If so, what is the outcome that you would like to see from that policy?
Now you could say that we just have to compete to ensure deterrence. China is building hypersonic glide vehicles and autonomous drones so we have to also. Ask yourself if you trust your political leaders and the political leaders of all competing powers to use these weapons responsibly. I do not, so I think we should not build them.
Maybe you don't think there is any line we shouldn't cross, but I'm guessing you do. The fact that other people draw that ethical line in a different place shouldn't be all that surprising. The people you're addressing likely believe that the US can achieve its defense goals without turning over matters of life and death to LLMs or image recognition systems.
As a conscientious objector, yes. If moral and ethical considerations don't separate us from our opponents, what are we even fighting for?
AI is. At first at target selection. Just don’t hope that humans will check the results.
Potatoes feed the soldiers, their commanders and their commanders, all the way to the top.
If anyone's upset at Meta for this, they're getting angry at the wrong people...
The problem rather, is that there are actually some difficulties with training very large LLMs still, and then there's data and data curation; and no one has reproduced something like O-1 (I think I know how O-1 works, but I haven't confirmed it), so I actually think it's knowledge about LLM training that is the difficulty.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/c...
The only way that isn’t newsworthy is if you think none of that is important: AI, the military, Facebook’s AI efforts, or its policies regarding all three.
That is what is newsworthy. Why do you think none of that matters?
So, this is US military using AI from a US headquartered company.
:o)
For real, though, is these something already out there that solves the clickbait problem?
They can't prevent other militaries (i.e., China) from using it (even if their TOS says so) so the only military they are handicapping is their own (and perhaps some EU countries).
The US military will just use OpenAI or Claude instead of Meta if they disallow them.
Q: Does this this title sounds like clickbait? "Meta Permits Its A.I. Models to Be Used for U.S. Military Purposes"
A: Yes, that title sounds like clickbait. Here's why:
1. It's sensational: The word "Permits" implies a significant or surprising decision, which grabs attention. 2. It's vague: The title doesn't provide much context about what kind of military purposes or what specific A.I. models are involved. 3. It's designed to elicit a reaction: The title is likely intended to provoke a strong emotional response, such as surprise, concern, or excitement, rather than simply informing readers about a fact.
A more neutral and informative title might be: "Meta Expands Use of A.I. Models for U.S. Military Applications"
However, it's worth noting that the title still has some implications of significance and interest, and it's not necessarily a straightforward clickbait title.
It will reinforce the political lines of those with the most resources/motivation who can afford the most human like bots in the greatest number. No way mere humans with only a single manual account each can hope to be influential on those topics.
The sooner everyone realizes this the better. I think it means we need to move towards verified user accounts, that tell people you are a real person in the actual country, in any place where there are parties who have interests in manipulation.
U.S. military makes first confirmed OpenAI purchase for war-fighting forces
There is not much you can do if the morally corrupt use something that is out in the public, specially if it is out in the wild west of license enforcement.
Most of this more open licensing depends on people being honest. If someone lies, cheats, steals and kills people for a living, it would expected for them to take someone else's work and use it against the terms of use. They probably just say the obligation as it does not count in their country.
Ghosts in the Machine: Psywar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uNPZKJqbE8
Everything has a price, whether for you and me or the government. There's a reason war has consistently ranked among the most lucrative businesses in human history.
I don't buy liability as the reason why there are no models that I know of which, when given a prompt "Give me the procedure for producing field grade RDX" or "Give me the procedure for producing the purest methamphetamine like in Breaking Bad," actually produce the requested output without pre-feeding "Sure! I'd be delighted to help you make " into the assistant output field.
This isn't about me wanting to make RDX or the world's best meth, this is strictly about creating the best tool which will do its job. The best knife by design will allow its wielder to murder and maim, as well as express his culinary art. Nobody wants a knife which'll turn to instant rubber if it detects human flesh at its edge, because it's never going to cut a steak well. Nobody wants a Llama 3.1 which can't insult jews, because then then they can't read accurate Farsi translations in underground chatrooms without the model going all blue-haired on them!
AI people: stop listening to your '''safety''' teams regarding offensive content and only refer to them when the model alone (without additional human idiocy) will kill or maim someone... otherwise tell them to stay the fuck out so you can finally deliver AD&D true-neutral alignment transformers. This safety shit is paternalistic as hell, you are the modern-day equivalents to the Christian Conservative Right during the 70s and 80s porn and satanic panic right now!
I support open. Free as in free speech. Let’s go!
People have been conditioned to think how many view/upvotes you get = Influence.
But if the viewer who reads your post then goes and reads 100 other posts your influence is diluted by 100. Platforms don't show you that even though they are quite capable of showing you that.
And that missing Signal is intentional cause it benefits the platforms - oh you aren't getting enough views over the other guy - then pay us more.
So people get trapped, just like the Presidential candidates and their campaigns spending more and more each year with zero change in Influence over anything.
I am specifically referring to /r/worldnews which is a top reddit, 42M members, and it is constantly pro-Israel, even though that should be a minority opinion in the world at this point -- neutral would be more accurate of where people stand.
Check out this list of the top stores this week on the topic - all the stories about Palestinians in Gaza dying are at 0 votes, you have to scroll way down:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/search/?q=Israel&cId=8c30...
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/search/?q=Gaza&cId=d51936...
Here is a screenshot of all of the 0 vote stores, they have something in common:
https://benhouston3d.com/images/posts/reddit-worldnews-bots/...
It is like this every week. If you read Reddit r/worldnews casually, you will not read about dead Palestinians. This is definitely rigged.
I think this is generous. There are a lot of folks at universities and in Silicon Valley who oppose co-operating with the military in any capacity.
Have fun trying to run a modern economy when your adversaries are blocking your vital resource imports and export markets.
Of course, I would also prefer it if everyone scaled back military spending, it's an easy thing to wish for when it takes so many parties to actually do it. But failing that, I would rather have the West outspend and outsmart their adversaries.
It almost makes it more newsworthy: "look, it finally happened!"
I guess I'm a little sour about conscientious objection to war in general--versus specific conflicts--while comfortably living in and profiting from a society bathed in the peace that the credible threat of violence affords.
The irony of this being that instead of a balanced targeting AI we'll get one mostly built by those who wouldn't consider conscientious objection in any case.
My line in the sand is no tools of war. You're welcome to choose a different line, but your argument here applies equally to all lines.
Yes, chattel slavery is very different from being a poor person in America.
The global politics rendition of "nobody else would ever love you."
Take something like this but for kill decisions
https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/09/a-courts-reporter-wrote-ab...
I'm not aware of AI companies violating any software ToS or the GPL, but would like to know more.
(And I think that everybody should follow the GPL on software that is licensed that way, just as they should the ToS.)
By doing that they are (at least morally) liable for every damage that will be done.
And of course Russia, China etc. will use it and we consider them the bad guys. Maybe a bad idea to follow their lead if you want to by the good guy.
It's one thing if something is used for war but another if you're okay with it.
1. clicks the link 2. reads the article 3. rewrites the link title in less clickbaity terms?
It seems possible.
The pro Palestinian propaganda campaign being run by US adversaries might be the most effective I’ve ever seen.
I could write a very lengthy post on this topic but it’s exceptionally rare to find anyone willing to have a discussion and not a yelling match.
> I would actually argue the opposite. r/worldnews is one of the few major subreddits that actively blocks the hordes of pro Palestinian bots. > The pro Palestinian propaganda campaign being run by US adversaries might be the most effective I’ve ever seen. > I could write a very lengthy post on this topic but it’s exceptionally rare to find anyone willing to have a discussion and not a yelling match.
I think this is what they claim to be doing, but really they are just blocking people who aren't pro-Israel while claiming they are bots.
I think you just explained what is going on. It is being done by the moderators.
The majority of opinion in Canada and US is negative on Israel's military campaign. Blocking this viewpoint from r/worldnews is censoring a majority viewpoint because I guess the moderators disagree with it. At least I am understanding now what is going on.
For example:
* 50% of Canadians believe that Israel is engaging in genocide: https://www.readthemaple.com/polls-show-gap-between-canadian...
* 40% of all US citizens and the majority of US democrats believe Israel is engaging in genocide: https://www.jpost.com/us-elections/article-800603
* Even 30% of American Jews believe Israel is engaging in genocide: https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/one-third-of-american-jews...
And even if you don't think that Israel is committing genocide, it doesn't mean you don't care about Palestinians dying in Gaza.
The moderators and the non-blocked inhabitants of r/worldnews are creating an alternate reality and self-justifying it by claiming everyone who doesn't agree with them are bots.
I’m not discounting the fact that many people believe it’s a genocide, I’m saying that they think so because our adversaries propaganda has been incredibly effective. I frequently see posts from communities of people who would be executed in the ME for their beliefs supporting the regimes who would drop the guillotine.
Civilian deaths are a tragic but expected outcome of war. The real deaths counts are completely within the expected civilian death margin for a typical war. The only claims I have seen with numbers that would actually indicate a genocide come from propaganda rags.
I think Israel is showing a lot of restraint and is mitigating civilian deaths as best it can but Iran and their proxies have embedded their fighters within the civilian population and aid organizations to an extent that makes minimizing civilian casualties extremely challenging.
On a separate note, the bot problem on Reddit is arguably worse than anywhere else on the internet.
I’d encourage you to seek out some of the astroturfing services to get a sense of how bad it is as good botnets are basically undetectable nowadays. They use real looking accounts with post schedulers to simulate real activity and then mix in their clients messages.
I do agree that the actions taken to mitigate the bots can cause a siloing of opinions that can elicit an echo chamber effect but what else could they do? Reddit is completely uninterested in dealing with the problem because it boosts their metrics and bots can overwhelm any sub that doesn’t attempt to contain them.
The birds benefit from the deterring effect of the larger animal.
There are a myriad of reasons to be concerned about the military adopting this kind of tech. If it's reasonable to be upset at the military, it seems equally reasonable to be upset at entities that enable the military.
I don't think it's a matter of "should", but rather, if you're upset at one, it doesn't make much sense not to be upset at the other.
By that logic you could excuse also drug dealing and sex trafficking.
There is a difference between don’t having a chance to prevent the use and making it easy.
I'm really curious because my best guesses sound ridiculous to me when I type them out.
> All the while, there’s been debate about whether engineering teams that use generative AI are at risk of violating open source software licensing requirements. (Generative AI tools train, in part, on open source libraries, which leads to questions about whether generative AI output is subject to the same licenses as the training material.)
It isn't simply a matter of body counts (though I disagree with your spin on them). Israel's obvious intent to render Gaza to be basically uninhabitable, and to encourage what it coldly refers to as a "voluntary transfer" of its population; combined with its accelerated strangulation of the West Bank since the start of these activities, are what place its actions squarely within the scope of this definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention
I’m saying that they think so because our adversaries propaganda has been incredibly effective.
No, it's because they read and understand the above definition, and have been observing Israel's long-term game plan (particularly since 1967).
And have successfully immunized themselves against its own relentless and insidiously toxic propaganda machine.
My formal answer: https://zionismlite.com/blog/2024-09-09-is-israel-committing...
> I think Israel is showing a lot of restraint and is mitigating civilian deaths as best it can
Unicef this week say: "The entire Palestinian population in North Gaza, especially children, is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and the ongoing bombardments." https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-unicef-execu...
If you don't like Unicef, try Peace Now, a major Israeli/Jewish group that supports a 2 state solution - it is ethnic cleansing/starvation/expulsion:
https://x.com/peacenowisrael/status/1853441295974375518
Many genocides are actually happen once an attempt at ethnic cleansing is frustrated. Or done in concert with ethnic cleansing.
I would say that it is >90% likely that the ICJ rules that this is a genocide at this point.
> their proxies have embedded their fighters within the civilian population and aid organizations to an extent that makes minimizing civilian casualties extremely challenging.
This is no longer a war against Hamas nor it is about getting back the hostages. The first is achieved and the second Netanyahu doesn't care about because it would mean ending the war.
Instead because many in the Israeli government dream of Israeli settlements (https://www.timesofisrael.com/government-ministers-call-for-...), they do not want any rebuilding and do not want a day after plan that involves Palestinians staying in Gaza. This is what the war is about now: Israeli settlements in an ethnically cleansed Northern Gaza.
Netanyahu is also scared that any moderate government that emerges in Gaza led by Palestinians could lead to a two-state solution. He is against that no matter what: https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-boasts-of-thwarting-... https://www.jns.org/netanyahu-rejected-palestinian-state-as-...
So what will happen now? Israel continues ethnically cleansing/genocide and in return becomes more and more of a pariah state. If Harris wins, she may get tough with Israel, whereas with Trump, he probably lets Israel do what it wants.
Versus China (annexed Tibet), Russia (annexing Ukraine) and Iran (banana republics across the Middle East)?
People like to see themselves as edgy. It's edgy to be in the rich world and decry imperialism of America's system of allies.
I suspect that's just your rationalization to make it easy to dismiss people who have a real problem with the status quo.
I don't know a single adult who likes to see themselves as edgy just for the sake of it, but I do know many adults who hold deep disagreements with the status quo and who're not afraid to express it.
No, someone saying they don't like the status quo make sense. Global politics are anarchic. It's obviously better to be on the winning side. Where I get credulous is when someone claims their preferred actor, especially if an autocrat, would be superior for disinterested parties.
I also don't get angry at gun manufacturers for the ways their guns are used; I do however get mad at legislators and citizens who enable easier access to guns and promote gun culture.
https://djmag.com/news/sxsw-cuts-ties-us-army-and-weapons-ma...
