News — At The Edge — 2/25
Just two sets of articles this week: technology and political.
One technology issue discusses bioterrorism, which is clearly the most immediate threat. Key concern on the horizon is how long it will take after artificial general intelligence is developed for artificial super-intelligence to emerge?
- Bill Gates warns world leaders of bioterrorism threat -
- AI leaders: Machines will quickly outsmart us when they achieve human-level intelligence -
Political issues start with a very amusing Stephen Colbert video. But the most freighting article is about state-of-art in online political propaganda and manipulation. Unchecked, Russian interference will be the least of our electoral and political concerns.
- Stephen Colbert video — Never Fjorget What Happened In Sweden
- Who should own the robots? -
- The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine -
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Technology Issues –
Bill Gates warns world leaders of bioterrorism threat -
“A genetically engineered virus is easier to make and could kill more people than nuclear weapons — and yet no country on Earth is ready for the threat…‘by the work of nature or the hands of a terrorist…[and] an outbreak could kill tens of millions in the near future unless governments begin ‘to prepare…the same way we prepare for war….
We have forgotten how catastrophic [past]…epidemics have been’….[T]he Black Death…created a 200-year recession in Europe. ‘It’s not if, but when…[will] occur again’….[When] Ebola killed thousands two years ago…governments and militaries struggled to stop it from spreading….’Few, if any, such measures are in place for response to an epidemic….[yet] would be relatively easy to engineer a new flu strain’ by combining a version that spreads quickly with one that kills quickly….
[Today’s] governments out of touch with the companies that make vaccines, international health departments out of touch with one another, and militaries that may not have considered responding to a biological threat. ‘[Who’s] going to deal with the panic?’….[T]he threat of natural diseases [needing] ‘germ games’ simulations, better monitoring to spot outbreaks early, and systems to develop vaccines within weeks — rather than the 10-year lead time [now]….
’We need a new arsenal of weapons, antiviral drugs, antibodies, vaccines and new diagnostics’….[CDC] website lists seven agents — including anthrax, plague and bleeding fevers such as Ebola…[as] ingredients in a bioterrorist’s cookbook. The center’s sections on surveillance and ‘planning for all bioterrorism’ cite research papers…a decade old…[and] last epidemic simulation took place in 2001.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/18/bill-gates-bioterrorism-could-kill-more-than-nuclear-war-but-no-one-is-ready-to-deal-with-it/?utm_term=.9970681c77be
AI leaders: Machines will quickly outsmart us when they achieve human-level intelligence -
“[W]hen asked how long it will take for superintelligences to be developed when machines achieve human-level intelligence…[Elon] Musk replied…[an AI] threshold where it’s as smart as the smartest, most inventive human, then it really could be a matter of days before it’s smarter than sum of humanity.’ Others [thought]…several years…but none…said it will take more than 100 years….
’[T]he timescale is something that makes a huge difference….[If] happen quicker than society can respond then it’s harder to steer and you kind of have to hope’….DeepMind is winning the race to develop human-level AI…best known for [AI[…that defeated the world champion of the ancient Chinese board, Go.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-deepmind-machines-will-quickly-outsmart-humans-2017-2
Political Issues –
Stephen Colbert video (4+ min.) — Never Fjorget What Happened In Sweden
Who should own the robots? -
“There’s two versions….1. One or a small group of entrepreneurs owns the robots. 2. The government owns the robots….
[First] what is government in a world where everything is done by the robots?…[The] definition of having a monopoly on force, but then…robots are the government…[with] fifty people in the government [to]…allocate the federal budget subject to electoral constraints. Even a very small percentage of skim makes them fantastically wealthy, and…will manipulate robot software toward that end….
Alternatively, say that ten different private companies own varying shares of various robots, with each company having a small number of employees, and millions of shareholders….The government also regulates these companies, so…the companies produce the robots that then regulate them….[But] people don’t have much direct influence over robots. Most of the decisions are [made]…by software, and the humans are just trying to…pretend they are in charge.
Perhaps either way, the robots themselves have become the government and in effect they own themselves. Or is this how it already is, albeit with much of the ‘software’ being a set of social norms? Replacing social norms by self-modifying software –how big of a difference will it make?”
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/02/who-should-own-the-robots.html
The Rise of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine -
“[A] new automated propaganda machine…targeting people individually…[on] an emotional leash…[to] manipulate our opinions and behavior to advance specific political agendas….
Cambridge Analytica has…an invisible machine that preys on…voters to create large shifts in public opinion…that is quickly becoming the new deciding factor in elections around the world…owned and controlled by conservative and alt-right interests…[for] something exponentially more insidious — personalized, adaptive, and ultimately addictive propaganda….
Part 1: Big Data Surveillance Meets Computational Psychology…. Cambridge Analytica has…a model to translate [big]…data into a personality profile used to predict, then ultimately change your behavior…[correlating] ’ Facebook Likes with…[a] personality questionnaire used by psychologists….
[So] ‘with a mere ten ‘likes’…model could appraise a person’s character better than an average coworker. With seventy, it could ‘know’ a subject better than a friend; with 150 likes, better than their parents. With 300 likes [it]…could predict…behavior better than their partner. With even more likes it could exceed what a person thinks they know about themselves…[and] captured the same data for each person’s unwitting friends’….
