- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

OT - Re: Hundreds attend ‘soulless’ AI-generated church service
by 380° June 27, 2023

June 27, 2023

Buongiorno, Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> writes: >> ...e io che pensavo che Dio avesse la possibilità di comunicare >> direttamente con le persone (e viceversa) forse avrei dovuto evidenziare l'ironia della mia frase [...] > Ma se Dio è onnipotente, può comunicare come gli pare e piace, perché > escludere un chatbot? E, se si rimane nell'ambito di questa > imperscrutabile onnipotenza, ma anche no? > sulla base di quale argomentazione può un mero mortale classificare > come "inconsapevole distorsione" qualunque cosa un chatbot del genere > possa dire? sul chatbot come mezzo usato da Dio per comunicare: no comment. per il resto https://nooscope.ai/ è zeppo di argomentazioni sulle distorsioni /generate/ dagli algoritmi di machine learning, oggi chiamati AI [1], distorsioni (allucinazioni) saluti, 380° [1] e tutto deriva dal problema della definizione (quindi filosofico) di cos'è AI -- 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>.

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Re: [nexa] nexa Digest, Vol 170, Issue 34
by maurizio lana June 27, 2023

June 27, 2023

Il 27/06/23 09:53, don Luca Peyron <dluca.universitari(a)gmail.com> ha scritto: > Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 09:53:19 +0200 > From: don Luca Peyron<dluca.universitari(a)gmail.com> > To: Nexa<nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> > Subject: [nexa] Hundreds attend ‘soulless’ AI-generated church service > > Interessante, anche se personalmente assai contrario > > dl > > https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/ai-church-service-chatgpt-b2356508.html credo che per un credente un "AI-generated church service" sia nulla - nulla che ha a che fare con una comunità che ha una storia, convocata da chi di quella storia è espressione e guida. credo per un non credente ugualmente sia nulla: se chiesa ed Evangelo sono artefatti umani, questo qui è solo un artefatto in più. Maurizio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ many of us believe the EU remains the most extraordinary, ambitious, liberal political alliance in recorded history. where it needs reform, where it needs to evolve, we should be there to help turn that heavy wheel Ian McEwan, the guardian, 2/6/2017 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana Università del Piemonte Orientale Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli

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[CFP] ITC35 PhD Workshop - Network Traffic Engineering in the TLC networks of the future
by Martino Trevisan June 27, 2023

June 27, 2023

[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this mail] **ITC35 PhD Workshop, co-located with the *35th International Teletraffic Congress “/Network Traffic Engineering in the TLC networks of the future/”* *Wednesday, October 4, 2023, Turin* *Website: https://itc35.itc-conference.org/* /_* *_/ /_*CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS*_/ /Re-thinking fundamental networking functions, their modeling and their performance evaluation in the framework of the evolving Internet and cellular networks, in the era of cloud and content providers, is a target for the ITC community. The PhD workshop aims at fostering contributions and fresh ideas from young researchers, pursuing their PhD or having just completed their PhD. Discussion of their PhD ideas and progress, proposition of research challenges and directions is welcome during a dedicated workshop._* *_/ /_*SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS *_/ With respect to the presentation to be given during the Workshop, two contribution formats are solicited: * more *mature* research works, in the form of a long presentation (up to 20 min each); * short *in-progress* research work discussion, with a short presentation (up to 10 min each). Correspondingly, Authors proposing a long presentation are invited to submit an *extended abstract* (max 3 pages plus references, using the same format as for regular contributions to the main conference). Extended abstracts will be *published* along with conference proceedings. The best contribution will be invited for submission as a full paper to be *fast-track* reviewed for potential publication in a journal (to be determined). Authors proposing a short presentation are solicited to submit a title, list of Authors and a short abstract (up to 400 words), to help set up the workshop program. /_*IMPORTANT DATES*_/* * * <https://itc35.itc-conference.org/> *Submission deadline*: July 10, 2023 * *Notification of acceptance:* July 20, 2023 * *Submission of camera-ready extended abstracts:* August 16, 2023 Camera-ready versions should be uploaded as indicated with respect to camera-ready instructions /_*WORKSHOP CHAIRS*_/* * * *Andrea Baiocchi*, University of Rome, Italy * *Lea Skorin-Kapov*, University of Zagreb, Croatia For any questions do not hesitate to contact the conference organization under***itc35_oc(a)tlc.polito.it* /Best Regards,/ /*ITC 35 *//Organizing Team/

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Generative AI Should Not Replace Thinking at My University
by Daniela Tafani June 27, 2023

June 27, 2023

Generative AI Should Not Replace Thinking at My University I’m dismayed that any academic institution would encourage us to use chatbots rather than our intellects. By Douglas Hofstadter<https://www.theatlantic.com/author/douglas-hofstadter/> June 22, 2023 <https://accounts.theatlantic.com/accounts/saved-stories/> I used to drive a stick-shift car, but a few years ago, I switched over to an automatic. I didn’t mind relinquishing the control of gear-changing to a machine. It was different, however, when spell checkers came around. I didn’t want a mechanical device constantly looking over my shoulder and automatically changing my typing, such as replacing hte with the. I had always been a good speller and I wanted to be self-reliant, not machine-reliant. Perhaps more important, I often write playfully, and I didn’t want to be “corrected” if I deliberately played with words. So I made sure to turn off this feature in any word processor that I used. Some years later, when “grammar correctors” became an option with word processors, I felt the same instinctive repugnance, but with considerably more intensity, so of course I always disabled such devices. <https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/08/stick-shift-manual-t…> It was thus with great dismay that I read the email that just arrived from University Information Technology Services at Indiana University, where I have taught for several decades. The subject line was “Experiment with AI,” and to my horror, “Experiment” was an imperative verb, not a noun. The idea of the university-wide message was to encourage all faculty, staff, and students to jump on the bandwagon of “generative AI tools” (it specifically cited ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Bard) in creating our own lectures, essays, emails, reviews, courses, syllabi, posters, designs, and so forth. Although it offered some warnings about not releasing private data, such as students’ names and grades, it essentially gave the green light to all “IU affiliates” to let machines hop into the driver’s seat and do much more than change gears for them. Here is the key passage from the website<https://kb.iu.edu/d/biit?j=1572945&sfmc_sub=17641562&l=67086_HTML&u=4102291…> that the bureaucratic email pointed to—and please don’t ask me what “from a data management perspective” means, because I don’t have the foggiest idea: >From a data management perspective, examples of acceptable uses of generative AI include: • Syllabus and lesson planning: Instructors can use generative AI to help outline course syllabi and lesson plans, getting suggestions for learning objectives, teaching strategies, and assessment methods. Course materials that the instructor has authored (such as course notes) may be submitted by the instructor. • Correspondence when no student or employee information is provided: Students, faculty, or staff may use fake information (such as an invented name for the recipient of an email message) to generate drafts of correspondence using AI tools, as long as they are using general queries and do not include institutional data. • Professional development and training presentations: Faculty and staff can use AI to draft materials for potential professional development opportunities, including workshops, conferences, and online courses related to their field. • Event planning: AI can assist in drafting event plans, including suggesting themes, activities, timelines, and checklists. • Reviewing publicly accessible content: AI can help you draft a review, analyze publicly accessible content (for example, proposals, papers and articles) to aid in drafting summaries, or pull together ideas. I was completely blown away with shock when I read this passage. It seemed that the humans behind this message had decided that all people at this institution of learning were now replaceable by chatbots. In other words, they’d decided that ChatGPT and its ilk were now just as capable as I myself am of writing (or at least drafting) my essays and books; ditto for my lectures and my courses, my book reviews and my grant reviews, my grant proposals, my emails, and so on. The tone was clear: I should be thrilled to hand over all of these sorts of chores to the brand-new mechanical “tools” that could deal with them all very efficiently for me. I’m sorry, but I can’t imagine the cowardly, cowed, and counterfeit-embracing mentality that it would take for a thinking human being to ask such a system to write in their place, say, an email to a colleague in distress, or an essay setting forth original ideas, or even a paragraph or a single sentence thereof. Such a concession would be like intentionally lying down and inviting machines to walk all over you. It’s bad enough when the public is eagerly playing with chatbots and seeing them as just amusing toys when, despite their cute-sounding name, chatbots are in fact a grave menace to our entire culture and society, but it’s even worse when people who are employed to use their minds in creating and expressing new ideas are told, by their own institution, to step aside and let their minds take a back seat to mechanical systems whose behavior no one on Earth can explain, and which are constantly churning out bizarre, if not crazy, word salads. (In recent weeks, friends sent me two different “proofs” of Fermat’s last theorem created by ChatGPT, both of which made pathetic errors at a middle-school level.) When, many years ago, I joined Indiana University’s faculty, I conceived of AI as a profound philosophical quest to try to unveil the mysterious nature of thinking. It never occurred to me that my university would one day encourage me to replace myself—my ideas, my words, my creativity—with AI systems that have ingested as much text as have all the professors in the whole world, but that, as far as I can tell, have not understood anything they’ve ingested in the way that an intelligent human being would. And I suspect that my university is not alone in our land in encouraging its thinkers to roll over and play brain-dead. This is not just a shameful development, but a deeply frightening one. <https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/generative-artificial-int…><https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/generative-artificial-int…>https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/06/generative-artificial-int…

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Automated Neglect: how The World Bank’s Push to Allocate Cash Assistance Using Algorithms Threatens Rights
by Antonio Vetro' June 26, 2023

June 26, 2023

Fenomeno in linea con alcune implementazioni di welfare “automatizzato/ottimizzato" in USA e Europa (cfr casi descritti in libro automating inequalities, i vari casi in Olanda, sistema AMS in Austria, ecc.). Automated Neglect: How The World Bank’s Push to Allocate Cash Assistance Using Algorithms Threatens Rights Abstract: Governments worldwide are turning to automation to help them deliver essential public services, such as food, housing, and cash assistance. But some forms of automation are excluding people from services and singling them out for investigation based on errors, discriminatory criteria, or stereotypes about poverty. Despite these harms, the allure of tech-based solutions to complex social problems is proving hard to resist. The World Bank is one of the biggest development actors driving this trend, particularly in the Global South, placing big bets on data-intensive technologies to help governments deliver services. This includes major cash transfer programs that give certain individuals or families financial support. In the Middle East and North Africa alone, eight of ten borrowing countries have received Bank loans to upgrade these programs. Report completo su https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/06/13/automated-neglect/how-world-banks-pus…

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A CRITICAL LOOK AT AI-GENERATED SOFTWARE
by don Luca Peyron June 26, 2023

June 26, 2023

Lettura interessante buon pomeriggio dl https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-software _________________________ don Luca Peyron Direttore Ufficio per la Pastorale Universitaria Arcidiocesi di Torino www.universitari.to.it via XX settembre 83, Torino tel. 011 5156239

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CCC Hacker Camp 2023 - Ultimi slot di partecipazione disponibili
by Fabio Pietrosanti (Lists) June 26, 2023

June 26, 2023

Buongiorno a tutti, come di consueto come Inclusive Hacker Framework organizziamo la Italian Hacker Embassy, raduno di Hacker Italiani presso l'hacker camp internazionale CCC CAMP che si terrà in Germania. Per chi volesse fare una mistica esperienza di partecipazione a 5 giorni di convegni, talk e workshop, in campeggio (con anche area "family village" per chi viene con i bambini) alla intersezione di tecnologia, qui le informazioni https://events.ccc.de/camp/2023/infos/ . Sono rimasti ultimi 22 biglietti per il CCC CAMP 2023 e ITALIAN HACKER EMBASSY dal 15 al 19 Agosto in Germania. Da acquistare entro Giovedì 29 Giugno, dopodiché non sarà possibile averne più e le vendite da parte del CCC sono già chiuse: https://pretix.eu/italianhackersembassy/ccc2023/ Fabio

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MEMENTO | 107° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 28 giugno 2023, ore 13.00
by Nexa Media June 26, 2023

June 26, 2023

Gentilissime, gentilissimi, Vi ricordiamo che *mercoledì 28 giugno*, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00, si terrà il *107° Nexa Lunch Seminar* con un incontro dal titolo: /*"Deepfake e il c.d. "revenge porn": catastrofe annunciata... o immunità di gregge?"*/. Ospiti dell'incontro: *Marco Viola* (Università Roma Tre) e *Cristina Voto* (Università 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 dai cartelli lungo il percorso. QUI <https://nexa.polito.it/contatti> maggiori informazioni su come raggiungerci. _STANZA VIRTUALE _dell'incontro: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Per maggiori dettagli è possibile consultare la pagina web dell'evento: https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-107 Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

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Il giro del mondo (in 80 milioni di micro-tasks)
by Antonio Casilli June 25, 2023

June 25, 2023

Segnalo questo mio articolo in italiano uscito oggi. Il Manifesto 25.06.2023 https://ilmanifesto.it/intelligenza-artificiale-lesercito-dei-precari Intelligenza artificiale, l’esercito dei precari Anticipazioni. Un testo del sociologo che interverrà oggi alla giornata di dibattito presso il Monk di Roma dal titolo «C’è vita oltre il lavoro», organizzata da Tlon Antonio Casilli Angelica, giovane donna di 27 anni, vive a Tambaú, a nord della megalopoli di San Paolo. Il suo lavoro: “addestrare” robot aspirapolvere, piccoli elettrodomestici dotati di telecamere intelligenti che riconoscono e evitano ostacoli. Anche i più inattesi, come gli escrementi degli animali domestici. Angelica è retribuita per scattare foto delle deiezioni del suo cane. Le sue foto, etichettate e catalogate, vengono pagate solo pochi reais su una delle 54 piattaforme di micro-lavoro attive in Brasile. L'esempio di Angelica è tratto dal rapporto "Micro-lavoro in Brasile. I lavoratori dietro l'IA?" pubblicato il 19 giugno 2023 dal centro LATRAPS (Brasile), in collaborazione con il mio gruppo di ricerca DiPLab (Francia). Per anni, con i miei colleghi e studenti ho condotto inchieste come questa in 19 paesi in Europa, Africa e America Latina. Alla domanda: "Dove viene prodotta l'intelligenza artificiale?”, oggi noi diamo una risposta originale: non nella Silicon Valley o in grandi centri tecnologici dei paesi del Nord. I dati, ingredienti fondamentali dell'IA, vengono prodotti nei paesi emergenti e in via di sviluppo. Foto, video e testi sono filtrati ed arricchiti dai lavoratori delle piattaforme internazionali come la famigerata Mechanical Turk di Amazon, che li paga a cottimo per realizzare piccoli progetti online che durano appena qualche minuto: trascrivere, registrare, taggare, moderare, ecc. Ci sono anche altre grandi imprese quasi sconosciute come Appen o Telus, e piattaforme più piccole come la russa 2captcha e l'africana Sama. Nel gennaio scorso, Sama è stata oggetto di rivelazioni da parte della rivista Time, la quale ha scoperto che centinaia dei suoi micro-lavoratori in Kenia hanno "addestrato" ChatGPT. L’azienda produttrice della nota IA generativa ha ammesso di averne reclutati altri in India, Turchia, e nelle Filippine. La mappa globale che emerge dalle nostre ricerche attesta la costituzione di un vero e proprio un esercito industriale composto principalmente da persone tra i 20 e i 30 anni (ma anche quarantenni e pensionati nei paesi del Nord). In alcuni paesi, la maggioranza è costituita da donne con figli a carico che accettano di essere pagate meno di due euro all'ora. Anche nel Sud globale, questi salari non sono sufficienti per una vita dignitosa. Il fenomeno è strettamente legato alla disoccupazione e all'economia informale. I micro-lavoratori hanno regolarmente un livello di istruzione superiore alla media del loro paese, ma non riescono ad accedere al mercato del lavoro e guadagnano realizzando “micro-task”, ovvero brevi progetti retribuiti pochi centesimi. In America Latina, il paese con la più alta proporzione di micro-lavoratori rispetto alla popolazione attiva è in realtà il Venezuela, che da oltre dieci anni affronta una grave crisi politica ed economica. I lavoratori venezuelani sulle piattaforme si specializzano nell'annotazione di immagini per veicoli autonomi, e nel riconoscimento facciale e vocale. Si tratta di micro-task ancora più brevi e semplici del normale. Il motivo è tecnico. In Venezuela, i computer sono obsoleti e, nonostante l'elettricità gratuita, i blackout sono frequenti. Qui i micro-lavoratori guadagnano meno rispetto ad altri paesi, il che li rende molto ricercati da aziende sviluppatrici di IA che si trovano negli Stati Uniti, Canada e Germania. In Venezuela, l'arte di arrangiarsi è diventata un paradigma. Intere famiglie e caseggiati si organizzano, condividendo computer e smartphone o utilizzando account comuni. In Africa, è il Madagascar che attira aziende tecnologiche occidentali grazie a zone franche con agevolazioni fiscali. I clienti, soprattutto francesi, esternalizzano la moderazione di contenuti, la digitalizzazione di documenti e la registrazioni di messaggi per l’IA vocale. Il micro-lavoro attira giovani istruiti che lo considerano come un punto di ingresso nel mercato dell’impiego. Tuttavia, i magri guadagni (attorno a 100 euro al mese) non permettono di vivere nella capitale o nelle città turistiche della costa. E i lavoratori, presi in questa trappola della povertà, non possono lavorare a distanza, in zone rurali dove la connessione internet è instabile o costosa. Anche in altri paesi come Argentina ed Egitto, emergono piattaforme di lavoro legate ai dati. In alcuni, questa attività avviene nelle "click farms", dove si possono acquistare follower o like per aumentare il proprio traffico su piattaforme come YouTube e Instagram. Questa attività è in un'area di ambiguità legale, ma contribuisce allo sviluppo dell'IA, influenzando algoritmi e creando lavoro a basso salario. Per alcuni lavoratori, questi task rappresentano la loro principale fonte di reddito. Il micro-lavoro solleva questioni importanti. La prima riguarda la crescente precarietà globale del lavoro. La gig economy e le aziende come Uber o Glovo avevano già generato conflitti contro lo sfruttamento e rischi per i lavoratori. Le piattaforme di micro-lavoro a distanza hanno effetti analoghi, ma coinvolgono una popolazione dieci volte più ampia e dispersa a livello mondiale. I lavoratori dell'IA accettano incarichi frammentati, spesso pagati a cottimo, senza sicurezza occupazionale a lungo termine. Questo fenomeno evidenzia l'insicurezza e la svalutazione crescenti del lavoro. Le possibili implicazioni sociali ed economiche sono enormi. Per non parlare di quelle tecnologiche, se l’IA si rivelasse sempre più prodotta artigianalmente in paesi del Sud. -- Antonio A. Casilli Professor, Telecom Paris | Institut Polytechnique de Paris Member, Interdisciplinary Institute for Innovation (CNRS) Associate Member, LACI-LAP (EHESS) Associate researcher, Weizenbaum-Institut, Berlin Member, Scholarly council UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry (C2i2) Faculty Fellow, Nexa Center for Internet & Society *We respect your right to disconnect. My workflow efficiency accounts for this email send time. Taking action or responding outside of office hours is not mandatory*

