In reality, there is a thick cloud of smokey hype around...

In reality, there is a thick cloud of smokey hype around AI, and it's not clear that the promises being made by the corps betting billions will ever be fulfilled (IMO gen AI is ~a solution in search of a problem so big it justifies the $$ to create/run it, which few do). 6/

Like 10 March at 17:07 | Open on mastodon.world

4 comments

Meredith Whittaker

Which raises a much more urgent question: does AI justify the diversion of such funding from, say, libraries, parks, schools, etc. to Google, Amazon, Microsoft on behalf of research? And if so, where's the hard proof backing this significant tradeoff? 7/

10 March at 17:08 | Open on mastodon.world

Meredith Whittaker

For more, a paper I wrote a few years ago: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4135581 8/

Abstract
In considering how to tackle this onslaught of industrial AI, we must first recognize that the “advances” in AI celebrated over the past decade were not due to fundamental scientific breakthroughs in AI techniques. They were and are primarily the product of significantly concentrated data and compute resources that reside in the hands of a few large tech corporations. Modern AI is fundamentally dependent on corporate resources and business practices, and our increasing reliance on such AI cedes inordinate power over our lives and institutions to a handful of tech firms. It also gives these firms significant influence over both the direction of AI development and the academic institutions wishing to research it.

Meaning that tech firms are startlingly well positioned to shape what we do—and do not—know about AI and the business behind it, at the same time that their AI products are working to shape our lives and institutions.

Examining the history of the U.S. military’s influence over scientific research during the Cold War, we see parallels to the tech industry’s current influence over AI. This history also offers alarming examples of the way in which U.S. military dominance worked to shape academic knowledge production, and to punish those who dissented.

Today, the tech industry is facing mounting regulatory pressure, and is increasing its efforts to create tech-positive narratives and to silence and sideline critics in

10 March at 17:08 | Open on mastodon.world

Meredith Whittaker

And this stellar report from Sarah Myers West and Jai Vipra, via AI Now. 9/

https://ainowinstitute.org/publication/policy/compute-and-ai

10 March at 17:10 | Open on mastodon.world

Meredith Whittaker

(Bonus, for the vocab builders among us, the word 'iatrogenic' is helpful in metaphorically describing the false solution space current proposals present.)

10 March at 17:10 | Open on mastodon.world

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