from the train-an-anti-AI-to-counter-their-AI dept.
Deep Learning 'Godfather' Bengio Worries About China's Use of AI
Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian computer scientist who helped pioneer the techniques underpinning much of the current excitement around artificial intelligence, is worried about China's use of AI for surveillance and political control.
Bengio, who is also a co-founder of Montreal-based AI software company Element AI, said he was concerned about the technology he helped create being used for controlling people's behavior and influencing their minds.
"This is the 1984 Big Brother scenario," he said in an interview. "I think it's becoming more and more scary."
[...] The Chinese government has begun using closed circuit video cameras and facial recognition to monitor what its citizens do in public, from jaywalking to engaging in political dissent. It's also created a National Credit Information Sharing Platform, which is being used to blacklist rail and air passengers for "anti-social" behavior and is considering expanding uses of this system to other situations.
"The use of your face to track you should be highly regulated," Bengio said.
Bengio is not alone in his concern over China's use-cases for AI. Billionaire George Soros recently used a speech at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 24, to highlight the risks the country's use of AI poses to civil liberties and minority rights.
Also at Futurism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 04 2019, @11:02PM (6 children)
The last few years I have convinced me otherwise.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 04 2019, @11:30PM (5 children)
Why? The Chinese government cares nothing for you.
If you want to travel to their country as a tourist, they will be more than happy to take your money, and will show you a good time.
If they want to try to control their population using AI they're just using a different method than the governments we all live under.
My own government uses propaganda (poorly in my opinion) as do the massively profitable global corporations that control the economy.
The difference between us and the Chinese is that propaganda works pretty well, and I'm not sure that AI does yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:01AM
It's the principle of the thing, sir!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdpemlyYJ9M [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:01AM (3 children)
That is, unless they feel like retaliating against your country for arresting a high-level executive of one of their companies for allegedly violating trade sanctions. [soylentnews.org]
Then your visit becomes a one-way trip and you become a pawn in the game of geopolitics.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:03AM (2 children)
If the A/C is a former diplomat or high-ranking executive then my comment does not stand.
I don't think A/C is either of those things, do you?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:37AM (1 child)
HEY! I'm a unique crystal in human form. If the Chinese knew what I could show them you bet your ass (or brainz?) they'd be trying to woo me over there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:37AM
Crystal != Snowflake
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday February 04 2019, @11:16PM
To bring me news like this on the day of my robotic daughter's wedding.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday February 04 2019, @11:18PM (3 children)
> I think it's becoming more and more scary.
No shit, well, too late.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 04 2019, @11:23PM (2 children)
If there are still orders [soylentnews.org] of magnitude [darpa.mil] of computer performance improvements yet to be realized, things will get extra scary.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by fyngyrz on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:49AM (1 child)
Speaking as a US citizen:
Anyone who isn't already extra-scared by the various downsides human intelligence has imposed upon us is not really paying attention.
Sure, things can get worse. And given that the public has allowed things to get as bad as they are now without putting a stop to it, I'm sure that's going to happen.
The signs have been fairly obvious for decades. Pretty much since the powers that be decided that SSNs were personal identifiers rather than account numbers. Ever tighter the grip; ever warmer the water. Happy little frogs.
--
I may be apathetic, but I don't care.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday February 05 2019, @01:18AM
A lot of people are currently assuming that Moore's law will completely run out of steam. We might see a doubling of CPU performance and a few hundred percent more GPU performance in this scenario, and then classical computing hits a brick wall. Optimizations will be made for at least a while, and purpose-built TPUs and ASICs could give machine/deep learning an additional push. Further algorithmic improvements could have a bigger impact than new hardware, leading to more capable AI. This is the scary scenario.
In the extra scary scenario, we could use a new type of transistor and 3D architectures to completely reinvigorate the performance race. Getting rid of most of the waste heat not only allows you to boost clock speeds and use less power (well, one follows the other), but it allows you to more easily stack layers of cores and memory. Computers could get hundreds, thousands, or even millions of times faster for certain tasks. Then you factor in various optimizations and algorithmic improvements. If you get a 1,000x increase, suddenly, training the AI takes a minute instead of 17 hours. Or you can accomplish good results on much more complicated tasks that are a reach for today's algorithms.
Is the first world 95% as scary as the second world, or more like 25% or 5%? We can only guess. But if we get those performance increases (and there are more candidate technologies than the two I've been linking lately), they are going to be a double-edged sword.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 04 2019, @11:28PM (3 children)
My prediction is a push from public to private at a civilization wide scale, with a side dish of lots of private monitoring (alexa spy recordings type stuff)
For a brief period of time, tech was about being public as possible; likely to change focus to being as private as possible. Not as easy to monetize, but luckily computing power is getting infinitely cheap.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:14AM (2 children)
I think you may be right, and that we should push ubiquitous surveillance to be first implemented on politicians and corporate executives - the individuals whose bad behavior can do the most harm to the most people, with the surveillance footage all made public (perhaps with a delay to avoid compromising physical security). If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear, yada,yada,yada.
That serves two purposes: first, it highlights the hypocritical authoritarians in a very clear fashion. Secondly, if it gets implemented anyway, it helps maintain a balance of power between the public and authorities that would otherwise be very one-sided.
(Score: 2) by datapharmer on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:55AM (1 child)
Oh so you watched the movie “the circle”?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday February 05 2019, @05:18AM
I have not. Is it any good?
I think I was first introduced to the idea by a David Brin essay on radical transparency, or something to that effect.
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:14AM (2 children)
I did a beautiful Sub about this one. Where I said, we're doing the Facial at my White House, it's working out so well there. But, they brought in one of their guys to re-do it. And gave me ZERO credit. Because they don't like my politics. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome, folks. And it's very unfair!! foxnews.com/tech/big-brother-ai-pioneer-fears-chinas-use-of-technology-for-surveillance-and-control [foxnews.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:33AM
Hopefully the real Trump builds a wall around you. It will be called "Hillary"
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @02:43AM
The last Facial to happen in the Whitehouse was during Clinton's reign.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:24AM (1 child)
America and the West will abuse it plenty.
(Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday February 05 2019, @12:38AM
Laws of evolution:
- if something is possible, it will exist/be used, even if idiotic
- if something is impossible, it will be attempted many times, even if idiotic.
In the light of the laws above, it is guarantee it will happen. So, why worry at all?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford