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Twitter/X e la fine della "doppia gratuità"
by Antonio Casilli Aug. 16, 2023

Aug. 16, 2023

Buondì, l'edizione di oggi del giornale Libération pubblica un mio editoriale che fa il punto sulla situazione di X (precedentemente noto come Twitter). Buona lettura, ---a --- Libération Idées et Débats, mardi 16 août 2023 Twitter rebaptisé : que cache le «X» de Elon Musk ? Antonio Casilli https://www.liberation.fr/idees-et-debats/tribunes/twitter-rebaptise-que-ca… Le nom du réseau social à l'oiseau bleu a été modifié. Cette décision révèle un nouveau fonctionnement des entreprises du milliardaire, basé sur la collecte de données personnelles par l'intelligence artificielle et l'exploitation de ses utilisateurs, explique le sociologue Antonio Casilli. Au cours de l'été, une controverse a secoué le monde de la technologie, focalisant l'attention sur Elon Musk et sa décision audacieuse de rebaptiser Twitter «X». L'abandon d'une marque établie a été perçu par les détracteurs du magnat comme une démonstration déconcertante d'irrationalité, surtout si on l'interprète comme une tactique pour taquiner l'intelligentsia de la plateforme autrefois vénérée par les journalistes et les commentateurs politiques. Est-ce que Musk est en train de suivre le chemin de l'empereur romain qui a hissé son cheval au rang de consul ? Toutefois, derrière cette apparente excentricité se cachent deux grandes tendances qui semblent dessiner la trajectoire de l'empire du milliardaire d'origine sud-africaine. La première est la transformation des géants de la technologie en conglomérats. Il y a près de dix ans, Google est devenu Alphabet et, plus récemment, Facebook est devenu Meta. Ces évolutions préfiguraient l'émergence de vastes groupements industriels aux modèles d'affaires similaires : des plateformes centralisant la collecte de données pour alimenter des systèmes d'intelligence artificielle (IA). Allant encore plus loin dans cette direction, Musk a pris une mesure radicale en optant tout simplement pour sacrifier la marque Twitter pour «X». «Main-d'oeuvre numérique» La seconde tendance se dessine au sein même des entreprises de Musk : l'émergence de branches diversifiées des médias en ligne (Twitter- X), à l'aérospatiale (Space-X) ou la mobilité (Tesla + Hyperloop-X), entre autres. Au coeur de cette évolution, Musk adopte ce que l'économie appelle «l'intégration verticale». Cette méthode de production implique qu'une société mère supervise chaque étape de la production de son produit phare. Dans le cas de X, une plateforme centrale extrait les données nécessaires pour alimenter l'apprentissage automatique des modèles d'intelligence artificielle. Ces données sont notamment générées par les clients de l'entreprise. X pourrait bien, plus tôt que prévu, faire partie intégrante des Gafam, un acronyme appelé à être redéfini : Maxam (Meta, Alphabet, X, Apple, Microsoft) pourrait bientôt illustrer le paysage technologique occidental. La collecte de données pour l'IA était en cours bien avant l'acquisition et le remaniement de Twitter par Musk. Un exemple emblématique de cette stratégie est la récupération de données auprès des conducteurs de Tesla. Elon Musk a intelligemment profité de la «main-d'oeuvre numérique» gracieusement offerte par ses propres clients pour améliorer les performances de ses véhicules autonomes. En conduisant leurs voitures haut de gamme, ces derniers permettent plus ou moins volontairement à des capteurs d'accumuler des millions d'heures de vidéo ainsi que des quantités massives d'informations liées à leur localisation et à leurs performances. Une approche similaire a été mise en évidence avec le média social anciennement appelé Twitter, où les données des messages des utilisateurs alimentent désormais une nouvelle branche de l'empire de Musk. Cette filière porte le nom assez prévisible de X.AI. Fondée en juillet, elle est destinée à concurrencer OpenAI et son produit phare, ChatGPT, dans lequel Musk avait investi dès l'origine. De manière typiquement muskienne, X.AI a été créée peu après la publication d'une lettre ouverte co-signée par le milliardaire, appelant à un moratoire sur le développement de l'IA pour prévenir le risque d'extinction de l'humanité. Une belle démonstration d'hypocrisie - ou de fausse conscience. Système de double rémunération Cela nous amène à la notion de «digital labor», la contribution non reconnue mais indispensable des utilisateurs à la formation de l'intelligence artificielle. Alors que les autres grandes plateformes numériques ont jusqu'à présent utilisé l'approche de la «double gratuité» (offrir leurs services gratuitement mais sans rémunérer la collecte de données permettant l'amélioration de leurs algorithmes), Musk s'oriente vers un système de double rémunération : les utilisateurs de Blue, la version premium de X, souscrivent à un abonnement payant pour accéder au service. Mais dans le même temps, la plateforme les récompense en leur versant une rémunération en fonction des performances de leur compte. Cette approche va de pair avec les idées avancées sur Internet par certains milieux libertaires de droite, qui proposent de rémunérer les données. En France, en 2018, le think tank Génération libre prônait la rémunération des données personnelles via des mécanismes de libre concurrence. Cependant, il est regrettable de constater que ce marché est loin d'offrir une réelle liberté, principalement en raison de la domination exercée par des géants comme Meta, Amazon et peut-être bientôt X. Cette évolution engendre un déséquilibre notable, avantageant ainsi les acteurs dominants de la technologie. Ce modèle soulève un certain nombre de difficultés. Les utilisateurs ne sont pas maîtres de leurs données personnelles, décidant souverainement de les céder au plus offrant. Dès qu'ils acceptent d'être sur la plateforme, ils sont assimilés à des «travailleurs du clic» exploités, obligés de produire des données qu'ils ne peuvent que monnayer. A cela s'ajoute le fait qu'ils doivent payer pour leur propre contribution. Le passage du modèle «pay per play», courant dans l'industrie des jeux vidéo, au modèle «pay per work» est clairement perceptible. Cette dynamique s'inscrit dans une tendance plus large observée dans nos mondes de travail de plus en plus flexibles. Dans ces contextes, l'emploi formel est devenu plus rare, obligeant souvent les individus à financer leurs propres formations ou reconversions. Bien au- delà de la simple expansion du travail numérique gratuit, nous assistons, sur les plateformes comme dans les entreprises traditionnelles, à la mise en place d'un système où il faut payer pour que nos données soient exploitées. Et avec elles, notre travail. -- 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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Bruce Scheneier, AI and microdirectives
by maurizio lana Aug. 16, 2023

