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New research has shown just how bad AI is at dealing with online trolls.
Such systems struggle to automatically flag nudity and violence, don’t understand text well enough to shoot down fake news and aren’t effective at detecting abusive comments from trolls hiding behind their keyboards.
A group of researchers from Aalto University and the University of Padua found this out when they tested seven state-of-the-art models used to detect hate speech. All of them failed to recognize foul language when subtle changes were made, according to a paper [PDF] on arXiv.
Adversarial examples can be created automatically by using algorithms to misspell certain words, swap characters for numbers or add random spaces between words or attach innocuous words such as ‘love’ in sentences.
The models failed to pick up on adversarial examples and successfully evaded detection. These tricks wouldn’t fool humans, but machine learning models are easily blindsighted. They can’t readily adapt to new information beyond what’s been spoonfed to them during the training process.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:03AM (20 children)
So, you think it's ok to spread lies, propaganda and hate? Enough that it damages society and the culture we live in? Enough that some people start believing it, and believing when you tell them to only trust you?
There are, and should be, consequences when people lie in an effort to benefit themselves at the cost of others. This is already in place for those who lie regarding financial transactions. Should it not be in place for those who try to turn people against each other solely for the purpose of financial or political gain?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @10:20AM (7 children)
How do you filter out "lies, propaganda, and hate" without risk that those filtering tools won't eventually fall into the hands of the people who rely on "lies, propaganda, and hate"? I think there's an obvious lesson to the past 20 years, namely, that your ideological foes will sooner or later get a chance at power. The more power one creates now, the more power they'll have the next time.
That's why the original poster's concerns are so relevant. It's not just never seeing anything objectionable, it's never seeing anything objectionable to whoever is in power.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Unixnut on Saturday September 01 2018, @11:36AM (3 children)
> How do you filter out "lies, propaganda, and hate"
I mean shit, forget filtering it. How do you define "lies, propaganda and hate"? Sure, some things are clear cut, but the vast majority is not. Usually what qualifies as "lies, propaganda, and hate" is whatever those in power define it is. It is the most dangerous thing to attempt to censor people, even if you think it wise to do so. Eventually when given the power to censor, those in power will use it to maintain themselves in power, at your expense if needs be.
It is best to let everyone speak their mind, because they are thinking it whether you like it or not. Letting it out in public lets it be challenged and debated, whereas suppressing it makes those people think they are on the right path, and are being persecuted.
Driving it underground results in those ideas festering without challenge, being self reinforced within the group, and eventually explodes on the scene when a critical mass of people starts believing it (which, because they are not allowed to speak their mind, nobody can be sure how many people actually think that way in private).
Censoring people is just a way for those doing the censoring to stick their heads in the sand and pretend their world is as they wish it to be. Eventually reality catches up and smacks them upside the head.
Plus I don't want to live in a world of thoughtcrime, even though it seems there is a sizable minority (even within the tech community) that desires quite such a world.
Oh, and machines suck at filtering "lies, propaganda, and hate", because its very hard to define such things in a clear and logical manner. Saying the "sky is pink" is a lie, but it can also be a joke, or sarcasm, or it could be code word meaning something more offensive. How can an algorithm know that?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @11:44AM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday September 01 2018, @01:17PM (1 child)
This is like figuring out how to set the "evil bit". Also, Bowdlerization, named after a 19th century guy who tried to sanitize fiction. He replaced profanity with milder language, tried to edit out sexual innuendos, subversive ideas, and so on, and ended up ruining the story. Some of the TV censorship they used to try in 1950s and 1960s America is just nuts. The Ed Sullivan Show censored musicians, so, for instance The Rolling Stones "Let's Spend The Night Together" was changed to "Let's Spend Some Time Together". Now most people appreciate that trying to hide the existence of sex from teenagers doesn't work, doesn't fool them for long, and often doesn't end well. Even dictionaries practiced censorship. I had a 1948 Websters that defined "masturbate" with just 2 words: "self pollution". (That dictionary also had an entry for "yellow peril". Yeah, it was extremely racist.) I think also that squeamishness about digestion has lessened, and a good thing too, as related medical problems often went untreated and even unrecognized thanks to ignorance on that subject. I have read that there was a lively debate on Wikipedia over whether to include a picture of human poop on the page about feces, finally resolved in favor of having the pictures.
