Soon after a fire engulfed Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris on Monday, news outlets began streaming live broadcasts on YouTube. Below several of the clips was an odd box of text: A snippet from Encyclopedia Britannica about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
YouTube, a division of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, introduced this text box feature last year to combat the spread of conspiracy theories, including those that question the 9/11 attacks. On Monday, YouTube’s software mistakenly labeled the plumes of smoke in Paris as footage from 2001, triggering the panel below the video.
“We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame cathedral,” said a YouTube spokesman. “These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call. We are disabling these panels for live streams related to the fire.”
Who are the humans to say the AI was wrong on this one? It found a correlation between the two topics and made its decision. The exact reasons for its decision are inscrutable to the humans, they are just contradicting the AI based on preconceived bias or because they don't like the resulting discussion.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by black6host on Tuesday April 16 2019, @11:54PM (15 children)
Who are we to question our AI overlords? That we made? And since we are human, which means we are imperfect, does it not stand to reason that our creations will also be imperfect? Learning is trial and error, perfection will never be achieved. And, if it is, I think I'll rue that day should I still be alive...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:01AM (8 children)
The AI may not be perfect, but it could be more capable of finding correlations between different events than humans.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:07AM (2 children)
Seems like a useful tool for conspiracy theorists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:42AM (1 child)
There's always the examples of the AI that determined, based on raw data, that minority-ridden neighborhoods were bad and in need of additional patrolling. Then the AI was called "racist" or something, and the solution was for more minorities and less whites to develop it.
But when you feed the AI idealized data rather than raw data, you get things like CNN saying that Hillary had a 90% chance of winning on election night. I doubt that Google's Jewgles working on their AI for Chinese censorship and social scores, and for Darpa's drone target identification systems, are massaging the raw data to be extra-rosy for humanitarian purposes while subverting or killing the dissidents of government clients is at stake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:27AM
I'd say it was a bad call if the AI called to report a need for trash pickup instead of calling for a fire.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NotSanguine on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:16AM (4 children)
Sure. There are correlations.
1. The twin towers were buildings. Notre Dame is a building;
2. The twin towers were world renowned. Notre Dame is world renowned;
3. The twin towers were a symbol of American prominence. Notre Dame is a symbol of French prominence;
4. The twin towers suffered great damage. Notre Dame suffered great damage;
5. The twin towers were a huge tourist attraction. Notre Dame is a huge tourist attraction;
6. The twin towers were a marvel of modern architecture. Notre Dame is a marvel of medieval architecture.
I could go on, as there are many other correlations. Firstly, most correlations between the two have nothing to do with terrorism or extremists. Secondly, as you know (or should) correlation is *not* causation.
If you assume that just because they are both famous buildings that were destroyed, they were both attacked by Muslim extremists, then you should also assume that these buildings were also attacked by Muslim extremists, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Westminster [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crystal_Palace [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tre_Kronor_(castle) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Block#Great_Fire [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_Modern_Art,_Rio_de_Janeiro [wikipedia.org]
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @09:40AM (1 child)
I think it was triggered more by:
7. Both were inside jobs
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:16PM
Your anal homoerotic fantasies aren't really relevant here.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:00AM
Also look at any image of Notre Dame from the front. What do you see? That's right: Two towers next to each other. With square layout, even.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday April 18 2019, @08:54AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:09AM (3 children)
Immediately after the fire was discovered, news was reporting that it wasn't arson or terrorists.
Problem: It wasn't yet possible to know. It still isn't possible to know. Ruling out arson and terrorism is 100% bullshit.
We're seeing a cover-up jump the gun. The fire was blazing away, and we're told all the things to believe.
It is interesting to note that the place was bombed on the previous Friday. It is interesting to note that Christian buildings in France are constantly getting vandalized by the immigrants. Apparently it is wrongthink to wonder if there might be a connection.
Even if the blaze turns out to be caused by a construction worker, that doesn't make it unintentional.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:29AM (1 child)
Video of a yellow vest at the start of the fire:
https://mobile.twitter.com/sotiridi/status/1117881029224615936 [twitter.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:26AM
Won't rule it out but aren't the yellow vests rural conservatives? Why would they burn their own church.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:38AM
Alex Jones started it because he got laughed out of that chicken joint.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:47AM
So the algebra of the null set is imperfect only because it comes from you humans? Nope. Finite beings can create infinite abstractions, see geometry. Inconsistent beings can create consistent abstractions. And hypothetical omnipotent perfect gods can create a universe containing systemd. Blows your mind I know. especially the latter.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:38PM
I didn't make it. I even tried to avoid it.
it's everyone else that seems to want someone else to make decisions for them, so they can go back to watching the kardashians.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:18AM (12 children)
That's where the 9/11 conspirators came from in 2001, and also the four Muslims with a drone who were arrested by French police yesterday.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:22AM (2 children)
The worst part is the French cover-up. They ruled out terrorism before an investigation even started. How much does Macron need the votes of slum-dwelling Muslims?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:31AM (1 child)
Moslems! If we call them Moslems, which is their true name [wikipedia.org], and totally not just something that could possibly only be of interest to linguists, we will gain power over them!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:05AM
Ah, but their True Name is Mussulman. Proof: It's no longer used, and now they are gaining power.
