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Noam Chomsky
by Daniela Tafani June 18, 2024

June 18, 2024

In memoria di Noam Chomsky, una sua intervista su IA, tecnica e scienza. Noam Chomsky Speaks on What ChatGPT Is Really Good For Noam Chomsky Interviewed by C.J. Polychroniou May 3, 2023 Artificial intelligence (AI) is sweeping the world. It is transforming every walk of life and raising in the process major ethical concerns for society and the future of humanity. ChatGPT, which is dominating social media, is an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI. It is a subset of machine learning and relies on what is called Large Language Models that can generate human-like responses. The potential application for such technology is indeed enormous, which is why there are already calls to regulate AI like ChatGPT. Can AI outsmart humans? Does it pose public threats? Indeed, can AI become an existential threat? The world’s preeminent linguist Noam Chomsky, and one of the most esteemed public intellectuals of all time, whose intellectual stature has been compared to that of Galileo, Newton, and Descartes, tackles these nagging questions in the interview that follows. C. J. Polychroniou: As a scientific discipline, artificial intelligence (AI) dates back to the 1950s, but over the last couple of decades it has been making inroads into all sort of fields, including banking, insurance, auto manufacturing, music, and defense. In fact, the use of AI techniques has been shown in some instance to surpass human capabilities, such as in a game of chess. Are machines likely to become smarter than humans? Noam Chomsky: Just to clarify terminology, the term “machine” here means program, basically a theory written in a notation that can be executed by a computer–and an unusual kind of theory in interesting ways that we can put aside here. We can make a rough distinction between pure engineering and science. There is no sharp boundary, but it’s a useful first approximation. Pure engineering seeks to produce a product that may be of some use. Science seeks understanding. If the topic is human intelligence, or cognitive capacities of other organisms, science seeks understanding of these biological systems. As I understand them, the founders of AI–Alan Turing, Herbert Simon, Marvin Minsky, and others–regarded it as science, part of the then-emerging cognitive sciences, making use of new technologies and discoveries in the mathematical theory of computation to advance understanding. Over the years those concerns have faded and have largely been displaced by an engineering orientation. The earlier concerns are now commonly dismissed, sometimes condescendingly, as GOFAI–good old-fashioned AI. Continuing with the question, is it likely that programs will be devised that surpass human capabilities? We have to be careful about the word “capabilities,” for reasons to which I’ll return. But if we take the term to refer to human performance, then the answer is: definitely yes. In fact, they have long existed: the calculator in a laptop, for example. It can far exceed what humans can do, if only because of lack of time and memory. For closed systems like chess, it was well understood in the ‘50s that sooner or later, with the advance of massive computing capacities and a long period of preparation, a program could be devised to defeat a grandmaster who is playing with a bound on memory and time. The achievement years later was pretty much PR for IBM. Many biological organisms surpass human cognitive capacities in much deeper ways. The desert ants in my backyard have minuscule brains, but far exceed human navigational capacities, in principle, not just performance. There is no Great Chain of Being with humans at the top. The products of AI engineering are being used in many fields, for better or for worse. Even simple and familiar ones can be quite useful: in the language area, programs like autofill, live transcription, google translate, among others. With vastly greater computing power and more sophisticated programming, there should be other useful applications, in the sciences as well. There already have been some: Assisting in the study of protein folding is one recent case where massive and rapid search technology has helped scientists to deal with a critical and recalcitrant problem. Engineering projects can be useful, or harmful. Both questions arise in the case of engineering AI. Current work with Large Language Models (LLMs), including chatbots, provides tools for disinformation, defamation, and misleading the uninformed. The threats are enhanced when they are combined with artificial images and replication of voice. With different concerns in mind, tens of thousands of AI researchers have recently called for a moratorium on development because of potential dangers they perceive. As always, possible benefits of technology have to be weighed against potential costs. Quite different questions arise when we turn to AI and science. Here caution is necessary because of exorbitant and reckless claims, often amplified in the media. To clarify the issues, let’s consider cases, some hypothetical, some real. I mentioned insect navigation, which is an astonishing achievement. Insect scientists have made much progress in studying how it is achieved, though the neurophysiology, a very difficult matter, remains elusive, along with evolution of the systems. The same is true of the amazing feats of birds and sea turtles that travel thousands of miles and unerringly return to the place of origin. Suppose Tom Jones, a proponent of engineering AI, comes along and says: “Your work has all been refuted. The problem is solved. Commercial airline pilots achieve the same or even better results all the time.” If even bothering to respond, we’d laugh. Take the case of the seafaring exploits of Polynesians, still alive among Indigenous tribes, using stars, wind, currents to land their canoes at a designated spot hundreds of miles away. This too has been the topic of much research to find out how they do it. Tom Jones has the answer: “Stop wasting your time; naval vessels do it all the time.” Same response. Let’s now turn to a real case, language acquisition. It’s been the topic of extensive and highly illuminating research in recent years, showing that infants have very rich knowledge of the ambient language (or languages), far beyond what they exhibit in performance. It is achieved with little evidence, and in some crucial cases none at all. At best, as careful statistical studies have shown, available data are sparse, particularly when rank-frequency (“Zipf’s law”) is taken into account. Enter Tom Jones: “You’ve been refuted. Paying no attention to your discoveries, LLMs that scan astronomical amounts of data can find statistical regularities that make it possible to simulate the data on which they are trained, producing something that looks pretty much like normal human behavior. Chatbots.” This case differs