Other terrible uses of censorship are to cater to racism and other forms of discrimination, and to suppress dissent. Star Trek (the original series) was the first to have a scene in which a white and a black kissed. The first time I saw it, I had no idea that scene was such a big deal. But Star Trek did a lot more than that. The censors also didn't like criticism of the Vietnam War, and Star Trek worked that in too, and got it past the censors by distracting them with sex. That's the chief reason why the female crew members in Star Trek had such short, short uniforms. Of course it was also because sex does sell, but mainly it was a calculated distraction not for the audience, but for the censors so that they'd be so busy censoring out the boatloads of sex that they missed the veiled references to the stupidities of the Vietnam War.
Conservatives try to get messages across to liberals, but the liberals aren't listening too well, very aggravatingly dismissing the conservatives as idiots and all their thinking as stupid. (Mind you, the contempt and refusal to acknowledge facts is even thicker in the other direction. Further, the media loves to fan the flames, to make "good copy".) That message is that life has its ugly sides. Conservatives are particularly focused on the fact that life is highly competitive, and see liberals as fools for not appreciating that enough. They have good reason to view outsiders as foes looking to compete with us for limited resources, because they'd do it themselves to those outsiders. At the least, they want to maintain a show of strength so those others don't start to get certain ideas along those lines. Such messages are particularly vulnerable to being thought bad and deserving of censorship.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 01 2018, @09:38PM
I suppose there is a modest amount of projection there. But really this sort of automated censorship is so bad that one doesn't need to have a conservative viewpoint to see the problems. So much of the argument for this sort of thing is "A is bad. B solves A. Thus, we should do B." without regard for whether either of the first two statements is correct (though I grant the stereotypical hate speech is bad in at least a couple of relevant ways in this case) nor considering the cost of B.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:28PM (2 children)
The obvious debuttal, obviously, is to start with the egregious cases. #Bankhallow!!!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 02 2018, @02:23AM (1 child)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @10:18AM
#banmorekhallow!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:20PM (7 children)
Abso-fucking-lutely. Why? Because someone has to be in charge of deciding what constitutes "lies, propaganda and hate" and that's power just fucking begging to be abused.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @07:01PM (6 children)
You have to treat 'incitement' and advocacy the same way. Speech is merely speech. Only one person is responsible for the decisions he makes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday September 02 2018, @02:29AM (5 children)
Not at all. If someone is organizing attacks or other violence via public communication (for example, the genocides in Rwanda were often directed via radio stations), that's not legitimate discourse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @03:50PM (1 child)
Letting the government decide what is and is not legitimate discourse is dangerous. People are responsible for their own actions. If someone chooses to listen to someone preaching violence, then that is on the person who chose to listen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 03 2018, @12:41AM
How about a jury of your peers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 03 2018, @01:11AM (2 children)
that's not legitimate discourse.
It's not for you to decide what is "legitimate discourse"... A person's decision to act violently is entirely personal, and only he is responsible. The participants are responsible for the attacks, not the "organizers"
via public communication
Oh, I see. It should all be done in secret, like the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday September 03 2018, @06:27PM (1 child)
It's estimated that 900k people died as a result of the genocide and its coordination via public media like radio stations. I think I can make that judgment just fine.
But there's a big difference between having a bunch of people who are willing to act violently, and having those people act violently in a way that causes a lot of damage. Coordinated violence can be a lot more harmful than uncoordinated violence.
That raises the threshold on coordinated violence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @11:44PM
There is no logic in that whatsoever. You are merely playing a numbers game. The people who decide raise the sword are the only ones to blame for the bloodshed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @02:38PM (1 child)
"So, you think it's ok to spread lies, propaganda and hate? Enough that it damages society and the culture we live in? Enough that some people start believing it, and believing when you tell them to only trust you?"
.
You have absolutely not thought through all the ramifications of what you apparently believe is a desirable "solution".
Whether you realize it or not, in your scheme, whoever is in power gets to decide what is a lie, what is hateful, and what is propaganda. And that gives the entity in power a lot more power than any entity which governs people should ever have, if the well-being of those who are governed is considered.