Let's start using that word again, and they'll be defeated! :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:25AM
Ah damn, beat me to it. I was going to suggest that Google had merely crawled the comments on the last article Soylent posted about the fire.
But, if it was not a 9/11 jet beams can't melt steel fuel conspiracy theory, maybe it was a 7/11 [soylentnews.org] conspiracy! The Mooooooooooslems are coming for our slurpees and roller grill hot dogs!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:46AM (5 children)
Off-topic, I know, but the only drones related to Notre Dame fire were those used by the firefighters [qz.com]
a captured image [twitter.com]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:01AM (3 children)
Chinese drones at the Notre Dame fire? Great - another China conspiracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:19AM (2 children)
Chinese Moslems are also known as Uighurs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:35AM
Weegers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:36AM
And the proper way to greet one is: "What up, my Uighur"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:29PM
Look, we all know a drone flew into the Notre Dame which resulted in this fire. The question is: who piloted it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @12:46AM (1 child)
The 9/11 conspirators came from Jerusalem, home of the khazar jews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:46AM
Since when is Jerusalem in Saudi Arabia?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:01AM (3 children)
The fact that google made a tool to flag 'conspiracy theories' is proof of their (tribe's) complicity in many of the conspiracies. Google is acting like The Ministry Of Truth, checking other people's videos to make sure no ungood thoughts are being distributed.
This is censorship, and it must end. They talk about China and its censorship, but the West is worse. They tell you you are free every 2 seconds because you are not. China makes no such claims of their citizens being free.
Any free country with free people still left will take over and rule the world some day. Communist dictatorships will go down no matter what they call themselves. Freedom is natural. Communist dictatorship is not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:41AM
You're missing 2 additional sets of parentheses there.
This is the dot-coms' vaunted goodthink service, the one that Facebook and Google promised the Deep State would be there to purify American's thoughts from any disturbing or foreign information.
Nice to see another AI failure.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:29AM
Aren't you late for a Bund [wikipedia.org] meeting or something?
Shitstain.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:29AM
Aren't you late for a Bund [wikipedia.org] meeting or something?
Shitstain.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by inertnet on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:24AM (6 children)
For me this fire triggered the same overwhelming sense of loss I felt watching the 9/11 attack. Circumstances were completely different of course and luckily this time no lives were lost, but watching it live on television made me think of 9/11 again. Nothing to do with conspiracy theories. I know that people exist who would love to start a worldwide civil war as soon as possible, but when watching these fires all I could think of was the incredible loss.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:45AM
I heard about it on the radio hours before I saw any images, but I immediately thought it was like the French 9/11 (except no deaths).
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:34AM (3 children)
"worldwide civil war"
dude, my man, what does that even mean? Did you think through that statement before writing it? Thank the gods we have not established a global government. Have you assume we have?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:52AM
The global government is a fact, LOL, you been living under a rock? America that outsources to CHINA? Russia that stops being the archenemy OVERNIGHT and becomes the most capitalist society? China that builds residential areas in africa for who knows what reason? Swift transactions being able to determine a pope resigning? LOL
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Wednesday April 17 2019, @08:55AM
I should have written religious war. We don't have a global government, but we do have several religions that operate worldwide, with enough nutcases that can't wait to see the whole world burn. So no, I'm not going to thank the gods.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 18 2019, @03:31PM
this refers to world war 3 which will be fought in cities not on battlefields
see palestine for an example of how this will work in the most practical sense
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:48PM
i didnt feel anything. maybe it is because i am not religious, and that i am actually jaded and believe that where there is a crisis, the corrupt will be the first to show up with offers to help for a profit.
its a shame, but i have no emotional connection to it. i am not even sure what its for besides being impressive architecture that is old and is why its a shame it burned. cool looking place, amazing it was built, but no feeling. i guess i just see it as a world wonder for civilization, like all the others i have no connection to.
its also a shame that the types of trees that were holding the roofs up do not exist anymore because of the lack of stewardship of the earth and stuff. i guess plastic can be used; 850 years from today people will wonder why we wasted the oil, too, just like how we cut down the trees and then didnt let replacements grow back.