Aug. 16, 2023

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/07/ai-and-microdirectives.html Bruce Schenier, AI and Microdirectives > Imagine a future in which AIs automatically interpret—and enforce—laws. > All day and every day, you constantly receive highly personalized > instructions for how to comply with the law, sent directly by your > government and law enforcement. You’re told how to cross the street, > how fast to drive on the way to work, and what you’re allowed to say > or do online—if you’re in any situation that might have legal > implications, you’re told exactly what to do, in real time. > Imagine that the computer system formulating these personal legal > directives at mass scale is so complex that no one can explain how it > reasons or works. But if you ignore a directive, the system will know, > and it’ll be used as evidence in the prosecution that’s sure to follow. > ... > The heart of the issue: If you’re accused by a computer, are you > entitled to review that computer’s inner workings and potentially > challenge its accuracy in court? What does cross-examination look like > when the prosecutor’s witness is a computer? How could you possibly > access, analyze, and understand all microdirectives relevant to your > case in order to challenge the AI’s legal interpretation? How could > courts hope to ensure equal application of the law? Like the man from > the country in Franz Kafka’s parable in The Trial, you’d die waiting > for access to the law, because the law is limitless and incomprehensible. Maurizio ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ricorda Signore questi servi disobbedienti alle leggi del branco non dimenticare il loro volto fabrizio de andré, smisurata preghiera ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Maurizio Lana - 347 7370925

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Libro open access: "Resistance to the Current: The Dialectics of Hacking"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 14, 2023

Aug. 14, 2023

Resistance to the Current: The Dialectics of Hacking // ByJohan Söderberg,Maxigas The MIT Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13466.001.0001 <https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/13466.001.0001> ISBN electronic: 9780262372008 Publication date: 2022 https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5494/Resistance-to-the-CurrentThe… *How hacking cultures drive contemporary capitalism and the future of innovation.* In /Resistance to the Current/, Johan Söderberg and Maxigas examine four historical case studies of hacker movements and their roles in shaping the twenty-first-century's network society. Based on decades of field work and analysis, this intervention into current debates situates an exploding variety of hacking practices within the contradictions of capitalism. Depoliticized accounts of computing cultures and collaborative production miss their core driver, write Söderberg and Maxigas: the articulation of critique and its recuperation into innovations. Drawing on accounts of building, developing, and running community wireless networks, 3D printers, hackerspaces, and chat protocols, the authors develop a theoretical framework of critique and recuperation to examine how hackers—who have long held a reputation for being underground rebels—transform their outputs from communal, underground experiments to commercial products that benefit the state and capital. This framework allows a dialectical understanding of contemporary social conflicts around technology and innovation. Hackers' critiques of contemporary norms spur innovation, while recuperation turns these innovations into commodified products and services. Recuperation threatens the autonomy of hacker collectives, harnessing their outputs for the benefit of a capitalist system. With significant practical implications, this sophisticated multidisciplinary account of technology-oriented movements that seek to challenge capitalism will appeal to science and technology readers interested in innovation studies, user studies, cultural studies, and media and communications.