The importance of the dangerous downside of filtering is illustrated in the book "1984", in which there was an authority called "The Ministry of Truth". I doubt you have read this book. You NEED to read it !!! It is a book that is very important because of the lessons it contains which pertain to a totalitarian state and the behavior of that state toward the general population.
You are ( obviously ) motivated by fear, which is a dangerous motivation when problems which require calm logical analysis are at hand. You obviously want a world which is nice and friendly and safe and not offensive. That is a nice dream, but realistically it is simply not possible, PERIOD. Those people who would like to gain power over you and the rest of us want you to believe it is possible so you accept their scheme of manipulating information. Their scheme of manipulating information will have a lot of appeal to some people who think on a childish level, but the very same scheme will correctly seem monstrous to people who have thought through the full implications of such a scheme.
I sincerely do not mean any disrespect, but if you are willing to embrace some authority filtering all news and speech so it is "sanitized", you are a simple-minded
shortsighted person. And there are a lot of you out there. You are willing to walk to the slaughterhouse ( metaphorically speaking ) without being forced to do so, and you are compliant when you face those who would be your oppressor. It is impossible for me not to have serious concern for your mindset, because you are a gullible naive person who will accept awful things which are disguised by those in power as good things, and if there are enough of you and you all vote, society is FUCKED.
It is far better to allow ALL speech and use your own brain to filter it. If you are incapable of doing this, or unwilling to do this, it is not reasonable of you to expect the rest of us to fall into line with your acceptance of your desire to be "protected" by an agency which filters information. In a very real sense, if you accept such filtering you are as bad as any other enemy of freedom. Wars have been fought and many people have died to protect the freedom you want to willingly surrender. I hope you spend some more time thinking through this stuff so you realize that your notion of filtering comes with a price that is far too high and will always be too high for those who love freedom.
I am ready to fight and die to make sure stuff like you want doesn't happen. I know you are not ready to do die for anything, because you are a coward. You just want a Walt Disney world which is sanitized so your sheep brain is more comfortable. Do not expect the rest of us to fall into line with your vision of how the world should be, because it is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. I sincerely hope you come to realize the errors in your thinking and as a result you decide to join the adult world, where we accept freedom of speech because the alternative is tantamount to being enslaved.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @01:27AM
"I am ready to fight and die to make sure stuff like you want doesn't happen."
.
Oh, by all means, go for it. Not a moment too soon, you are under attack and they are winning. Don't forget to take your medication though.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday September 01 2018, @04:42PM
Who gets to decide what's a lie, what's propaganda, and what's hate? It's not the computer: The AI only does what it's told to do, and is easily confused. As an example of how easy it is to confuse an AI: Should the sequence of characters " ZOG " be censored? Probably you think yes if they're referring to an anti-semitic acronym. But that could also refer to a sports organization [zogsports.com], or a scene from Babylon 5 [youtube.com], or probably a few other things, and an AI is going to have a tough time figuring out which one applies.
What exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean "Somebody I didn't like got elected to public office?"
Suckers have always been around.
There are ways of remedying this, but they don't involve censorship. Instead, what you have to do is teach critical thinking skills so that people are better at spotting lies and propaganda. You teach them all about logical fallacies, the techniques of propaganda, how to go about fact-checking for real, and of course give them a basic skepticism about the information they get.
The powers-that-be generally don't like this solution, because they know that if they do this they will now be faced with a population that no longer believes *their* lies and propaganda: "Everything goes better with Coca-Cola." "The war effort is to protect you." "$POLITICIAN is your friend." "The police are there to help you." "Your car needs to be bigger, faster, louder, stronger, more manly." "This pill will fix everything." "You need more stuff." "Stand when they sing this song because freedom." "If your nearest professional sports team wins, that matters to you." "This superfood will cure cancer." You get the idea.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 01 2018, @06:52PM
So, you think it's ok to spread lies, propaganda and hate?
Yes, of course it is! Filtering is the audience's obligation, not the speaker's
Enough that some people start believing it...?
Ah, there's your problem right there. The believers. Go after them, not the speaker. Rush Limbaugh isn't dangerous, his listeners are. Republicans and democrats aren't the bad guys, their voters are. 95% reelection rates speak much louder than all the complaining.