from the others. First, it is real. Second, people don’t laugh; in fact, many are awed. Third, unlike the hypothetical cases, the actual results are far from what’s claimed. These considerations bring up a minor problem with the current LLM enthusiasm: its total absurdity, as in the hypothetical cases where we recognize it at once. But there are much more serious problems than absurdity. One is that the LLM systems are designed in such a way that they cannot tell us anything about language, learning, or other aspects of cognition, a matter of principle, irremediable. Double the terabytes of data scanned, add another trillion parameters, use even more of California’s energy, and the simulation of behavior will improve, while revealing more clearly the failure in principle of the approach to yield any understanding. The reason is elementary: The systems work just as well with impossible languages that infants cannot acquire as with those they acquire quickly and virtually reflexively. It’s as if a biologist were to say: “I have a great new theory of organisms. It lists many that exist and many that can’t possibly exist, and I can tell you nothing about the distinction.” Again, we’d laugh. Or should. Not Tom Jones–now referring to actual cases. Persisting in his radical departure from science, Tom Jones responds: “How do you know any of this until you’ve investigated all languages?” At this point the abandonment of normal science becomes even clearer. By parity of argument, we can throw out genetics and molecular biology, the theory of evolution, and the rest of the biological sciences, which haven’t sampled more than a tiny fraction of organisms. And for good measure, we can cast out all of physics. Why believe in the laws of motion? How many objects have actually been observed in motion? There is, furthermore, the small matter of burden of proof. Those who propose a theory have the responsibility of showing that it makes some sense, in this case, showing that it fails for impossible languages. It is not the responsibility of others to refute the proposal, though in this case it seems easy enough to do so. Let’s shift attention to normal science, where matters become interesting. Even a single example of language acquisition can yield rich insight into the distinction between possible and impossible languages. The reasons are straightforward, and familiar. All growth and development, including what is called “learning,” is a process that begins with a state of the organism and transforms it step-by-step to later stages. Acquisition of language is such a process. The initial state is the biological endowment of the faculty of language, which obviously exists, even if it is, as some believe, a particular combination of other capacities. That’s highly unlikely for reasons long understood, but it’s not relevant to our concerns here, so we can put it aside. Plainly there is a biological endowment for the human faculty of language. The merest truism. Transition proceeds to a relatively stable state, changed only superficially beyond: knowledge of the language. External data trigger and partially shape the process. Studying the state attained (knowledge of the language) and the external data, we can draw far-reaching conclusions about the initial state, the biological endowment that makes language acquisition possible. The conclusions about the initial state impose a distinction between possible and impossible languages. The distinction holds for all those who share the initial state–all humans, as far as is known; there seems to be no difference in capacity to acquire language among existing human groups. All of this is normal science, and it has achieved many results. Experiment has shown that the stable state is substantially obtained very early, by three to four years of age. It’s also well-established that the faculty of language has basic properties specific to humans, hence that it is a true species property: common to human groups and in fundamental ways a unique human attribute. A lot is left out in this schematic account, notably the role of natural law in growth and development: in the case of a computational system like language, principles of computational efficiency. But this is the essence of the matter. Again, normal science. It is important to be clear about Aristotle’s distinction between possession of knowledge and use of knowledge (in contemporary terminology, competence and performance). In the language case, the stable state obtained is possession of knowledge, coded in the brain. The internal system determines an unbounded array of structured expressions, each of which we can regard as formulating a thought, each externalizable in some sensorimotor system, usually sound though it could be sign or even (with difficulty) touch. The internally coded system is accessed in use of knowledge (performance). Performance includes the internal use of language in thought: reflection, planning, recollection, and a great deal more. Statistically speaking that is by far the overwhelming use of language. It is inaccessible to introspection, though we can learn a lot about it by the normal methods of science, from “outside,” metaphorically speaking. What is called “inner speech” is, in fact, fragments of externalized language with the articulatory apparatus muted. It is only a remote reflection of the internal use of language, important matters I cannot pursue here. Other forms of use of language are perception (parsing) and production, the latter crucially involving properties that remain as mysterious to us today as when they were regarded with awe and amazement by Galileo and his contemporaries at the dawn of modern science. The principal goal of science is to discover the internal system, both in its initial state in the human faculty of language and in the particular forms it assumes in acquisition. To the extent that this internal system is understood, we can proceed to investigate how it enters into performance, interacting with many other factors that enter into use of language. Data of performance provide evidence about the nature of the internal system, particularly so when they are refined by experiment, as in standard field work. But even the most massive collection of data is necessarily misleading in crucial ways. It keeps to what is normally produced, not the knowledge of the language coded in the brain, the primary object under investigation for those who want to understand the nature of language and its use. That internal object determines infinitely many possibilities of a kind that will not be used in normal behavior because of factors irrelevant to language, like short-term memory constraints, topics studied 60 years ago. Observed data will also include much that lies outside the system coded in the brain, often conscious use of language in ways that violate the rules for rhetorical purposes. These are truisms known to all field workers, who rely on elicitation techniques