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CREATE AI Act: Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with Artificial Intelligence Act of 2023
by Daniela Tafani Aug. 13, 2023

Aug. 13, 2023

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Founder and Co-Chair of the Senate Artificial Intelligence Caucus, and Senators Todd Young (R-Ind.) Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Co-Chair of the Senate AI Caucus, introduced the Creating Resources for Every American To Experiment with Artificial Intelligence Act of 2023 (CREATE AI Act). The CREATE AI Act establishes the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) as a shared national research infrastructure that provides AI researchers and students with greater access to the complex resources, data, and tools needed to develop safe and trustworthy artificial intelligence. .... Find a fact sheet on the CREATE AI Act here: https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/create_ai_act_fact_sheet1.pdf Find the bill text of the CREATE AI Act here: https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/create_ai_act_bill_text.pdf Qui il comunicato: https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/heinrich-young-book… <https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/heinrich-young-book…> <https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/heinrich-young-book…>

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"These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 13, 2023

Aug. 13, 2023

*These Women Tried to Warn Us About AI** * /Today the risks of artificial intelligence are clear — but the warning signs have been there all along// / By Lorena O'Neil TIMNIT GEBRU didn’t set out to work in AI. At Stanford, she studied electrical engineering — getting both a bachelor’s and a master’s in the field. Then she became interested in image analysis, getting her Ph.D. in computer vision. When she moved over to AI, though, it was immediately clear that there was something very wrong. “There were no Black people — literally no Black people,” says Gebru, who was born and raised in Ethiopia. “I would go to academic conferences in AI, and I would see four or five Black people out of five, six, seven thousand people internationally.… I saw who was building the AI systems and their attitudes and their points of view. I saw what they were being used for, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we have a problem.’” When Gebru got to Google, she co-led the Ethical AI group, a part of the company’s Responsible AI initiative, which looked at the social implications of artificial intelligence — including “generative” AI systems, which appear to learn on their own and create new content based on what they’ve learned. She worked on a paper about the dangers of large language models (LLMs), generative AI systems trained on huge amounts of data to make educated guesses about the next word in a sentence and spit out sometimes eerily human-esque text. Those chatbots that are everywhere today? Powered by LLMs. [...] continua qui: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/women-warnings-ai-dan…

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"Will "godlike AI" kill us all — or unlock the secrets of the universe? Probably not"
by J.C. DE MARTIN Aug. 13, 2023

Aug. 13, 2023

*"Will "godlike AI" kill us all — or unlock the secrets of the universe? Probably not" ** * /Is AI a revolutionary phenomenon that will change everything? The history of radioactivity suggests an answer// / By Émile P. Torres https://www.salon.com/2023/08/12/will-godlike-ai-us-all--or-unlock-the-secr…

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Interessante speculazione su come l'AI potrebbe entrare gradualmente in politica
by Claudio Agosti Aug. 12, 2023

Aug. 12, 2023

Posto che tutti i limiti dei language model sono noti, Posto che nessuno qui probabilmente si prenderebbe la responsabilità degli output prodotti dai suddetti LM senza una accurata revisione ed editing, Posto che la difficoltà del policy-making in democrazia non è mai quella di proporre idee, ma di trovare il consenso tra le parti, Ho trovato interessante questa speculazione, su sei passi ipotetici (milestones) che un'AI addestrata per lo scopo dovrebbe poter raggiungere per poter considerarsi un elemento significativo nel dibattito politico https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/08/political-milestones-for-ai.… Interessante sì, anche se è chiaro che le persone che starebbero ad addestrare (o, quantomeno, definire metriche, pesi, e fonti) di questa AI altro non sarebbero che i politici che modellano il risultato. Però sarebbero trattati da tecnici. ciao e buona domenica, Claudio

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Zero Trust AI Governance Framework
by Daniela Tafani Aug. 10, 2023