Analytica went on a data shopping spree…snapping up data about your shopping habits, land ownership, where you attend church, what stores you visit, what magazines you subscribe to…[and] aggregated this data with voter roles, publicly available online data…and put it all into its predictive personality model….[Claims] a personality profile for every adult in the U.S. — 220 million…each with up to 5,000 data points…continually updated and improved the more data you spew out online….
Part 2: Automated Engagement Scripts that Prey on Your Emotions….[But] it’s what they do with that data that really matters. ‘Your behavior is driven by your personality and actually the more you can understand about people’s personality as psychological drivers, the more you can actually start to really tap in to why and how they make their decisions…[called] behavioral microtargeting…[using] psychographic profiles…to predict and then change their future behavior….
[Trump campaign] using 40–50,000 different variants of ads every day…continuously measuring responses and then adapting and evolving based on that response…’all done completely opaquely…[and] can focus on a five-mile radius’….Analytica relies not on what they say but what they do, tracking their online movements and interests and serving up multivariate ads designed to change a person’s behavior by preying on individual personality traits….
[T]he feedback is instant and the response automated…[much] done through Facebook dark posts…only visible to those being targeted….Dark posts…to depress voter turnout among key groups of democratic voters…[again] only visible to the targeted users….[but] Trump campaign to track the content of these ads….[But] no SEC oversight, no public scrutiny of Trump’s attack ads…[and] a way of transgressing 150 years of legislation…developed to make elections fair and open.’
Part 3: A Propaganda Network to Accelerate Ideas in Minutes….[I]n looking into the ‘fake news problem’…[there’s] a network of 23,000 pages and 1.3 million hyperlinks…[not] owned or operated by any one [entity]…[but] able to game Search Engine Optimization, increasing the visibility of fake and biased news anytime someone Googles an election-related term online’….
Every time someone likes one…or visits one of these websites, the scripts are then following you around the web…and to send them highly personalised political messages’….The more fake news that users engage with, the more addictive Analytica’s personality engagement algorithms can become….
[T]he technology community needs to anticipate how AI propaganda will soon be used for emotional manipulation in mobile messaging, virtual reality, and augmented reality.
Part 4: A Bot Gestapo to Police Public Debate If fake news created the scaffolding for…political propaganda machine, bots, or fake social media profiles, have become its foot soldiers — an army of political robots used to control conversations on social media and silence and intimidate journalists and others who might undermine their messaging….By election day, Trump’s bots outnumbered hers, 5:1….
[Now] an international network of governments, consultancies (often with owners or top management just one degree away from official government actors), and individuals who build and maintain massive networks of bots to amplify the messages of political actors, spread messages counter to those of their opponents, and silence those whose views or ideas might threaten those same political actors. ‘
The Chinese, Iranian, and Russian, governments employ their own social-media experts and pay small amounts of money to large numbers of people to generate pro-government messages’….Their goal, they said, is to ‘piss off’ other social media users, change their opinions, and silence their opponents….
The Future of the Weaponized AI Propaganda Machine…[This] represents…a new era in political messaging…and the harder it will become to counter or fight back against their messaging in the court of public opinion….[Even] negative engagement becomes a valuable asset…because every impulsive tweet can be treated like a psychographic experiment….
Cambridge Analytica (which Bannon sits on the board of) are now bringing fake news and automated propaganda to support far-right parties….Never has such a radical, international political movement had the precision and power of this kind of propaganda technology. Whether or not leaders, engineers, designers, and investors in the technology community respond to this threat will shape major aspects of global politics for the foreseeable future.
The future of politics will not be a war of candidates or even cash on hand…. Elections in 2018 and 2020 won’t be a contest of ideas, but a battle of automated behavior change. The fight for the future will be a proxy war of machine learning. It will be waged online, in secret, and with the unwitting help of all of you….[Only] by building better automated engagement systems that amplify genuine human passion rather than manipulate it — that other candidates and causes around the globe will be able to compete….
Implication #1: Public Sentiment Turns Into High-Frequency Trading….[W]e may see a similar process unfold in our public debates. Instead of battling press conferences and opinion articles…may turn into multi-billion dollar battles between competing algorithms, each deployed to sway public sentiment…. Algorithmic trading and ‘algorithmic public opinion’ are already connected. It’s likely they will continue to converge.
Implication #2: Personalized, Automated Propaganda That Adapts to Your Weaknesses What if…Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign…[has] 250 million algorithmic versions of their political message all updating in real-time, personalized to precisely fit the worldview and attack the insecurities of their targets? Instead of having to deal with misleading politicians, we may soon witness…pathologically-lying political and corporate bots that constantly improve at manipulating us.
Implication #3: Not Just a Bubble, But Trapped in Your Own Ideological Matrix….[Imagine] your favorite politics page or group on Facebook didn’t actually have any other human members, but was filled with dozens or hundreds of bots that made you feel at home and your opinions validated?”
https://medium.com/join-scout/the-rise-of-the-weaponized-ai-propaganda-machine-86dac61668b#.fzm6inl8v
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Doc Huston