with informants, basically experiments, to yield a refined corpus that excludes irrelevant restrictions and deviant expressions. The same is true when linguists use themselves as informants, a perfectly sensible and normal procedure, common in the history of psychology up to the present. Proceeding further with normal science, we find that the internal processes and elements of the language cannot be detected by inspection of observed phenomena. Often these elements do not even appear in speech (or writing), though their effects, often subtle, can be detected. That is yet another reason why restriction to observed phenomena, as in LLM approaches, sharply limits understanding of the internal processes that are the core objects of inquiry into the nature of language, its acquisition and use. But that is not relevant if concern for science and understanding have been abandoned in favor of other goals. More generally in the sciences, for millennia, conclusions have been reached by experiments–often thought experiments–each a radical abstraction from phenomena. Experiments are theory-driven, seeking to discard the innumerable irrelevant factors that enter into observed phenomena–like linguistic performance. All of this is so elementary that it’s rarely even discussed. And familiar. As noted, the basic distinction goes back to Aristotle’s distinction between possession of knowledge and use of knowledge. The former is the central object of study. Secondary (and quite serious) studies investigate how the internally stored system of knowledge is used in performance, along with the many non-linguistic factors than enter into what is directly observed. We might also recall an observation of evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky, famous primarily for his work with Drosophila: Each species is unique, and humans are the uniquest of all. If we are interested in understanding what kind of creatures we are–following the injunction of the Delphic Oracle 2,500 years ago–we will be primarily concerned with what makes humans the uniquest of all, primarily language and thought, closely intertwined, as recognized in a rich tradition going back to classical Greece and India. Most behavior is fairly routine, hence to some extent predictable. What provides real insight into what makes us unique is what is not routine, which we do find, sometimes by experiment, sometimes by observation, from normal children to great artists and scientists. One final comment in this connection. Society has been plagued for a century by massive corporate campaigns to encourage disdain for science, topics well studied by Naomi Oreskes among others. It began with corporations whose products are murderous: lead, tobacco, asbestos, later fossil fuels. Their motives are understandable. The goal of a business in a capitalist society is profit, not human welfare. That’s an institutional fact: Don’t play the game and you’re out, replaced by someone who will. The corporate PR departments recognized early on that it would be a mistake to deny the mounting scientific evidence of the lethal effects of their products. That would be easily refuted. Better to sow doubt, encourage uncertainty, contempt for these pointy-headed suits who have never painted a house but come down from Washington to tell me not to use lead paint, destroying my business (a real case, easily multiplied). That has worked all too well. Right now it is leading us on a path to destruction of organized human life on earth. In intellectual circles, similar effects have been produced by the postmodern critique of science, dismantled by Jean Bricmont and Alan Sokal, but still much alive in some circles. It may be unkind to suggest the question, but it is, I think, fair to ask whether the Tom Joneses and those who uncritically repeat and even amplify their careless proclamations are contributing to the same baleful tendencies. CJP: ChatGPT is a natural-language-driven chatbot that uses artificial intelligence to allow human-like conversations. In a recent article in The New York Times, in conjunction with two other authors, you shut down the new chatbots as a hype because they simply cannot match the linguistic competence of humans. Isn’t it however possible that future innovations in AI can produce engineering projects that will match and perhaps even surpass human capabilities? NC: Credit for the article should be given to the actual author, Jeffrey Watumull, a fine mathematician-linguist-philosopher. The two listed co-authors were consultants, who agree with the article but did not write it. It’s true that chatbots cannot in principle match the linguistic competence of humans, for the reasons repeated above. Their basic design prevents them from reaching the minimal condition of adequacy for a theory of human language: distinguishing possible from impossible languages. Since that is a property of the design, it cannot be overcome by future innovations in this kind of AI. However, it is quite possible that future engineering projects will match and even surpass human capabilities, if we mean human capacity to act, performance. As mentioned above, some have long done so: automatic calculators for example. More interestingly, as mentioned, insects with minuscule brains surpass human capacities understood as competence. CJP: In the aforementioned article, it was also observed that today’s AI projects do not possess a human moral faculty. Does this obvious fact make AI robots less of a threat to the human race? I reckon the argument can be that it makes them perhaps even more so. NC: It is indeed an obvious fact, understanding “moral faculty” broadly. Unless carefully controlled, AI engineering can pose severe threats. Suppose, for example, that care of patients was automated. The inevitable errors that would be overcome by human judgment could produce a horror story. Or suppose that humans were removed from evaluation of the threats determined by automated missile-defense systems. As a shocking historical record informs us, that would be the end of human civilization. CJP: Regulators and law enforcement agencies in Europe are raising concerns about the spread of ChatGPT while a recently submitted piece of European Union legislation is trying to deal with AI by classifying such tools according to their perceived level of risk. Do you agree with those who are concerned that ChatGPT poses a serious public threat? Moreover, do you really think that the further development of AI tools can be halted until safeguards can be introduced? NC: I can easily sympathize with efforts to try to control the threats posed by advanced technology, including this case. I am, however, skeptical about the possibility of doing so. I suspect that the genie is out of the bottle. Malicious actors–institutional or individual–can probably find ways to evade safeguards. Such suspicions are of course no reason not to try, and to exercise vigilance. https://chomsky.info/20230503-2/

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La sanità deve fare a meno dei dati personali
by benjuade June 18, 2024

June 18, 2024

Segnalo questi due articoli di Christian Bernieri riguardo al tema del FSE 2.0 e alla possibilità di opporsi all'alimentazione automatica dei dati pre-2020. https://bernieri.blogspot.com/2024/05/la-sanita-deve-fare-meno-dei-dati.html (leggibile anche come PDF qui (https://ransomfeed.it/index.php?page=blog&postID=03) https://bernieri.blogspot.com/2024/06/dark-pattern-di-stato.html B.J.

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115° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 26 giugno 2024, ore 13.00
by Nexa - Media June 18, 2024

June 18, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al 115° Nexa Lunch Seminar che si terrà mercoledì 26 giugno, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00, con un incontro dal titolo: "La memoria dell'ingegneria alla luce delle Digital Humanities". Ospite dell'incontro: Marco Pozzi (Politecnico di Torino). L'incontro si terrà IN PRESENZA e ONLINE. SEDE FISICA dell'incontro: Centro Nexa su Internet e Società, Politecnico di Torino, Via Boggio 65/a, Torino (1° piano). Per accedere alla sala si raccomanda di suonare al citofono Portineria e di seguire le indicazioni segnalate lungo il percorso. QUI<https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. STANZA VIRTUALE dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Di seguito maggiori dettagli: https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-115/ Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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"Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal software" di Padre Benanti
by Damiano Verzulli June 17, 2024

June 17, 2024

Ho iniziato ad ascoltarere Padre Benanti per caso, diversi anni fa, in quanto ospite di una trasmissione radiofonica che seguivo/seguo spesso (Melog, di Gianluca Nicoletti, su Radio24). Condivido tutto quello che dice e trovo che sia molto chiaro nell'esprimere concetti estremamente complessi. Di fatto, mi pare una ottima "fonte" per fornire della sana informazione all'utente medio [quello che tipicamente NON segue questa ML]. Qualche giorno fa Benanti ha pubblicato sul Sole24Ore l'articolo in oggetto, nel quale affronta il tema del "software", inteso come elemendo fondamentale dell'universo ICT e che assume una importanza ben maggiore di quello del "dato". Lo segnalo in lista perchè non è un tema che vedo trattato altrove ma che, allo stesso tempo, ritengo fondamentale: dal mio punto di vista, infatti, non ha molto senso preoccuparsi del fatto che i cinesi vengano a "invadere" il mercato delle automobili in Europa, o quello dei pannelli fotovoltaici: a me preoccupa il software che ci gira dentro (indipendentemente dalla provenienza geopolitica). Per me, l'hardware è relativamente marginale: quello che vorrei fosse metabolizzato è che ritengo fondamentale è che il software che vi gira dentro sia "conosciuto"/"conoscibile" (da chi decide che quell'hardware è necessario, sia esso PC, una smart-tv, uno smartphone, uno smart-watch, una videocamera, etc. ..... o anche un drone [militare], una automobile "standard", etc.) o meglio ancora F/OSS. Benanti ha fatto circolare l'articolo su Linkedin [1]. Per migliorarne la leggibilita', provo ad allegarlo direttamente a questo messaggio. Bye, DV [1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paolo-benanti-94aa1915_ethics-etica-algoreth… -- Damiano Verzulli e-mail: damiano(a)verzulli.it --- possible?ok:while(!possible){open_mindedness++} --- "...I realized that free software would not generate the kind of income that was needed. Maybe in USA or Europe, you may be able to get a well paying job as a free software developer, but not here [in Africa]..." -- Guido Sohne - 1973-2008 http://ole.kenic.or.ke/pipermail/skunkworks/2008-April/005989.html

