- nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Rant against centralising e-mail in big-tech silos, and breaking the internet in the process

by Enrico Nardelli

Universities and research institutes used to be at the forefront when it comes to development of the fundamental technologies that power the internet. As early as 1965, researchers at MIT developed a kind of precursor to e-mail. In 1978, researchers at Berkeley leveraged the already existing unix tool 'mail' (1971) to communicate over a larger network. Universities and research institutes were among the first to embrace this new way to communicate with peers across ever greater distances and eventually, with the advent of the internet, all over the globe. I'm a rather dismayed to see those universities and institutes nowadays no longer as pioneers and innovators in this area, but instead as mere consumers of ready-made corporate solutions, following corporate interests and centralising solutions. ... https://proycon.anaproy.nl/posts/rant-against-centralising-e-mail/ (è di febbraio, ma non mi sembra di averlo visto passare in lista; mi scuso qualora fosse successo) -- -- EN https://www.hoepli.it/libro/la-rivoluzione-informatica/9788896069516.html ====================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Presidente di "Informatics Europe" Direttore del Laboratorio Nazionale "Informatica e Scuola" del CINI Dipartimento di Matematica - Università di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma home page: https://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: https://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it online meeting: https://blue.meet.garr.it/b/enr-y7f-t0q-ont ====================================================== --

July 1, 2023

AI Myths

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://www.aimyths.org/> The project Whether it's claims about AI revolutionizing the insurance industry or enabling Orwellian mass surveillance, everyone seems to be talking about 'artificial intelligence' these days. Unfortunately, much of this talk is riddled with myths, misconceptions and inaccuracies. The aim of this website is to help disentangle and debunk some of these misleading ideas. We'll explore how these ideas appear in the media, and point you towards high quality resources for further reading. The myths to tackle were chosen in two ways. First, a group of stakeholders from civil society, academia, government and industry discussed the problem of AI bulls**t at RightsCon 2019 in Tunis. Together, we brainstormed a list of the most insidious misconceptions and myths about AI. Based on this preliminary list, a survey was sent out to allow people to rank these myths, and also to contribute additional ones. A combination of these survey results and additional consultations with the target audience led to the choice of these final 8 topics. It should be clarified that in no case is there a simple, straightforward refutation of the misconceptions and myths. Rather, the ideas are explored, obvious misconceptions are refuted and more complex perspectives are introduced. The aim of these resources is to guide you towards further materials as presented in the bibliographies and guides at the end of each section. If you have any comments, criticisms, or requests, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. This is a live resource, and we're happy to update it based on your feedback. Acknowledgments This project was funded and supported as part of Daniel Leufer's Mozilla Open Web Fellowship - a collaboration between the Ford Foundation and Mozilla. It would not have been possible without the incredible support, encouragement and direction provided by the Mozilla Fellowship team, but a special thanks must go to Amy Schapiro Raikar for her unfailing support and direction. For the duration of Daniel's fellowship, he was hosted by the digital rights organisation Access Now. Enormous thanks must go to all the staff at Access Now for their fantastic work which contributed to and inspired this project. Fanny Hidvégi in particular deserves the utmost gratitude for inspiring and guiding this project from its initial conception through to its completion. Her commitment to combatting AI bulls**t and protecting people's rights has been a constant source of inspiration. This project also benefitted enormously from the collaboration of the Harvard Law School Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Jessica Fjeld provided support for this project from the get go and organised the collaboration with two students from the Cyberlaw Clinic, Rachel Jang and Kathryn Mueller, whose work was instrumental to the project. The material on this site has been immesurably improved thanks to the thoughtful, insightful, and critical comments provided by a number of reviewers, including Agata Foryciarz, Sarah Chander, Alexa Steinbrück, and especially Vera Tylzanowski, who read every bit of the site more than once. Any faults or typos that remain are entirely Daniel's responsibility. Lastly, the utmost gratitude must be expressed to all the authors whose work inspired and is featured on this site. We have drawn endless inspiration from the community of people working to make AI systems safer, to protect people's rights and freedoms and to combat AI bulls**t. We hope that this site does justice to all of that work, and helps guide readers in further study. [...]

