other’s behalf without the other party’s prior written consent. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Fino a 10 minuti fa ignoravo completamente i termini che ho estratto sopra [3] e direi che siccome li ho compresi io in tempi regionevoli e senza troppa fatica, _allora_ sono /facili/ da comprendere per chiunque. Siccome chiunque abbia intenzione di usare un /qualsiasi/ servizio per pubblicare libri (o altri prodotti o servizi) è **obbligato** a leggerne e comprenderne _bene_ i termini: 1. non ci può essere nessun tipo di dubbio su chi sia legalmente il responsabile dei contenuti di quei libri (o altro prodotto o servizio). 2. non può descrivere (represent) il contenuto come generato da un umano (anche se la sola "pena" che rischia è l'eventuale terminazione del contratto... sì, ci crediamo!) Non conosco i termini di altri servizi analoghi ma credo che quelli di ChatGPT facciano scuola. Detto questo, insisto ancora sulla _trasparenza_: a. ChatGPT (e ogni servizio analogo) dovrebbero essere **obbligati** a includere un /disclaimer/ con _ogni_ output, tipo «As stated in our terms of service (<link>) this output does not accurately reflect real people, places, or facts, **therefore** you should evaluate its accuracy as appropriate for your use case, including by using human review of the output.» b. occorre una norma che configuri come reato di truffa utilizzare, per l'erogazione di servizi o prodotti, contenuti ottenuti da "AI generative" senza dichiararlo, ovvero descrivere (represent) lo specifico contenuto come generato da una macchina, _anche_ se supervisionato da una o più persone; che l'output sia generato da software "on premises" da servizi di terzi non deve fare differenza; nel caso in cui l'omissione di tale informazione riguardi contenuti _non_ supervisionati da una o più persone (copia e incolla), scatterebbe l'aggravante: truffa aggravata In un mondo normale sarebbe più difficile a dirsi che a farsi. Saluti, 380° [1] https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use [2] https://www.brocardi.it/codice-penale/libro-secondo/titolo-xii/capo-i/art58… [3] credo proprio esistano anche in italiano ma a me escono in EN per impostazione del browser e non trovo come cambiare lingua -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.

Sept. 9, 2023

"Web rot is erasing our images and videos"

by J.C. DE MARTIN

*Finer Points: Web rot is erasing our images and videos** * Published Aug 31, 2023 | Shaminder Dulai The Internet is in the midst of a midlife crisis. Its age is anywhere from 33 to 40 years old, the ripe age for contemplating past misses and successes, its legacy and an overbearing questioning of choices, behaviors and goals. At nearly 40 years, the Internet has grown from a wacky idea of connecting the world's knowledge centers to aid sharing of scientific research, and evolved into our modern omnipresent world of screens. Its presence is so great we now define generations generally by those who remember the birth of the Internet (millennials), those who grew up with the expansion into mobile Internet (Generation Z), and those who will not know a time before the Internet (Generation Alpha). [...] https://www.dpreview.com/opinion/0517674260/web-rot-is-erasing-our-images-a…

Sept. 7, 2023

Re: [nexa] Soluzione anti-porno per i minori. Roccella: “Sarà concertata con le parti e il blocco sarà automatico”

by Marco Fioretti

On Wed, Sep 6, 2023 at 15:24, Daniela Tafani wrote: * Chi certifica che hai l’età richiesta sa chi sei, ma non sa quale sito stai visitando. certo, chi certifica si ritrova solo con un database preciso di chi usa siti porno, visto che su quasi nessun'altra categoria di siti servirebbe quel servizio. Boh * > La soluzione funziona così: l’utente fa un selfie, lo manda alla piattaforma... No, secondo me funziona cosi': il ragazzino fa un selfie dell'amico maggiorenne compiacente, o anche della FOTO del padre o altri adulti, e alla piattaforma manda quella. Boh E questo d'impulso, senza averci pensato un attimo. Figuriamoci quante altre falle ci stanno. Boh Marco -- https://mfioretti.substack.com