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Techno-Narcissism | No Mercy / No Malice
by Alberto Cammozzo June 25, 2023

June 25, 2023

<https://www.profgalloway.com/techno-narcissism/> Scott Galloway@profgalloway I’m at Founders Forum in the Cotswolds … which they assure me is somewhere outside of London. There are a lot of Teslas and recycled Mason jars as … we’re making the world a better place. As at any gathering of the tech elite in 2023, the content could best be described as AI and the Seven Dwarves. The youth and vision toggles between inspiring moments and bouts of techno-narcissism. It’s understandable. If you tell a thirtysomething male he is Jesus Christ, he’s inclined to believe you. The tech innovator class has an Achilles tendon that runs from their heels to their necks: They believe their press. Making a dent in the universe is so aughts. Today, membership in the Soho House of tech requires you to birth the leverage point that will alter the universe. Jack Dorsey brought low-cost credit card transactions to millions of small vendors. But he’s still not our personal Jesus, so he renamed his company Block and pushed into crypto, because bitcoin would bring “world peace.” Side note: If anybody knows @jack’s brand of edibles, Whatsapp me. Elon Musk made a great electric car, then a better rocket … and recently appointed himself Noah to shepherd humanity to an interplanetary future. When techno-narcissism meets technology that is genuinely disruptive (vs. crypto or a headset), the hype cycle makes the jump to lightspeed. Late last year, OpenAI’s ChatGPT reached 1 million users in five days. Six months later, Congress asked its CEO if his product was going to destroy humanity. In contrast, it took Facebook 10 months to get to a million users, and it was 14 years before the CEO was hauled before Congress for damaging humanity. The claims are extreme, positive and negative: Solutionists pen think pieces on “Why AI Will Save the World,” while catastrophists warn us of “the risks of extinction.” These are two covers of the same song: techno-narcissism. It’s exhausting. But AI is a huge breakthrough, and the stakes are genuinely high. Existential Egos It’s notable today that many of the outspoken prophets of AI doom are the same people who birthed AI. Specifically, taking up all the oxygen in the AI conversation with dystopian visions of sentient AI eliminating humanity isn’t helpful. It only serves the interests of the developers of nonsentient AI, in several ways. At the simplest level, it gets attention. If you are a semifamous computer engineer who aspires to be more famous, nothing beats telling every reporter in earshot: “I’ve invented something that could destroy the world.” Partisans complain about the media’s left or right bias, but the real bias is toward spectacle. If it bleeds it leads, and nothing bleeds like the end of the world with a tortured genius at the center of the plot. Land Grab AI fearmongering is also a business strategy for the incumbents, who’d like the government to suppress nascent competition. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told Congress we need an entire new federal agency to scrutinize AI models, and said he’d be happy to help them define what kinds of companies and products should get licenses (i.e., compete with OpenAI). “Licensing regimes are the death of competition in most places they operate,” says antitrust scholar and former White House senior adviser Tim Wu (total gangster). Similar to cheap capital and regulatory capture, catastrophism is an attempt to commit infanticide on emerging competition. Real Risks Granted, we should not ignore the dangers of AI, but the real risks are the existing incentives and amorality in tech and our ongoing inability to regulate it. The techno-catastrophists want to create a narrative that the shit coming down the pike is not the result of their actions, but the inevitable cost of progress. Just as the devil’s trick was convincing us he didn’t exist, the technologist’s sleight of hand is to absolve himself of guilt for the damage the next generation of tech leaders will levy on society [...]

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