June 30, 2023

Re: [nexa] Hundreds attend ‘soulless’ AI-generated church service

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno ven 30 giu 2023 alle ore 18:18 Maria Chiara Pievatolo < mariachiara.pievatolo(a)unipi.it> ha scritto: > Agli esseri dotati di logos consiglio invece la lettura di Pierre > Hadot, "Che cos'è la filosofia antica?" che racconta come una religione > "di conforto" che oggi potremmo chiamare "soluzionista" fu superata da > una assai più esigente che incorporava domande che venivano dalla > filosofia. E se non vogliamo limitarci al bacino mediterraneo e al > cristianesimo, possiamo pensare anche al caso del buddismo. Non è (solo) > una questione di fede o mancanza di fede, o, peggio, di statistica (o di > parvenza di statistica) sotto forma di SALAMI: è una questione di > cultura (o di mancanza di cultura). > Addio, > MCP > Mischiare buddismo, una religione notoriamente non teista, con il cristianesimo, una religione notoriamente teista, quando in un mio messaggio precedente avevo esplicitamente reso chiaro che mi riferivo solo a queste ultime, possiamo definirla come una manifestazione di quella summenzionata questione di cultura (o di mancanza di cultura)? Arrivederci. Fabio

June 30, 2023

Re: [nexa] Hundreds attend ‘soulless’ AI-generated church service

by Maria Chiara Pievatolo

Agli esseri dotati di logos consiglio invece la lettura di Pierre Hadot, "Che cos'è la filosofia antica?" che racconta come una religione "di conforto" che oggi potremmo chiamare "soluzionista" fu superata da una assai più esigente che incorporava domande che venivano dalla filosofia. E se non vogliamo limitarci al bacino mediterraneo e al cristianesimo, possiamo pensare anche al caso del buddismo. Non è (solo) una questione di fede o mancanza di fede, o, peggio, di statistica (o di parvenza di statistica) sotto forma di SALAMI: è una questione di cultura (o di mancanza di cultura). Addio, MCP Il 29/06/23 12:33, Fabio Alemagna ha scritto: > Come direbbero gli anglosassoni, hate to break it for you, but... > > Il giorno gio 29 giu 2023 alle ore 12:00 Maria Chiara Pievatolo > <mariachiara.pievatolo(a)unipi.it> ha scritto: >> [...] >> È teologia? No, sono pratiche superstiziose di conforto, di cui >> impostori come il profeta di "Quelo" possono trarre profitto. > > Questo è esattamente quello che pensa tantissima gente delle religioni > come quella cattolica. Me incluso. Desiderio di conforto, una facile > via per l'accettazione della realtà, trasformatasi poi in una sorta di > multinazionale dedita per la maggior parte del suo tempo > all'autosostentamento e al profitto. >

June 30, 2023

convegno privacy e libertà 1 luglio alle ore 15 a Torino

by Mauro Alovisio

Gent.mi segnalo convegno di interesse 1 luglio, ore 15-18 - Istituto Universitario Pontificio Salesiano di Torino *Convegno “Privacy e Libertà"* *fra i relatori: Agostino Ghiglia,* Componente del Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, Francesco Pizzetti, Roberto Sorcinelli, Marco Camisani Calzolari,Pier Franco Quaglieni. *PER INFORMAZIONI: * https://digitalgovernance.unipv.it/blog/2023/05/31/privacy-e-liberta/