(Score: 3, Touché) by SomeGuy on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:41AM
Too bad Google won't flag religious content with some snippet explaining that it is all a load of bullshit. (Yea, it might have to flag itself :P )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:38AM (6 children)
Both events were Illuminati blood sacrifices according to this psychic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oB8CPN7hGeI [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @02:46AM
Dumbinati
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:00AM (1 child)
Nostradumbass
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:13AM
Interesting 2:05.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:33AM (2 children)
This shit always cracks me up.
Are people really so totally in denial about the inherent, systemic behaviors of capitalism (as a system with actors that behave rationally--on an aggregate scale at least--who may even be exact copies of each other for the sake of argument, according to simple rules [and with the inherent randomness of luck]) that they have to invent this crap?
Or that the phenomenon of "there is no money!" along with socialized risk and privatized profit could have led to a contractor cutting corners that resulted in a fire that would have been otherwise unremarkable, except that sometimes it happens to certain properties like Grenfell Tower or Notre-Dame here and thus for a fleeting moment our collective attention is drawn to it, before the MSM forgets about it and goes back to 24/7 broadcasts of the reality TV show that is our political system.
I mean, thank goodness it wasn't a natural gas utility cutting corners that resulted in an overpressurized gas line causing explosions in homes, killing and injuring people, and resulting in entire neighborhoods in several cities needing to evacuate. Or thank goodness it wasn't water lines being corroded by polluted water and leeching lead into the water supply of entire cities, all in the name of cutting costs while maximizing profit!
Is it really so hard to understand that while profits are soaring, costs are being cut causing disaster after disaster while a small elite becomes richer and obscenely richer, stealing not just some but most of the wealth created by the entire rest of the population? How on Earth can anybody possibly believe "there is no money!" with those objective cold hard numbers that tell no lies?
<sarcasm>Either that, or maybe it's the lizard people and their mind control rays that cause people to invent crazy conspiracy theories to explain what should be obvious and does not even require a grand conspiracy.... But the lizard people are probably caused by the weather war being fought between the Knights Templar and the Mooooooooslems across the 8th dimension, from which only Buckaroo Banzai can save us!</sarcasm>
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:51AM (1 child)
When a disaster happens in a capitalist country, its because capitalist cut corners. When it happens in a communist country, it is capitalist sabatoge. Got it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @11:28AM
USSR had same problem. Small elite stealing the wealth produced by the vast majority of the population who had no control over the means of production.
I suggest we get rid of the small elite and the shell games they play in attempt to justify stealing all of society's wealth with clever bullshit, whether capitalism or Stalinist bureaucracy or what have you.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday April 17 2019, @03:32AM (1 child)
Got it. So both were Massad operations. Good to know.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:45AM
Mossad = מוסד = Institute
Massad = מסד = Base
The Institute for Social Security = המוסד לביטוח לאומי
The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations = המוסד למודיעין ולתפקידים מיוחדים
Database = מסד נתונים
בנק מסד = Massad Bank (lit. Basic bank. Name of a specific Savings and loans bank. Alludes to the its nature as a provider of basic banking services).
And no. Mossad didn't do it. Israel just went through an election and everyone were too busy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:25AM (1 child)
As I said in my reply to the original topic about Notre Dame burning, my spidey senses are tingling on this one.
Guess the YouTube AI is getting spidey senses from the same place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @04:28PM
No, unless we get evidence that this was a religious attack all we've found out us that your mental state is on par with Google's AI.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Wednesday April 17 2019, @05:58AM (1 child)
I watched some of this on youtube yesterday and I saw the 9/11 Conspiracy stuff. This was the 2nd time I had seen it in a week. I saw it last week when watching the Falcon Heavy launch. It was under one of the people streaming the launch.
When I saw it yesterday, I figured that it was just a think now randomly showing up on all videos. I though, it seemed telling to me that they felt their entire user-base needed to be shown that banner multiple times. What does google know where they think they need to show that to everyone?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @10:23AM
Well, the AI probably learned "show that banner whenever you see something vertical and fire".
Fits the burning WTC towers. Fits a rocket with fire from the rocket engine. Fits a burning church with towers.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 17 2019, @06:39AM
So the AI just assumed that a correlation is a causation and it didn't bother to fact check it with multiple trustworthy sources. Yep, all according the rules of social media.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Wednesday April 17 2019, @07:42AM (1 child)
AI working as intended. Like the credit system in China with its obscure rules, AI can be made to censor or pass whatever, if someone objects you can issue "sorry nobody's perfect".
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday April 17 2019, @01:38PM
> if someone objects you can issue "sorry nobody's perfect".
"Sorry, the AI was just following orders."