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"Chat Control: Horse Trading While Nobody is Watching"
by J.C. DE MARTIN June 17, 2024

June 17, 2024

Chat Control: Horse Trading While Nobody is Watching 2024-06-17 08:24:50, linus https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2024/chatkontrolle-kuhhandel-wahrend-niemand-… The Belgian chairmanship of the EU Council wants to vote on chat control on Wednesday, June 19. After another shell game trick to make the massive attack on encryption in chat services appear otherwise, France's resistance is now wavering. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) reminds us that nothing significant has changed in the proposed regulation. Forced Voluntariness The Belgian "compromise" stipulates that users must actively agree to chat control. Naturally, refusal does not come without penalty: those who do not consent can no longer send pictures and videos at all – a significant limitation of the service. /“There can be no talk of voluntariness here,”/ comments Linus Neumann, spokesperson for the Chaos Computer Club. "Scanning" Breaks Encryption In the context of the discussion, it is repeatedly claimed that chat control does not constitute an attack on encryption: the actual transmission remains encrypted, and the inspection of all content takes place directly on the devices. The result is, of course, the same. Meredith Whitaker, President of the encrypted messenger “Signal”, comments on this <https://signal.org/blog/pdfs/upload-moderation.pdf> /Mandating mass scanning of private communications fundamentally undermines encryption. Full stop./ In the years-long debate, not a single expert has been fooled by this rhetorical deception. Mass Surveillance Without Cause /“Criminals already use distribution channels that would not be affected by these scans today and will also easily evade the scans in the future <https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2022/eu-kommission-will-alle-chatnachrichten-…>. It is widely known that messengers and social networks are not suitable for criminal image collectors,”/ the CCC emphasized over a year ago <https://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2023/chatkontrolle-anhoerung>.

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Re: [nexa] "Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal software" di Padre Benanti
by alessandro marzocchi June 17, 2024

June 17, 2024

> messaggio 1 di Andrea Trentini: Sono d'accordo, ovviamente la modifica sposta la responsabilità dal produttore originario al modificante. - - - > messaggio 3 di Andrea Trentini: Nel tuo esempio la parola è inutile, non prevedi nessuna possibilità di evitare tortura e uccisione. Sarebbe diverso se il nazista desse al prigioniero una possibilità di evitare tortura / uccisione, in questa ipotesi parola e lingua riacquisterebbero rilevanza, seguendo il tuo esempio vedo il digitale come il nazista che, in tedesco, informa della possibilità di salvarsi il prigioniero che non parla nè capisce il tedesco. Con meno crudeltà ma con efficacia analoga vedo il digitale, con la parziale eccezione del sw aperto, di fatto il digitale è incomprensibile per quasi tutti gli utilizzatori, anche i giovani non lo usano ma ne sono utilizzati e spero tanto di avere sbagliato ... God save us! e che padre Benanti interceda. Cordialità. Duccio (Alessandro Marzocchi) Il giorno dom 16 giu 2024 alle ore 16:23 <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > > Message: 1 > Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024 15:26:57 +0200 > From: Andrea Trentini <andrea.trentini(a)unimi.it> > To: Damiano Verzulli <damiano(a)verzulli.it>, nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > Subject: Re: [nexa] "Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal > software" di Padre Benanti > > aggiungo: e "flashabile" (se parliamo di device) da chi lo compra, non > basta che sia "conoscibile", > deve anche essere *sostituibile* (perché se capisco che fa cose non volute > da me devo poterlo impedire) > > Message: 3 > Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024 16:23:04 +0200 > From: Andrea Trentini <andrea.trentini(a)unimi.it> > To: alessandro marzocchi <alemarzoc(a)gmail.com>, > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > Subject: Re: [nexa] "Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal > software" di Padre Benanti > > On 16/06/2024 16:05, alessandro marzocchi wrote: > > << se il software sia "conosciuto"/"conoscibile" >> si avvicina al centro > > del problema, che vedo in questa nuova lingua, fatta di software ma anche > > no, lo scalfisce appena appena in superficie > applico metafora hard: > > - sei prigioniero in un campo di concentramento nazista > - ti dicono (in tedesco): "domani sarai torturato e poi ucciso" > > cambia qualcosa il fatto che tu capisca o meno il tedesco? >

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Re: [nexa] "Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal software" di Padre Benanti
by alessandro marzocchi June 16, 2024