June 30, 2023

Evgeny Morozov - The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence

by Daniela Tafani

The True Threat of Artificial Intelligence By Evgeny Morozov June 30, 2023 In May, more than 350 technology executives, researchers and academics signed a statement<https://www.safe.ai/statement-on-ai-risk#open-letter> warning of the existential dangers of artificial intelligence. “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the signatories warned. This came on the heels of another high-profile letter<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-mu…>, signed by the likes of Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak, a co-founder of Apple, calling for a six-month moratorium on the development of advanced A.I. systems. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has urged<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/05/23/fac…> responsible A.I. innovation, stating that “in order to seize the opportunities” it offers, we “must first manage its risks.” In Congress, Senator Chuck Schumer called<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/us/ai-regulation-schumer-congress.html> for “first of their kind” listening sessions on the potential and risks of A.I., a crash course of sorts from industry executives, academics, civil rights activists and other stakeholders. The mounting anxiety about A.I. isn’t because of the boring but reliable technologies that autocomplete our text messages or direct robot vacuums to dodge obstacles in our living rooms. It is the rise of artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., that worries the experts. A.G.I. doesn’t exist yet, but some believe that the rapidly growing capabilities of OpenAI’s ChatGPT suggest<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/technology/microsoft-ai-human-reasoning.…> its emergence is near. Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, has<https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond> described it as “systems that are generally smarter than humans.” Building such systems remains a daunting — some say impossible<https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-artificial-general-intelligence-agi-exp…> — task. But the benefits appear truly tantalizing. Imagine Roombas, no longer condemned to vacuuming the floors, that evolve into all-purpose robots, happy to brew morning coffee or fold laundry — without ever being programmed to do these things. Sounds appealing. But should these A.G.I. Roombas get too powerful, their mission to create a spotless utopia might get messy for their dust-spreading human masters. At least we’ve had a good run. Discussions of A.G.I. are rife with such apocalyptic scenarios. Yet a nascent A.G.I. lobby of academics, investors and entrepreneurs counter that, once made safe, A.G.I. would be a boon to civilization. Mr. Altman, the face of this campaign, embarked on a global tour to charm lawmakers<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/07/technology/sam-altman-ai-regulations.html>. Earlier this year he wrote<https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond> that A.G.I. might even turbocharge the economy, boost scientific knowledge and “elevate humanity by increasing abundance.” This is why, for all the hand-wringing, so many smart people in the tech industry are toiling to build this controversial technology: not using it to save the world seems immoral. They are beholden to an ideology that views this new technology as inevitable and, in a safe version, as universally beneficial. Its proponents can think of no better alternatives for fixing humanity and expanding its intelligence. But this ideology — call it A.G.I.-ism — is mistaken. The real risks of A.G.I. are political and won’t be fixed by taming rebellious robots. The safest of A.G.I.s would not deliver the progressive panacea promised by its lobby. And in presenting its emergence as all but inevitable, A.G.I.-ism distracts from finding better ways to augment intelligence. Unbeknown to its proponents, A.G.I.-ism is just a bastard child of a much grander ideology, one preaching that, as Margaret Thatcher memorably put it, there is no alternative, not to the market. Rather than breaking capitalism, as Mr. Altman has hinted<https://fortune.com/2023/02/03/openai-sam-altman-chatgpt-break-capitalism/> it could do, A.G.I. — or at least the rush to build it — is more likely to create a powerful (and much hipper) ally for capitalism’s most destructive creed: neoliberalism. Fascinated with privatization, competition and free trade, the architects of neoliberalism wanted to dynamize and transform a stagnant and labor-friendly economy through markets and deregulation. Some of these transformations worked, but they came at an immense cost. Over the years, neoliberalism drew many, many critics, who blamed it for the Great Recession and financial crisis, Trumpism, Brexit and much else. It is not surprising, then, that the Biden administration has distanced<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/29/us/politics/joe-biden.html> itself from the ideology, acknowledging<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/04/27/remark…> that markets sometimes get it wrong. Foundations, think tanks and academics have even dared to imagine<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/business/neoliberalism-free-market-resea…> a post-neoliberal future. Yet neoliberalism is far from dead. Worse, it has found an ally in A.G.I.-ism, which stands to reinforce and replicate its main biases: that private actors outperform public ones (the market bias), that adapting to reality beats transforming it (the adaptation bias) and that efficiency trumps social concerns (the efficiency bias). These biases turn the alluring promise behind A.G.I. on its head: Instead of saving the world, the quest to build it will make things only worse. Here is how. A.G.I. will never overcome the market’s demands for profit. Remember when Uber, with its cheap rates, was courting cities to serve as their public transportation systems? It all began nicely, with Uber promising implausibly cheap rides, courtesy of a future with self-driving cars and minimal labor costs. Deep-pocketed investors loved this vision, even absorbing Uber’s multibillion-dollar losses. But when reality descended<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/08/technology/farewell-millennial-lifestyle…>, the self-driving cars were still a pipe dream. The investors demanded returns and Uber was forced to raise prices<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-29/when-a-town-takes-uber-i…>. Users that relied on it to replace public buses and trains were left on the sidewalk. The neoliberal instinct behind Uber’s business model is that the private sector can do better than the public sector — the market bias. It’s not just cities and public transit. Hospitals<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/business/google-ascension-health-data.ht…>, police departments<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/technology/clearview-privacy-facial-reco…> and even the Pentagon<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/technology/anduril-military-palmer-lucke…> increasingly rely on Silicon Valley to accomplish their missions. With A.G.I., this reliance will only deepen, not least because A.G.I. is unbounded in its scope and ambition. No administrative or government services would be immune to its promise of disruption. Moreover, A.G.I. doesn’t even have to exist to lure them in. This, at any rate, is the lesson of Theranos, a start-up that promised to “solve” health care through a revolutionary blood-testing technology and a former darling of America’s elites. Its victims are real, even if its technology never was. After so many Uber- and Theranos-like traumas, we already know what to expect of an A.G.I. rollout. It will consist of two phases. First, the charm offensive of heavily subsidized services. Then the ugly retrenchment, with the overdependent users and agencies shouldering the costs of making them profitable. As always, Silicon Valley mavens play down the market’s role. In a recent essay titled “Why A.I. Will Save the World<https://a16z.com/2023/06/06/ai-will-save-the-world/>,” Marc Andreessen, a prominent tech investor, even proclaims that A.I. “is owned by people and controlled by people, like any other technology.” Only a venture capitalist can traffic in such exquisite euphemisms. Most modern technologies are owned by corporations. And it will be them — not the mythical “people” — who will monetize saving the world. And are they really saving it? The record, so far, is poor. Companies like Airbnb and TaskRabbit were welcomed as saviors for the beleaguered middle class<https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/14/airbnb-a-solution-to-mid…>; Tesla’s electric cars were seen as a remedy<https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/08/business/energy-environment/electric-veh…> to a warming planet. Soylent, the meal-replacement shake, embarked on a mission<https://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/13/health/soylent-hunger/index.html> to “solve” global hunger, while Facebook vowed to “solve<https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/03/opinion/sunday/evgeny-morozov-facebooks-…>” connectivity issues in the Global South. None of these companies saved the world. A decade ago, I called this solutionism<https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/the-perils-of-perfection.…>, but “digital neoliberalism” would be just as fitting. This worldview reframes social problems in light of for-profit technological solutions. As a result, concerns that belong in the public domain are reimagined as entrepreneurial opportunities in the marketplace. A.G.I.-ism has rekindled this solutionist fervor. Last year, Mr. Altman stated<https://twitter.com/sama/status/1552356314482937863?lang=en> that “A.G.I. is probably necessary for humanity to survive” because “our problems seem too big” for us to “solve without better tools.” He’s recently asserted<https://openai.com/blog/planning-for-agi-and-beyond?> that A.G.I. will be a catalyst for human flourishing. But companies need profits, and such benevolence, especially from unprofitable firms burning investors’ billions, is uncommon. OpenAI, having accepted billions from Microsoft, has contemplated<https://www.theinformation.com/articles/openais-losses-doubled-to-540-milli…> raising another $100 billion to build A.G.I. Those investments will need to be earned back — against the service’s staggering invisible costs. (One estimate<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/05/chatgpt-hidden-cost-gp…> from February put the expense of operating ChatGPT at $700,000 per day.) Thus, the ugly retrenchment phase, with aggressive price hikes to make an A.G.I. service profitable, might arrive before “abundance” and “flourishing.” But how many public institutions would mistake fickle markets for affordable technologies and become dependent on OpenAI’s expensive offerings by then? And if you dislike your town outsourcing public transportation to a fragile start-up, would you want it farming out welfare services, waste management and public safety to the possibly even more volatile A.G.I. firms? A.G.I. will dull the pain of our thorniest problems without fixing them. Neoliberalism has a knack for mobilizing technology to make society’s miseries bearable. I recall an innovative tech venture<https://www.citytech.org/rebate-offer-helped-cta-red-line-commuters-avoid-w…> from 2017 that promised to improve commuters’ use of a Chicago subway line. It offered rewards to discourage metro riders from traveling at peak times. Its creators leveraged technology to influence the demand side (the riders), seeing structural changes to the supply side (like raising public transport funding) as too difficult. Tech would help make Chicagoans adapt to the city’s deteriorating infrastructure rather than fixing it in order to meet the public’s needs. This is the adaptation bias — the aspiration that, with a technological wand, we can become desensitized to our plight. It’s the product of neoliberalism’s relentless cheerleading for self-reliance and resilience. The message is clear: gear up, enhance your human capital and chart your course like a start-up. And A.G.I.-ism echoes this tune. Bill Gates has trumpeted<https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-Age-of-AI-Has-Begun> that A.I. can “help people everywhere improve their lives.” The solutionist feast is only getting started: Whether it’s fighting the next pandemic<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-15/how-to-stop-the-next-pan…>, the loneliness epidemic<https://www.salon.com/2023/05/21/tech-wants-ai-chatbots-to-help-ease-loneli…> or inflation<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-04/artificial-intelligence-…>, A.I. is already pitched as an all-purpose hammer for many real and imaginary nails. However, the decade lost to the solutionist folly reveals the limits of such technological fixes. To be sure, Silicon Valley’s many apps — to monitor our spending, calories and workout regimes — are occasionally helpful. But they mostly ignore the underlying causes of poverty or obesity. And without tackling the causes, we remain stuck in the realm of adaptation, not transformation. There’s a difference between nudging us to follow our walking routines — a solution that favors individual adaptation — and understanding why our towns have no public spaces to walk on — a prerequisite for a politics-friendly solution that favors collective and institutional transformation. But A.G.I.