Sept. 6, 2023

Britain Admits Defeat in Controversial Fight to Break Encryption

by Daniela Tafani

Britain Admits Defeat in Controversial Fight to Break Encryption The UK government has admitted that the technology needed to securely scan encrypted messages sent on Signal and WhatsApp doesn’t exist, weakening its controversial Online Safety Bill. Tech companies and privacy activists are claiming victory after an eleventh-hour concession by the British government in a long-running battle over end-to-end encryption. The so-called “spy clause” in the UK’s Online Safety Bill<https://www.wired.com/story/the-uk-is-poised-to-force-a-bad-law-on-the-inte…>, which experts argued would have made end-to-end encryption all but impossible in the country, will no longer be enforced after the government admitted the technology to securely scan encrypted messages for signs of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, without compromising users’ privacy, doesn’t yet exist. Secure messaging services, including WhatsApp and Signal, had threatened to pull out of the UK if the bill was passed. “It’s absolutely a victory,” says Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation, which operates the Signal messaging service. Whittaker has been a staunch opponent of the bill, and has been meeting with activists and lobbying for the legislation to be changed. “It commits to not using broken tech or broken techniques to undermine end-to-end encryption.” The UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport did not respond to a request for comment. The UK government hadn’t specified the technology that platforms should use to identify CSAM being sent on encrypted services, but the most commonly-cited solution was something called client-side scanning. On services that use end-to-end encryption, only the sender and recipient of a message can see its content; even the service provider can’t access the unencrypted data. Client-side scanning would mean examining the content of the message before it was sent—that is, on the user’s device—and comparing it to a database of CSAM held on a server somewhere else. That, according to Alan Woodward, a visiting professor in cybersecurity at the University of Surrey, amounts to “government-sanctioned spyware scanning your images and possibly your [texts].” In December, Apple shelved its plans<https://www.wired.com/story/apple-photo-scanning-csam-communication-safety-…> to build client-side scanning technology for iCloud, later saying<https://www.wired.com/story/apple-csam-scanning-heat-initiative-letter/> that it couldn’t make the system work without infringing on its users’ privacy. Opponents of the bill say that putting backdoors into people’s devices to search for CSAM images would almost certainly pave the way for wider surveillance by governments. “You make mass surveillance become almost an inevitability by putting [these tools] in their hands,” Woodward says. “There will always be some ‘exceptional circumstances’ that [security forces] think of that warrants them searching for something else.” Although the UK government has said that it now won’t force unproven technology on tech companies, and that it essentially won’t use the powers under the bill, the controversial clauses remain within the legislation, which is still likely to pass into law. “It’s not gone away, but it’s a step in the right direction,” Woodward says. James Baker, campaign manager for the Open Rights Group, a nonprofit that has campaigned against the law’s passage, says that the continued existence of the powers within the law means encryption-breaking surveillance could still be introduced in the future. “It would be better if these powers were completely removed from the bill,” he adds. But some are less positive about the apparent volte-face. “Nothing has changed,” says Matthew Hodgson, CEO of UK-based Element, which supplies end-to-end encrypted messaging to militaries and governments. “It’s only what’s actually written in the bill that matters. Scanning is fundamentally incompatible with end-to-end encrypted messaging apps. Scanning bypasses the encryption in order to scan, exposing your messages to attackers. So all ‘until it’s technically feasible’ means is opening the door to scanning in future rather than scanning today. It’s not a change, it’s kicking the can down the road.” Whittaker acknowledges that “it’s not enough” that the law simply won’t be aggressively enforced. “But it’s major. We can recognize a win without claiming that this is the final victory,” she says. The implications of the British government backing down, even partially, will reverberate far beyond the UK, Whittaker says. Security services around the world have been pushing for measures to weaken end-to-end encryption, and there is a similar battle going on in Europe over CSAM, where the European Union commissioner in charge of home affairs, Ylva Johannson<https://www.wired.com/story/europes-moral-crusader-lays-down-the-law-on-enc…>, has been pushing similar, unproven technologies. “It’s huge in terms of arresting the type of permissive international precedent that this would set,” Whittaker says. “The UK was the first jurisdiction to be pushing this kind of mass surveillance. It stops that momentum. And that’s huge for the world.” https://www.wired.com/story/britain-admits-defeat-online-safety-bill-encryp…

Sept. 6, 2023

Soluzione anti-porno per i minori. Roccella: “Sarà concertata con le parti e il blocco sarà automatico”

by Daniela Tafani

... L’uso di app di terze parti per la verifica dell’età l’ipotesi principale “Ancora non è stata scelta nessuna soluzione”, ha precisato alla riunione l’ufficio legislativo del ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy, vero “motore” dell’iniziativa. Ma ha fissato, raccogliendo il consenso unanime degli interlocutori, alcuni punti fermi: * La principale ipotesi è prevedere nella futura norma l’uso, obbligatorio da parte dei siti porno, di app di terze parti per la verifica dell’età degli utenti. Il principio è lo stesso adottato in Francia, dove una legge simile entrerà in vigore nei prossimi mesi: * Chi certifica che hai l’età richiesta sa chi sei, ma non sa quale sito stai visitando. * Il sito visitato riceve la prova che hai l’età richiesta, ma non sa chi sei. Ieri alla riunione presso la presidenza del Consiglio dei ministri, tra le applicazioni sul mercato è stata citata Yoti. La soluzione funziona così: l’utente fa un selfie, lo manda alla piattaforma specializzata solo nell’accertamento dell’età degli utenti, che, attraverso algoritmi di intelligenza artificiale, si assicura che sia una persona reale, e non un bot o un’immagine in 2D, e poi stima anche l’età, rilasciando lo “score”, per esempio 18+, 13-,25+… La società garantisce un’accuratezza senza errori, veloce e istantanea e sulle persone dai 13 ai 24 anni può sbagliarsi al massimo di 2 anni. Il tutto senza la richiesta di documenti d’identità. ... https://www.key4biz.it/soluzione-anti-porno-per-i-minori-roccella-sara-conc…