June 16, 2024

<< se il software sia "conosciuto"/"conoscibile" >> si avvicina al centro del problema, che vedo in questa nuova lingua, fatta di software ma anche di hardware e di "umano", parliamo di "humanware": senza armonizzare all'umano le componenti "hard" / "soft", il digitale apre la porta verso un futuro non immaginabile. Sw e/o Hw non definiscono la realtà, la comunicano / rappresentano a noi umani - manipolandola rispetto ai tradizionali sensi -, a volte, od anche spesso, succede che confondiamo rappresentazione e realtà rappresentata, è un poco quel che accade con la parola ed è (lo scrivo con un fil di voce) 'a la Protagora quando affermò che l'uomo è la misura di tutte le cose. Non siamo i padroni del mondo, ammettiamo che l'uomo misura tutte le cose, non "è la misura" di niente. Lumache, pipistrelli, polipi ecc ecc ecc misurano in altro modo, pretendendo di essere la misura di tutto stiamo rischiando di distruggere l'oggetto della misura. Cordialmente. Duccio (Alessandro Marzocchi) Il giorno dom 16 giu 2024 alle ore 14:47 <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2024 14:47:53 +0200 > From: Damiano Verzulli <damiano(a)verzulli.it> > To: nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > Subject: [nexa] "Se siamo progionieri di una realtà definita dal > software" di Padre Benanti > Message-ID: <45e24051-4d66-403d-8a88-dd454f0c4901(a)verzulli.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; Format="flowed" > > Ho iniziato ad ascoltarere Padre Benanti per caso, diversi anni fa, in > quanto ospite di una trasmissione radiofonica che seguivo/seguo spesso > (Melog, di Gianluca Nicoletti, su Radio24). > Condivido tutto quello che dice e trovo che sia molto chiaro > nell'esprimere concetti estremamente complessi. Di fatto, mi pare una > ottima "fonte" per fornire della sana informazione all'utente medio > [quello che tipicamente NON segue questa ML]. > > Qualche giorno fa Benanti ha pubblicato sul Sole24Ore l'articolo in > oggetto, nel quale affronta il tema del "software", inteso come elemendo > fondamentale dell'universo ICT e che assume una importanza ben maggiore > di quello del "dato". > Lo segnalo in lista perchè non è un tema che vedo trattato altrove ma > che, allo stesso tempo, ritengo fondamentale: dal mio punto di vista, > infatti, non ha molto senso preoccuparsi del fatto che i cinesi vengano > a "invadere" il mercato delle automobili in Europa, o quello dei > pannelli fotovoltaici: a me preoccupa il software che ci gira dentro > (indipendentemente dalla provenienza geopolitica). Per me, l'hardware è > relativamente marginale: quello che vorrei fosse metabolizzato è che > ritengo fondamentale è che il software che vi gira dentro sia > "conosciuto"/"conoscibile" (da chi decide che quell'hardware è > necessario, sia esso PC, una smart-tv, uno smartphone, uno smart-watch, > una videocamera, etc. ..... o anche un drone [militare], una automobile > "standard", etc.) o meglio ancora F/OSS. > Benanti ha fatto circolare l'articolo su Linkedin [1]. Per migliorarne > la leggibilita', provo ad allegarlo direttamente a questo messaggio. > Bye, > DV > [1] > > https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paolo-benanti-94aa1915_ethics-etica-algoreth… > >

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MEMENTO | Annual Conference of the Master in Intellectual Property | 17 giugno 2024
by Nexa - Media June 14, 2024

June 14, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che lunedì 17 giugno, dalle ore 10.00 alle ore 16.00, si terrà la Conferenza Annuale del Master in Intellectual Property: International Seminar on "Thirty Years Since the Adoption of TRIPS: A Tentative Assessment", organizzato dal World Intellectual Property Organization, dall'Università di Torino, dalla SAA - School of Management, dal COREP e dal Centro Nexa su Internet & Società. Parteciperanno alla discussione, tra gli altri: Prof. Alessandro Cogo, Faculty Associate del Centro Nexa, Università degli Studi di Torino; Prof. Maurizio Borghi, Co-Direttore del Centro Nexa, Università degli Studi di Torino; Prof. Stéphane Grumbach, Trustee del Centro Nexa, French Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology; Prof. Brett Frischmann, Trustee del Centro Nexa, Villanova University; Prof. Marco Ricolfi, Co-Fondatore e Co-Direttore del Centro Nexa, Università degli Studi di Torino. L'evento si terrà IN PRESENZA presso l'Aula Magna del Campus Luigi Einaudi (Lungo Dora Siena 100/A, Torino), e sarà fruibile ONLINE qui<https://unito.webex.com/unito-en/j.php?MTID=m06074deca44c5fad6fb0e0449bb00c…>. Per maggiori dettagli è possibile consultare la pagina web dedicata: https://nexa.polito.it/la-regolazione-giuridica-dell-intelligenza-artificia… Si ricorda che è necessario dare conferma della propria partecipazione, sia online che in presenza, al seguente link<https://nexa.polito.it/annual-conference-master-intellectual-property-24>. Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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Excuse Me, Is There AI in That?
by Daniela Tafani June 14, 2024