-ism, like neoliberalism, sees public institutions as unimaginative and not particularly productive. They should just adapt to A.G.I., at least according to Mr. Altman, who recently said he was nervous about “the speed with which our institutions can adapt” — part of the reason, he added, “of why we want to start deploying these systems really early, while they’re really weak, so that people have as much time as possible to do this.” But should institutions only adapt? Can’t they develop their own transformative agendas for improving humanity’s intelligence? Or do we use institutions only to mitigate the risks of Silicon Valley’s own technologies? A.G.I. undermines civic virtues and amplifies trends we already dislike. A common criticism of neoliberalism is that it has flattened our political life, rearranging it around efficiency. “The Problem of Social Cost<https://www.law.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/file/coase-problem.pdf>,” a 1960 article that has become a classic<https://www.law.uchicago.edu/lawecon/coaseinmemoriam/problemofsocialcost> of the neoliberal canon, preaches that a polluting factory and its victims should not bother bringing their disputes to court. Such fights are inefficient — who needs justice, anyway? — and stand in the way of market activity. Instead, the parties should privately bargain over compensation and get on with their business. This fixation on efficiency is how we arrived at “solving” climate change by letting the worst offenders<https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-big-polluters-win-carbon-credit-windfa…> continue as before. The way to avoid the shackles of regulation is to devise a scheme — in this case, taxing carbon — that lets polluters buy credits to match the extra carbon they emit. This culture of efficiency, in which markets measure the worth of things and substitute for justice, inevitably corrodes civic virtues. And the problems this creates are visible everywhere. Academics fret<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/opinion/sunday/colleges-measure-learning…> that, under neoliberalism, research and teaching have become commodities. Doctors lament<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/16/technology/microsoft-ai-human-reasoning.…> that hospitals prioritize more profitable services such as elective surgery over emergency care. Journalists hate that the worth of their articles is measured in eyeballs<https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/jonah-peretti-has-r…>. Now imagine unleashing A.G.I. on these esteemed institutions — the university, the hospital, the newspaper — with the noble mission of “fixing” them. Their implicit civic missions would remain invisible to A.G.I., for those missions are rarely quantified even in their annual reports — the sort of materials that go into training the models behind A.G.I. After all, who likes to boast that his class on Renaissance history got only a handful of students? Or that her article on corruption in some faraway land got only a dozen page views? Inefficient and unprofitable, such outliers miraculously survive even in the current system. The rest of the institution quietly subsidizes them, prioritizing values other than profit-driven “efficiency.” Will this still be the case in the A.G.I. utopia? Or will fixing our institutions through A.G.I. be like handing them over to ruthless consultants? They, too, offer data-bolstered “solutions” for maximizing efficiency. But these solutions often fail to grasp the messy interplay of values, missions and traditions at the heart of institutions — an interplay that is rarely visible if you only scratch their data surface. In fact, the remarkable performance of ChatGPT-like services is, by design, a refusal to grasp reality at a deeper level, beyond the data’s surface. So whereas earlier A.I. systems relied on explicit rules and required someone like Newton to theorize gravity — to ask how and why apples fall — newer systems like A.G.I. simply learn to predict gravity’s effects by observing millions of apples fall to the ground. However, if all that A.G.I. sees are cash-strapped institutions fighting for survival, it may never infer their true ethos. Good luck discerning the meaning of the Hippocratic oath by observing hospitals that have been turned into profit centers. Margaret Thatcher’s other famous neoliberal dictum was that “there is no such thing as society<https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689>.” The A.G.I. lobby unwittingly shares this grim view. For them, the kind of intelligence worth replicating is a function of what happens in individuals’ heads rather than in society at large. But human intelligence is as much a product of policies and institutions as it is of genes and individual aptitudes. It’s easier to be smart on a fellowship in the Library of Congress than while working several jobs in a place without a bookstore or even decent Wi-Fi. It doesn’t seem all that controversial to suggest that more scholarships and public libraries will do wonders for boosting human intelligence. But for the solutionist crowd in Silicon Valley, augmenting intelligence is primarily a technological problem — hence the excitement about A.G.I. However, if A.G.I.-ism really is neoliberalism by other means, then we should be ready to see fewer — not more — intelligence-enabling institutions. After all, they are the remnants of that dreaded “society” that, for neoliberals, doesn’t really exist. A.G.I.’s grand project of amplifying intelligence may end up shrinking it. Because of such solutionist bias, even seemingly innovative policy ideas around A.G.I. fail to excite. Take the recent proposal for a “Manhattan Project for A.I. Safety<https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/05/08/manhattan-project-for-ai-…>.” This is premised on the false idea that there’s no alternative to A.G.I. But wouldn’t our quest for augmenting intelligence be far more effective if the government funded a Manhattan Project for culture and education and the institutions that nurture them instead? Without such efforts, the vast cultural resources of our existing public institutions risk becoming mere training data sets for A.G.I. start-ups, reinforcing the falsehood that society doesn’t exist. Depending on how (and if) the robot rebellion unfolds, A.G.I. may or may not prove an existential threat. But with its antisocial bent and its neoliberal biases, A.G.I.-ism already is: We don’t need to wait for the magic Roombas to question its tenets. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/30/opinion/artificial-intelligence-danger.h…