Aug. 10, 2023

Zero Trust AI Governance Framework Ahead of DEF CON 31, Accountable Tech, AI Now, and EPIC offer an antidote to self-regulation for artificial intelligence. Rapid advances in AI, the frenzied deployment of new systems, and the surrounding hype cycle have generated a swell of excitement about AI’s potential to transform society for the better. But we are not on course to realize those rosy visions. AI’s trajectory is being dictated by a toxic arms race amongst a handful of unaccountable Big Tech companies – surveillance giants who serve as the modern gatekeepers of information, communications, and commerce. The societal costs of this corporate battle for AI supremacy are already stacking up as companies rush unsafe systems to market – like chatbots prone to confidently spew falsehoods – recklessly integrating them into flagship products and services. Near-term harms include turbocharging election manipulation and scams, exacerbating bias and discrimination, eroding privacy and autonomy, and many more. And additional systemic threats loom in the medium and longer terms, like steep environmental costs, large-scale workforce disruptions, and further consolidation of power by Big Tech across the digital economy. Industry leaders have gone even further, warning of the threat of extinction as they publicly echo calls for much-needed regulation – all while privately lobbying against meaningful accountability measures and continuing to release increasingly powerful new AI systems. Given the monumental stakes, blind trust in their benevolence is not an option. Indeed, a closer examination of the regulatory approaches they’ve embraced – namely ones that forestall action with lengthy processes, hinge on overly complex and hard-to-enforce regimes, and foist the burden of accountability onto those who have already suffered harm – informed the three overarching principles of this Zero Trust AI Governance framework: 1. Time is of the essence – start by vigorously enforcing existing laws. 2. Bold, easily administrable, bright-line rules are necessary. 3. At each phase of the AI system lifecycle, the burden should be on companies to prove their systems are not harmful. Absent swift federal action to alter the current dynamics – by vigorously enforcing laws on the books, finally passing strong federal privacy legislation and antitrust reforms, and enacting robust new AI accountability measures – the scope and severity of harms will only intensify. Continua qui: https://accountabletech.org/research/zero-trust-ai-governance-framework/

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L'intelligenza artificiale nel messaggio del Papa per la prossima Giornata della pace
by don Luca Peyron Aug. 10, 2023

Aug. 10, 2023

Schierati è un verbo orrendo rispetto al tema della pace, però ci sta... Buona lettura dl https://www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2023-08/intelligenza-artificial… _________________________ 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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Amazon removes books ‘generated by AI’ for sale under author’s name | Books | The Guardian
by Alberto Cammozzo Aug. 9, 2023

Aug. 9, 2023

<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/09/amazon-removes-books-generate…> Five books for sale on Amazon were removed after author Jane Friedman complained that the titles were falsely listed as being written by her. The books, which Friedman believes were written by AI, were also listed on the Amazon-owned reviews site Goodreads. “It feels like a violation, because it’s really low quality material with my name on it,” Friedman told the Guardian. The Ohio-based author has written several books about the publishing industry, and the fraudulent titles mimicked her real work. How to Write and Publish an eBook Quickly and Make Money and A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Compelling eBooks, Building a Thriving Author Platform, and Maximizing Profitability were two of the listed books. Friedman’s real books include The Business of Being a Writer and Publishing 101. One of the falsely attributed books’ descriptions read: “This book offers practical strategies, tips, and techniques to help writers streamline their writing process, accelerate their eBook publication timeline, and maximize their earning potential.” Jane Friedman. Photograph: Ross Van Pelt Friedman was first made aware of the scam titles through a reader who noticed the listings on Amazon and emailed her after suspecting that the books were fraudulent. “It looks terrible. It makes me look like I’m trying to take advantage of people with really crappy books,” she said. Having had experience with AI tools such as ChatGPT, which is designed to provide humanlike responses to user commands, Friedman immediately thought the books were AI-generated after reading the first few pages. “I’ve been blogging since 2009 – there’s a lot of my content publicly available for training AI models,” the author wrote on her website. The books were “if not wholly generated by AI, then at least mostly generated by AI”, Friedman said. She began looking for ways to get the titles taken down immediately and submitted a claim form to Amazon. Yet according to Friedman, as she had not trademarked her name, Amazon told her it would not remove the books. However, the books had been taken down from both Amazon and Goodreads by Tuesday, which Friedman suspects is due to her speaking out about the issue on social media. “Unless Amazon puts some sort of policy in place to prevent anyone from just uploading whatever book they want and applying whatever name they want, this will continue, it’s not going to end with me,” said Friedman. “They have no procedure for reporting this sort of activity where someone’s trying to profit off someone’s name.” On her blog, she called on the sites to “create a way to verify authorship”. Fraudulent titles have been listed on Amazon in the past. In 2018, business writer Patrick Reames said that a scammer had used his social security number to pose as him and publish a book under his name. When asked about Friedman’s case, an Amazon spokesperson told the Guardian: “We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised. We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues raised. We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and to protect customers and authors from misuse of our services.”

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