June 14, 2024

Excuse Me, Is There AI in That? Businesses and creators see a new opportunity in the anti-AI movement. By Brian Merchant As soon as Apple announced its plans to inject generative AI into the iPhone, it was as good as official: The technology is now all but unavoidable. Large language models will soon lurk on most of the world’s smartphones, generating images and text in messaging and email apps. AI has already colonized web search, appearing in Google and Bing. OpenAI, the $80 billion start-up that has partnered with Apple and Microsoft, feels ubiquitous; the auto-generated products of its ChatGPTs and DALL-Es are everywhere. And for a growing number of consumers, that’s a problem. Rarely has a technology risen—or been forced—into prominence amid such controversy and consumer anxiety. Certainly, some Americans are excited about AI, though a majority said in a recent survey, for instance, that they are concerned AI will increase unemployment; in another, three out of four said they believe it will be abused to interfere with the upcoming presidential election. And many AI products have failed to impress. The launch of Google’s “AI Overview” was a disaster; the search giant’s new bot cheerfully told users to add glue to pizza and that potentially poisonous mushrooms were safe to eat. Meanwhile, OpenAI has been mired in scandal, incensing former employees with a controversial nondisclosure agreement and allegedly ripping off one of the world’s most famous actors for a voice-assistant product. Thus far, much of the resistance to the spread of AI has come from watchdog groups, concerned citizens, and creators worried about their livelihood. Now a consumer backlash to the technology has begun to unfold as well—so much so that a market has sprung up to capitalize on it. Take an April press release from Dove that proclaims, “One of the biggest threats to the representation of real beauty is Artificial Intelligence.” The personal-care company was celebrating the 20th anniversary of its “Campaign for Real Beauty,” a marketing effort that has aspired to showcase women from all walks of life, with no digital retouching. Dove marked the occasion by committing to “never use AI to represent real women.” (The chief aim of such a statement was, of course, to generate publicity for Dove, and in that, it succeeded—the laudatory headlines came rolling in.) Around the same time, you may have seen a commercial with a clear anti-AI slant from Discover: “You robots are sounding more human every day!” Jennifer Coolidge tells a call-center employee. “At Discover, everyone can talk to a human representative,” the worker replies. These may be a Unilever subsidiary and a major credit-card company, respectively—not, in other words, organizations that we would normally look to for moral clarity—yet their ads are responding to real anxiety. And it’s not just corporate ad campaigns: New companies are being built to cater to users disillusioned by generative AI. Cara, a social-media and portfolio app for artists, has explicitly prohibited users from showcasing AI-generated artwork in its terms of use since its launch, in 2023. It has seen an influx of users in recent weeks, after news broke that Meta, which owns Instagram, is automatically ingesting all public posts into its AI training data. The app briefly rose to the fifth spot on the iOS social-network chart, and went from 40,000 users to nearly 1 million in a matter of days. “I want a platform that opts images out of scraping by default, that won’t host AI media until data sets are ethically sourced and laws have passed to protect artists’ work,” Cara’s founder, Jingna Zhang, told me. Users seem to want that too. In a June 2 post on Cara, the artist Karla Ortiz said, “I cant explain how good it feels to be on here and know that what I am seeing here is human made.” The post has been liked 10,900 times so far. (Ortiz is a named plaintiff in a recent class-action lawsuit alleging that AI companies infringed on artists’ copyrights.) Perhaps her elation at finding harbor on an AI-battered internet shouldn’t be surprising: As AI-generated content has proliferated online, so have concerns about the technology’s quality, ethics, and safety. Generative-AI services are still prone to “hallucinate” and deliver false and unreliable information, they can be used to produce scams and misinformation, and they were trained on the work of nonconsenting creatives, the majority of whom have received no compensation. As such, a steady tick of companies, brands, and creative workers have taken to explicitly advertising their products and services as human-made. It’s a bit like the organic-food labels that rose to prominence years ago, but for digital labor. Certified 100 percent AI-free. Writers and media outlets are slapping disclaimers and “No AI” declarations on blogs and websites; an organization called Not by AI offers a downloadable badge that anyone can use (it claims that 264,000 webpages currently do so). A classical radio station in Omaha issued a “No AI” pledge, and the Perth Comic Arts Festival put out a statement banning AI-generated media from its event. Hashtags such as “#noai,” “#notai,” and “#noaiart” are deployed by users on Instagram—a modern take on the #nofilter trend that suggested that an image was presented without digital enhancements. The tech-journalism outlet 404 Media describes itself as AI free: “Media for humans, by humans.” In a digital ecosystem overwhelmingly controlled by monopolistic tech companies such as Google and Meta, each of which is bent on deploying new AI products whether users want them or not, even these small declarations are ways to register a protest, signal discontent, and wave the flag for other AI skeptics to rally around. All of that discontent, visible also in the Hollywood writers’ strike that took aim at restricting the use of AI, class-action lawsuits such as the one Ortiz is participating in, and increased workplace organizing around AI in the