June 30, 2023

Re: [nexa] Gli orrori annunciati dell’IA diventano realtà. Come reagire?

by 380°

Buongiorno, premetto che non ho ascoltato il podcast di Attivissimo e non ho intenzione di farlo, ho solo un paio di commenti sui commenti in merito alla domanda inclusa nel subject avrei alcune modeste proposta: no panic ma soprattutto non facciamo confusione tra fenomeno e epifenomeno, tra correlazione e causazione. Fabio Alemagna <falemagn(a)gmail.com> writes: > Il giorno ven 30 giu 2023 alle ore 10:07 Alberto Cammozzo via nexa < > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: >> >> Le temute truffe di identità basate sulle immagini sintetiche si sono >> concretizzate e sono in corso; > > A me preoccupano di più gli usi che enti governativi potrebbero fare di > tecnologie come questa. False evidenze a carico di persone ritenute > scomode: opponenti politici, attivisti per i diritti umani, e chi più ne ha > più ne metta. Tecnologie come questa sono ormai qui per restare, bandirne o > regolarne l'uso per i "comuni mortali" non impedirebbe a chi "comune > mortale" non è di farne gli usi più disparati, pressoché sicuramente non a > vantaggio della comunità. che si tratti di enti amministrativi, governativi, agenzia di intelligence, aziende multinazionali o organizzazioni criminali (e a volte gli insiemi si intersecano) cambia poco, la cosa che io trovo _etremamente_ positiva dei sistemi computerizzati generativi (machine learning o no) è che rendono sempre più alla portata di tutti creare falsi, incluse identità false la soluzione a tutto questo non _deve_ essere quella di introdurre ulteriori "patenti" che consentano l'accesso a simili tecnologia, altrimenti le parole "democrazia" e "partecipazione" perderebbero ulteriormente di senso, che già sono messe male, ma proprio male male in poche parole: un grosso NO alla criminalizzazione degli strumenti, in particolare quelli informatici se ci sono dei problemi tecnologici con la gestione delle "identità digitali" è SOLO teconogicamente che _devono_ essere risolti... e POSSONO essere risolti > Probabilmente la strategia della Mutual assured destruction > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction> è l'unica > reale difesa contro questo tipo di situazione, sì ma cerchiamo di sgombrare il campo da un possibile equivoco: gli strumenti informatici NON sono armi, tantomeno con potenziale distruttivo del livello di armi atomiche, biologiche e chi più ne ha più ne inventi io respingo CON FORZA qualsiasi tentativo di paragonare "i bit" e i sistemi basati su di essi a /armi/: no way! > il che significa che la piena e libera disponibilità di queste > tecnologie è l'unica vera difesa verso il loro abuso. la disponibilità non serve a nulla se non è possibile poterle studiare, ecc. ecc.. le 4 libertà fondamentali del software libero, in poche parole solo comprendendo il funzionamento degli automatismi che ci circondano (come direbbe Giacomo Tesio) possiamo dotarci degli strumenti intellettuali e tecnologici per evitare di cascare nell'eteronomia (grazie Kant!), guadagnando maggiori livelli di autonomia > Nel momento presente siamo in una fase di transizione che viene con i > suoi disagi. Del resto, il furto d'identità non è una novità, con > milioni di casi l'anno in tutto il mondo, e non ho visto evidenze che > la cosa sia peggiorata in maniera significativa. concordo, io non credo affatto che il problema delle AI generative sia quello che rendono più facile il furto d'identità... per come fa schifo oggi il sistema di gestione della "identità digitale" basta un semplice phishing :-O >> i siti di disinformazione generano fiumi di falsità per incassare milioni; > Anche in questo caso, è forse una novità? ma soprattutto: cosa diavolo è la disinformazione?!? a parte definizioni vaghe e soggettive, qualcuno è mai riuscito a definire giuridicamente "disinformazione"? E filosoficamente? inoltre, in merito alla disinformazione si è discusso molto in questa lista, qui una _opinionated_ list: - https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2022-May/023803.html "The Liberal Obsession With ‘Disinformation’ Is Not Helping" - https://server-nexa.polito.it/pipermail/nexa/2022-November/024305.html "Truth Cops - Leaked Documents Outline DHS’s Plans to Police Disinformation" ogni volta che leggo "disinformazione" sento una forte puzza di censura > La disinformazione non ha mai avuto bisogno dell'IA fino ad oggi, > avviene e avveniva tutti i giorni anche sui media mainstream. le vie della cens... ops disinformazione sono infinite :-D > Evidenze che le cose siano significativamente peggiorate, con impatti > sulla società che vanno (molto) al di là dei guadagni di chi fa > disinformazione non ne ho viste. Qualcuno ha riferimenti in tal senso? concordo: che differenza fa la disinformazione generata dalle persone rispetto a quella generata dalle AI? forse la differenza con l'introduzione dell'AI è che le persone che **producono** disinformazione (tecnicamente: notizie false o narrazioni faziose spacciate come fatti) perderanno il loro posto da "creativi"? ...ma anche la lotta alla disinformazione si è evoluta e impiega l'AI per scovarla: https://jigsaw.google.com/issues/#disinformation --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- Confronting the threat of disinformation As the tactics of disinformation campaigns become more sophisticated, we’re building new technology to strengthen our collective defenses. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- Caspita che brutta fine per l'indistria dei FAT checkers essere sostituiti da sistemi di FAT checking automatici basati su machine learning. ...nel frattempo, come antidoto, propongo una massicia dose di human learning che aiuta parecchio a essere autonomi nel riconoscere le falsità: però attenzione, questa attività richiede moltissima /fatica/ e tempi moderatamente lunghi, esattamente l'opposto rispetto all'"informazione facile" con la quale siamo letteralmente bombardati >> e le immagini di abusi su minori generate dal software travolgono, per >> pura quantità, chi cerca di arginare questi orrori. > > Dirò qualcosa di non convenzionale, in tal senso: e se questo fosse un modo > per tenere lontano dai bambini in carne e ossa i pedofili? Potrebbe persino > essere che grazie all'IA usata a tal maniera vedremmo calare gli abusi su > minori: sarebbe questo un male? capisco la provocazione non convenzionale e mi intriga, ma dubito seriamente che chi diffonde tali immagini abbia quelle intenzioni :-) la materia è complessa e **molto** delicata, l'abuso minorile [1] comprende i reati legati al materiale pornografico minorile [2] che a seconda degli ordinamenti si /sovrappone/ giuridicamente a quelli legati al materiale pedopornografico [3] Wikipedia in merito alla legislazione italiana dice [4]: --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- La norma codicistica italiana intende come pedopornografico quel materiale che "ritrae o rappresenta visivamente un minore implicato o coinvolto in una condotta sessualmente esplicita, quale può essere anche la semplice esibizione lasciva dei genitali o della regione pubica".[9] Dal 2 marzo 2006 ciò si applica anche a fotomontaggi, fotoritocchi e in generale a immagini fotorealistiche realizzate utilizzando scatti o parti di scatti di soggetti minorenni. Questo si applica per attività sessuali e analoghe e anche se i fotomontaggi non ritraggono scene realmente accadute. Tuttavia, a differenza di altri Paesi, la legge italiana non si applica ai disegni che siano chiaramente distinguibili come tali (per esempio lolicon o shotacon) e non come fotorealistici. La legge infatti recita chiaramente che "per immagini virtuali si intendono quelle realizzate ritoccando foto di minori o parti di esse con tecniche di elaborazione grafica [...] la cui qualità di rappresentazione fa apparire come vere situazioni non reali".[10][11] In Italia il semplice possesso di materiale pornografico coinvolgente minori costituisce reato e per i soggetti coinvolti è prevista come pena accessoria l'interdizione a vita dall'attività nelle scuole e negli uffici o servizi in istituzioni o strutture prevalentemente frequentate da minori. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- in Italia non mi pare ci sia una sostanziale distinzione tra abusi su minori e abusi pedopornografici (sbaglio?) le immagini fotorealistiche di pornografia minorile generate per mezzo di sistemi ML vanno quindi a incrementare (non so di quanto) la quantità di materiale illegale; mi pare una questione di quantità più che di sostanza nella lotta agli abusi su minori o pedofili ribaltando la cosa, invece, mi pare degno di nota il fatto che tali immagini fotorealistiche possano (potenzialmente) essere generate dagli investigatori per essere utilizzate (potenzialmente) in azioni sotto copertura di infiltrazione in organizzazioni dedite allo sfruttamento sessuale minorile, senza usare quelle di situazioni reali. comunque, rispetto al serissimo problema degli abusi su minori e pedofili, non vedo come le immagini generate possano sostanzialmente peggiorare la situazione cordiali saluti, 380° [1] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuso_minorile_(ordinamento_italiano)#Fonti [2] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornografia_minorile https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornografia_minorile_(ordinamento_italiano) [3] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedopornografia [4] https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedopornografia#In_Italia > > Fabio > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa -- 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>.