Sept. 6, 2023

Cfp : Content Moderation on Digital Platforms: Beyond States and Firms

by Nicolas Jullien

Cari, un "call" della rivista "Internet Policy Review" che potrebbe essere interessante per qualcuno di voi: " "Content Moderation on Digital Platforms: Beyond States and Firms" https://policyreview.info/node/1717" ------ Call for papers: Content moderation on digital platforms: beyond states and firms Special issue of the Internet Policy Review Content regulation on digital platforms has attracted growing interest from scientists and regulators in recent years. In Europe, new legal initiatives at the national and European level, such as the NetzDG in Germany, the Law on fake news in France or the Digital Services Act, transform the power relation between public authorities and private platforms. At the academic level, these developments are seen primarily through the lens of state-platform relationship, focusing in particular on the role of nation states in Internet governance. However, content regulation on digital platforms goes far beyond this dual relationship. It encompasses a wide diversity of actors who develop their own practices of content regulation, apart from, in partnership with, or against public authorities and firms. Journalists build up fact-checking procedures to limit the spread of fake news. Activists put pressure on advertisers in order to cut sources of funding for hate groups. Marketing agencies monetize blacklists of sites, groups and channels to avoid reputation backlash while advertising online. Social media users put in practice counter-speech strategies in order to stem hate speech or circumvent restrictions on social media. Even researchers develop their own transparency and accountability indicators to assess platform policies related to content regulation. Besides, these actors are gradually associated with the evolution of content regulation through formal partnerships and multi-stakeholder organizations. All these actors, and many others, who could be grouped together under the banner of "civil society", are now actively contributing to content moderation and regulation on digital platforms. However, their precise role, their strategies and means of action remain little studied. Following recent works published in Internet Policy Review, such as calls for studying content regulation issues beyond the scope of relationships between states and platforms (Gillespie et al., 2020), this special issue intends to illustrate the role of “civil society” in the global governance of speech online, and map the variety of social groups involved in content moderation. Drawing on existing work on multistakeholderism that have discussed the participation of civil society in the global internet governance (Massit-Folléa, 2014; Raymond, DeNardis, 2015), this special issue aims at pushing forward the understanding of non-state actors’ contribution in the current internet regulatory framework. It calls for empirical studies that provide an insight on the social conditions and materiality of civil society’s contribution to content regulation. Scope of the special issue For this special issue we invite contributions that analyze the role of users, non-profit organizations, media, technical and professional groups, researchers and other actors from civil society in moderating and regulating contents on digital platforms, while potentially discussing their articulation with public authorities and platform initiatives. Three axes of contribution are envisioned. First of all, this special issue aims at moving beyond the state-platform scope of analysis by gathering papers that describe the complex configurations of actors involved in the moderation of contents. Contributors are invited to study the various social and institutional arrangements informing moderation policies and notably the extent of civil society’s involvement in this process – from the orientation of moderation policy to the detection of illegal content. Such contributions could also enlighten the role of users’ protests and mobilizations in shifting the scope and focus of moderation (Gillespie, 2018; Myers-West, 2017), notably how sexual minority and race-based groups try to voice their concern regarding the specific discrimination and censorship they face online (Nakamura, 2013). Secondly, we would like to identify papers that contribute to the study of technologies and design in offering new forms of regulation. Although many works have focused on algorithmic content detection by the platforms (Yeung, 2018; Gorwa, Binns, Katzenbach, 2020), in articulation with their business of data collection, we would like to attract papers that discuss alternative design and standards developed by tech communities to promote more diverse and distributed types of moderation. For example, platforms such as Mastodon emphasize the role of users in defining alternative moderation rules and mechanisms. Such a discussion may also include new strategies developed by activists to document algorithmic censorship and inform shadowbanning practices. Thirdly, we would like to include in this special issue papers that study the circulation and distribution of practices and knowledge across civil society organizations. Global fora on content moderation are key loci to observe exchanges between organizations as well as conflicting interpretation of moderation principles. Far from a homogenous ensemble, civil society is a broad concept that gathers various groups with conflicting interest and unequally distributed resources. Such papers could contribute to a global mapping of power relations within civil society as well as shed new light on the “Brussel effect” (Bradford, 2020) from third parties perspectives. More broadly, it would offer a critical assessment of “civil society” as a regulatory entity and the way it is endorsed or instrumentalized by governments and platforms. Special issue editors Romain Badouard, Associate Professor, University Paris Panthéon-Assas Anne Bellon, Associate Professor, University of Technology of Compiègne Important dates 750-1000 words abstracts should be sent to romain.badouard(a)u-paris2.fr and anne.bellon(a)utc.fr by 31 October 2023. The abstracts should delineate the research question to be discussed, the case study to be analysed and an indication of the expected findings or conclusions. Decisions will be sent to the authors by 30 November 2023. Full papers of the selected abstracts should be submitted by 17 March 2024. Submissions must be around 6,000 words in length and have to follow the submission guidelines of the Internet Policy Review. They will be peer-reviewed between March and July. The planned publication date of this special issue is Q4 2024.

Sept. 6, 2023