Techdirt: The Opportunity To Build A Better Internet Is Here. Right Now.

[ancianita]

Last edited Fri Dec 30, 2022, 11:12 PM - Edit history (1)

Over the last few years, we kept being told that “big tech” companies had an impossible-to-close lead in artificial intelligence. We were told that only Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft could possibly “lead” in AI, because they had access to the best talent, and the most data, and no one else could possibly catch up. We were told over and over again that antitrust had to look at these big companies and how they were going to control the AI world.

And yet, by far the most interesting AI developments this past year came… not from any of those companies, but from OpenAI, a for-profit entity that is owned by and started as a non-profit. Earlier this year it unleashed DALL-E 2 on the world, showing just how powerful and creative one could be with AI generated art. And almost immediately we saw a bunch of similar offerings (many building on OpenAI’s initial work) popping up, such as MidJourney, and the open source Stable Diffusion. And while Google and Meta have previewed their own versions of this technology, both are playing from (way) behind, rather than leading the way.

Just as the year was coming to a close, OpenAI’s ChatGPT got the world excited about advances in generative text as well, to the point that some are even talking about how ChatGPT could actually eventually challenge Google’s core search business. It’s way too early for that, and ChatGPT is nowhere near in a position to make a dent in Google’s search business… but, there’s an opening. An opening that just a year ago many people insisted was impossible.

There have been some other fun surprises in the hardware world as well. While it launched in 2021, 2022 is when the Framework laptop seems to have really started to take off, showing that a brand new laptop company can enter what had felt like a mostly closed market with an innovative take that is focused on (yet again) putting more power in the hands of the end users: shipping a laptop that not only is designed to be modified by the owner, but where the user is specifically encouraged to repair and modify their own laptops. In an age where the big companies are still fighting a right to repair, we’re seeing smaller companies step in and see the right to repair as a market opportunity to come in and beat the big guys.

TONS of interesting links inside this excerpt and in the rest of the New Year's Message at
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/30/new-years-message-the-opportunity-to-build-a-better-internet-is-here-right-now/?fbclid=IwAR3S4KvhAqeK903OVApSEtZeXzzPOep0sPKaHD7-VZWyFf5GXSJ_k5ePh8U

[Lemonwurst]

1. This is important

So much of what seems fringe today becomes structural tomorrow, but we scarcely hear anything about it for exactly the reasons outlined here.

[ancianita]

9. You're absolutely right, and I had to think about why.

It's what is done with new tech stuff that's important.

One of our user problems has been that biztech and fintech has touted technology as the solution to most of our systems' problems.
Over time and in all kinds of ways, we users have learned that it's not. And it's not just because we walk around as revenue streams.

But there other reasons tech isn't a solution. One reason being imperfect coder/developers who think that doing just enough to get stuff to market is okay, and they'll fix it later, but they never do; one big reason is how state players contract businesses to help keep populations perception managed, optimally profitable without regard for the quality of their lives. The first is a profitable business expedient; the other is a profitable political expedient.

We out here are learning more and more that we're not trying to beat the system with 'superior' technology, we are trying to use technology to open up a space to change the system. It doesn't need to be perfect, and it doesn't keep everyone anonymous or impervious to snooping. It just has to work well enough to organize political change toward keeping demos style democracy.

[Mr.Bill]

2. I'm no tech wiz,

but I'm 69 years old and I think, at least in my lifetime, AI is an oxymoron.

[ancianita]

3. AI runs software all around us. Facial recognition, CCTV's, YouTube music, etc. Just sayin'.

Maybe check out some readings? AI and algorithms are often used interchangeably, too, though they do different things. One good discussion of AI is in Yuval Harari's Homo Deus. Another is a great book by the world's leading AI researcher, Stuart Russell (who advises the global rich at Davos), called Human Compatible -- Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control.

[Mr.Bill]

4. But it can't drive a car safely.

It hasn't scratched the surface of what the human mind can do.

[ancianita]

5. True. Yet Tesla was the highest selling auto in the EU this past year.

AI has scratched the surface, I'm afraid. Even if you're right, it isn't a human endeavor to be easily dismissed.

If China ends up producing General AI, it could run the planet, and none of us would even know. The head of Google in China, Kai-Fu Lee, wrote about that in his 2018 book, AI Superpowers, in which he shows how China even then committed ten times more R&D -- hundreds of billions -- to AI than has the U.S. As it stands, developing General AI is a race where no one will know who first reaches the finish line.

[sl8]

8. Better be careful about bad-mouthing AI:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roko's_basilisk

Roko's basilisk

Roko's basilisk is a thought experiment which states that an otherwise benevolent artificial superintelligence (AI) in the future would be incentivized to create a virtual reality simulation to torture anyone who knew of its potential existence but did not directly contribute to its advancement or development.[1][2] It originated in a 2010 post at discussion board LessWrong, a technical forum focused on analytical rational enquiry.[1][3][4] The thought experiment's name derives from the poster of the article (Roko) and the basilisk, a mythical creature capable of destroying enemies with its stare.

While the theory was initially dismissed as nothing but conjecture or speculation by many LessWrong users, LessWrong co-founder Eliezer Yudkowsky reported users who described symptoms such as nightmares and mental breakdowns upon reading the theory, due to its stipulation that knowing about the theory and its basilisk made you vulnerable to the basilisk itself.[1][5] This led to discussion of the basilisk on the site to be banned for five years.[1][6] However, these reports were later dismissed as being exaggerations or inconsequential, and the theory itself was dismissed as nonsense, including by Yudkowsky himself.[1][6][7] Even after the post's discreditation, it is still used as an example of principles such as Bayesian probability and implicit religion.[5] It is also regarded as a modern version of Pascal's wager.[4][8] In the field of artificial intelligence, Roko's basilisk has become notable as an example that raises the question of how to create an AI which is simultaneously moral and intelligent.[9]

[...]

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. shortened link...

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/12/30/new-years-message-the-opportunity-to-build-a-better-internet-is-here-right-now/

[ancianita]

7. Cool. Thanks. I forgot to do that.

[FakeNoose]

10. K & R Bookmarked

Thanks for this! It's the first I've heard of it, but I want to learn more.

Happy New Year my friend!