June 30, 2023

Re: [nexa] Gli orrori annunciati dell’IA diventano realtà. Come reagire?

by Fabio Alemagna

Il giorno ven 30 giu 2023 alle ore 10:07 Alberto Cammozzo via nexa < nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > > Le temute truffe di identità basate sulle immagini sintetiche si sono concretizzate e sono in corso; A me preoccupano di più gli usi che enti governativi potrebbero fare di tecnologie come questa. False evidenze a carico di persone ritenute scomode: opponenti politici, attivisti per i diritti umani, e chi più ne ha più ne metta. Tecnologie come questa sono ormai qui per restare, bandirne o regolarne l'uso per i "comuni mortali" non impedirebbe a chi "comune mortale" non è di farne gli usi più disparati, pressoché sicuramente non a vantaggio della comunità. Probabilmente la strategia della Mutual assured destruction <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction> è l'unica reale difesa contro questo tipo di situazione, il che significa che la piena e libera disponibilità di queste tecnologie è l'unica vera difesa verso il loro abuso. Nel momento presente siamo in una fase di transizione che viene con i suoi disagi. Del resto, il furto d'identità non è una novità, con milioni di casi l'anno in tutto il mondo, e non ho visto evidenze che la cosa sia peggiorata in maniera significativa. > i siti di disinformazione generano fiumi di falsità per incassare milioni; Anche in questo caso, è forse una novità? La disinformazione non ha mai avuto bisogno dell'IA fino ad oggi, avviene e avveniva tutti i giorni anche sui media mainstream. Evidenze che le cose siano significativamente peggiorate, con impatti sulla società che vanno (molto) al di là dei guadagni di chi fa disinformazione non ne ho viste. Qualcuno ha riferimenti in tal senso? > e le immagini di abusi su minori generate dal software travolgono, per pura quantità, chi cerca di arginare questi orrori. Dirò qualcosa di non convenzionale, in tal senso: e se questo fosse un modo per tenere lontano dai bambini in carne e ossa i pedofili? Potrebbe persino essere che grazie all'IA usata a tal maniera vedremmo calare gli abusi su minori: sarebbe questo un male? Fabio

June 30, 2023

Gli orrori annunciati dell’IA diventano realtà. Come reagire?

by Alberto Cammozzo

<https://attivissimo.blogspot.com/2023/06/podcast-rsi-story-gli-orrori-annun…> Quando sono stati annunciati pubblicamente i primi software di intelligenza artificiale capaci di generare immagini e testi, per molti imprenditori la reazione istintiva è stata un entusiasmo sconfinato di fronte all’idea di poter tagliare i costi di produzione dei contenuti mettendo al lavoro questi nuovi servitori digitali al posto delle persone. Ma per molti altri, anche non esperti di informatica, la reazione è stata ben diversa. Paura, pura e semplice. Paura per il proprio posto di lavoro e paura per i possibili abusi, facilmente prevedibili, di questa tecnologia. Questa è la storia di come quella paura del possibile è oggi diventata reale, raccontata attraverso tre casi recenti che sono un campanello d’allarme urgente. Le temute truffe di identità basate sulle immagini sintetiche si sono concretizzate e sono in corso; i siti di disinformazione generano fiumi di falsità per incassare milioni; e le immagini di abusi su minori generate dal software travolgono, per pura quantità, chi cerca di arginare questi orrori. La politica nazionale e internazionale si china su queste questioni con i suoi tempi inevitabilmente lunghi, ma nel frattempo i danni personali e sociali sono già gravi e tangibili, ed è decisamente il momento di chiedersi se si possa fare qualcosa di più di un coro tedioso di meritatissimi “Ve l’avevamo detto”. Benvenuti alla puntata del 30 giugno 2023 del Disinformatico, il podcast della Radiotelevisione Svizzera dedicato alle notizie e alle storie strane – e questa settimana inquietanti – dell’informatica. Io sono Paolo Attivissimo. [...]

June 30, 2023

webinar: AI Act and facial recognition technology (June 30, 2-3pm)

by Milan, Stefania

Dear colleagues Sperando di fare cosa gradita… Why should we worry about facial recognition technology? Will the AI Act change things for real? If you are curious to know more about the forthcoming AI Act, join us tomorrow Friday the 30th of June at 2pm, for a 1-h webinar on the AI Act with a focus of facial recognition technology. Further details can be found here<https://www.eui.eu/events?id=560748>—do register for the link. The webinar engages Marjolein Lanzing from the University of Amsterdam/Bits of Freedom and Laura Carrer from the Hermes Center for Technology and Human Rights and freelance journalist. No presentations but a lively conversation, hosted by the Chair in AI & Democracy, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute. Hope to see you there! Best, Stefania Stefania Milan (she/her) Professor of Critical Data Studies, University of Amsterdam | https://stefaniamilan.net Fellow (2022-23), Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) Faculty Associate (2022-23), Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University Research Associate, Chair “AI and Democracy”, School of Transnational Governance, European University Institute Project Leader, Citizenship and standard-setting in digital networks (IN-SIGHT) (NWO Responsible Innovation Grant MVI.19.032) | https://in-sight.it Co-Principal Investigator, e-LADDA (MSCA 857897) | https://e-ladda.eu @annliffey | @data_ctive | @bigdatasur +31627875425 | +31(0)205252416 Fingerprint: 5A7B  6330  5684  FC39  3DC0 67D7  08B3  50AE  6AF5  1B63 The information transmitted is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, distribution, forwarding, or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited without the express permission of the sender. If you received this communication in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer.

June 29, 2023