gaming and journalism industries, has highlighted a widespread and earnest desire to keep work in human hands, and for high-quality, human-made art, writing, and services. (The Atlantic has a corporate partnership with OpenAI. The editorial division of The Atlantic operates independently from the business division.) Yet it was, of all things, a tech start-up that hosted the first prominent “AI-free” marketing materials I came across, months ago, when I began following this new trend. Its backstory struck me as especially relevant and prescient. Inqwire’s site looks a lot like many of its peers’, with a minimalist design and playful branding—in this case, for products such as a smart journal that “helps you identify and explore meaningful topics from your writing.” But instead of advertising how it optimizes the latest AI technology, as most tech companies in 2024 are wont to do, it boasts of rejecting it entirely with a module in the middle of the homepage, complete with bolding for emphasis: “100% LLM-Free: Inqwire technology does not use Large Language Models (LLMs) and never presents chatbot or conversational interfaces that act human or imitate human experts.” “I’ve been heartened to see people saying ‘I would pay for a service if it was LLM free,” Jill Nephew, a founder of Inqwire, told me. “I definitely would.” Nephew says that she was driven to make the LLM-free label for a number of reasons: She doesn’t want to promote tools that could take people’s jobs, she’s not convinced LLMs are reliable as a business solution, and her early days working in a start-up in the first dot-com boom taught her that, ultimately, clients want sensible tools whose output they understand. Nephew told me that right after college, in the ’90s, she took a job working on “black-box algorithms” for a company called Red Pepper Software, a hot start-up at the time. (The company was acquired by PeopleSoft, which was then acquired by Oracle.) It sold enterprise software intended to help companies optimize their manufacturing and distribution schedules. Clients often had no idea why the software was producing the results it did—a problem that persists in AI systems today. Nephew spent years helping to iron out the system, learning an important lesson, and one that echoes the problem that today’s AI industry is facing: “People are initially wowed by all the promises of a super megabrain, but what they actually value is things that they can explain, defend, and make sense of. If they can’t make sense of it, it’s a nonstarter.” In other words, Nephew thinks the tech is overhyped and under-functional, that separating her company from the pack before the trend implodes is the smart move. Likewise, AnswerConnect, a Portland, Oregon–based call-center company, also trumpets a “People, Not Bots” tagline. It commissioned a report from the market-research agency OnePoll, which found that 78 percent of respondents “prefer to speak with a real person when they contact a company.” If all that is true, then it makes sense to eschew AI in favor of human workers. Behind all these AI-free labels lurks a question, one that rings out even louder as the limitations of generative AI become painfully clear, as the companies responsible for it become more ethically compromised: What is the AI-generated variety for? People generally prefer humans in customer service over AI and automated systems. AI art is widely maligned online; teens have taken to disparaging it as “Boomer art.” AI doesn’t offer better products, necessarily: It just offers more, and for less money. Are we willing to trade away humanity for that? In the 2000s, the organic and GMO-free labels were a reaction to concerns about sustainability, pesticides, and factory farming; organic food labels were supposed to designate quality vis–à–vis the badly made stuff. But there’s a lesson here—there is of course a limit to the branding. The organic label is costly to obtain and hard to verify—rendering it meaningless in many cases—and gave rise to enterprises such as Whole Foods that have traded in the branding at little discernible nutritional benefit. The richest companies on Earth are pushing generative-AI output as cheaper, easier-to-produce alternatives to human art and services—and a few ad campaigns from the Doves and Discovers aren’t going to stop them. Put up the badges, ring the AI-free bells, and absolutely build alternative platforms for those seeking refuge from predatorily trained LLMs — but if we want to preserve a human economy for creative goods and services, we’re going to have to fight for it too. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/06/llm-free-all-organic…

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Convegno "Nuovi problemi e prospettive di sviluppo della proprietà intellettuale e del diritto della concorrenza a trent’anni dalla nascita della Rivista Il Diritto Industriale" | 20 giugno 2024
by Nexa - Media June 12, 2024

June 12, 2024

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi invitiamo a partecipare al convegno intorno al tema "Nuovi problemi e prospettive di sviluppo della proprietà intellettuale e del diritto della concorrenza a trent’anni dalla nascita della Rivista Il Diritto Industriale", che si terrà giovedì 20 giugno dalle ore 14.00 alle ore 19.00, presso la Sala Napoleonica dell’Università degli Studi di Milano - Via Sant'Antonio, 12 (Milano). Partecipa all’incontro, tra gli altri, il Prof. Marco Ricolfi (co-direttore del Centro Nexa). Per maggiori informazioni è possibile consultare la pagina web dedicata all’incontro: https://nexa.polito.it/diritto-industriale Vi ringraziamo per l'attenzione, Cordiali saluti, -- Valeria Bergantino Communication Officer Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino - DAUIN Via Pier Carlo Boggio, 65/A - 10138 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: valeria.bergantino(a)polito.it<mailto:valeria.bergantino@polito.it> tel: 3473443585

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