The threat of AI?

[Omegstrat6]

Lots of stuff in the press about AI which raises some interesting questions-and concerns!

Of course AI has been around for some time now and we probably don't think much about things like their use in our "smart" phones, marketing algorithms or manufacturing as this has been commonplace for a while now but concerns over extension of its uses has only increased lately.

A lot of the questions are around safety and morality. In the case of driver-less cars, for example, it is primarily about safety but for control of weapons it is more around the morality of using AI to make decisions of whether to kill or not.

Whilst there are reports of AI being used successfully to write CVs for people, for example, the failings of Microsoft's chatbox have led to questions not only over its suitability but also inherent dangers in the system. Inappropriate responses from the system have led many to stop using it.

In art there is the story of an AI generated photograph winning the Sony picture award and also of AI creating a collaboration Drake/Weekend song. In the case of the latter the technique clearly still needs refinement but the photo looks pretty good! The winner of the photo competition has a wealth of photographic experience however and so the data he has to draw on to assist the tech.to come up with the resulting image was the main reason for its success. It does raise questions about both "art" and also legitimacy of ownership though. In terms of art, I guess "art" has always been a mixture of both idea and craftsmanship. You could still give credit to someone having the idea of using technology to take existing artefacts and "create" something new I suppose. This is nothing new, in music people have always drawn from past works to create new ones for example, whether that be borrowing riffs or chord progression or pure sampling. The ethical issues lie around giving credit to those original artists or asking permission from them. To not do so could easily be seen as a kind of identity theft which is how Drake and the Weekend obviously viewed it. It can be a bit of a grey area though. We are all bound to just sort of absorb influences and it's not always a case of blatantly stealing someone else's ideas. George Harrison famously got sued for using the Chiffons "He's so fine" as a basis for "My Sweet Lord" but the conscious intent was very likely never there. On the other hand many guitar riffs are based on old blues ones and are so common it makes determining the original credit both impossible and pointless. And there are, of course, only so many notes to play with to begin with!

Like all technology, there is the capacity to use it for either good or bad (e.g. deep fake photography could be easily used for criminal activities) so whilst I'm sure there are some benefits to be had, concerns over its misuses leading to some sci-fi like dystopian society may not be far off the mark. Plenty of experts in the field seem to be advising caution. Guess it's a bit like the concept of cloning and genetic engineering. As Jeff Goldblum's character says in Jurassic Park : they were so busy trying to prove that they could do it that nobody stopped to ask if they should.

[WBA1955]

Terminator is fast becoming a reality.

[SCOOP115]

Lots of stuff in the press about AI which raises some interesting questions-and concerns!

Of course AI has been around for some time now and we probably don't think much about things like their use in our "smart" phones, marketing algorithms or manufacturing as this has been commonplace for a while now but concerns over extension of its uses has only increased lately.

A lot of the questions are around safety and morality. In the case of driver-less cars, for example, it is primarily about safety but for control of weapons it is more around the morality of using AI to make decisions of whether to kill or not.

Whilst there are reports of AI being used successfully to write CVs for people, for example, the failings of Microsoft's chatbox have led to questions not only over its suitability but also inherent dangers in the system. Inappropriate responses from the system have led many to stop using it.

In art there is the story of an AI generated photograph winning the Sony picture award and also of AI creating a collaboration Drake/Weekend song. In the case of the latter the technique clearly still needs refinement but the photo looks pretty good! The winner of the photo competition has a wealth of photographic experience however and so the data he has to draw on to assist the tech.to come up with the resulting image was the main reason for its success. It does raise questions about both "art" and also legitimacy of ownership though. In terms of art, I guess "art" has always been a mixture of both idea and craftsmanship. You could still give credit to someone having the idea of using technology to take existing artefacts and "create" something new I suppose. This is nothing new, in music people have always drawn from past works to create new ones for example, whether that be borrowing riffs or chord progression or pure sampling. The ethical issues lie around giving credit to those original artists or asking permission from them. To not do so could easily be seen as a kind of identity theft which is how Drake and the Weekend obviously viewed it. It can be a bit of a grey area though. We are all bound to just sort of absorb influences and it's not always a case of blatantly stealing someone else's ideas. George Harrison famously got sued for using the Chiffons "He's so fine" as a basis for "My Sweet Lord" but the conscious intent was very likely never there. On the other hand many guitar riffs are based on old blues ones and are so common it makes determining the original credit both impossible and pointless. And there are, of course, only so many notes to play with to begin with!

Like all technology, there is the capacity to use it for either good or bad (e.g. deep fake photography could be easily used for criminal activities) so whilst I'm sure there are some benefits to be had, concerns over its misuses leading to some sci-fi like dystopian society may not be far off the mark. Plenty of experts in the field seem to be advising caution. Guess it's a bit like the concept of cloning and genetic engineering. As Jeff Goldblum's character says in Jurassic Park : they were so busy trying to prove that they could do it that nobody stopped to ask if they should.

I'm a member of a local camera club and the "go to" editing software is Photoshop. It seems to be accepted now by "those in the know" that you can use virtually as much manipulation as you like to get a different result. The way things are progressing the software will soon take over the complete rendition of the original image

[DaveP67 is back!]

It’s all about control, dodgy regimes will and are using AI to monitor their population, this is the real threat, other uses as long as we retain an off switch then I don’t see much risk… Not yet anyway…

[Omegstrat6]

I'm a member of a local camera club and the "go to" editing software is Photoshop. It seems to be accepted now by "those in the know" that you can use virtually as much manipulation as you like to get a different result. The way things are progressing the software will soon take over the complete rendition of the original image

How do you feel about this Scoop? Do you think it's legitimate or do you see it as a kind of cheating? I have a friend who has had a few landscape photo books published and is pretty adamant that he does not use any photo-shopping, though he is well aware of the possibilities of the software.

At the end of the day though, someone (not AI) controls this editing process and it still requires taste and skills to use it wisely to create something better than the original it is based on. Finished paintings are based on sketches and re-working and it's really no different from music where songs go through an awful lot of mixing first before being released. Does being unable to replicate this "live" make artists less valid (e.g. Use of auto-tune)?

The next steps currently being explored are to give AI programs enough data for them to use such software to generate and "create" it's own products. The software and raw data are obviously selected by humans but the choices of what/how to use it is down to the AI. The question is whether or not this invalidates the outcome in anyway?

[paula_m]

Lots of stuff in the press about AI which raises some interesting questions-and concerns!

Of course AI has been around for some time now and we probably don't think much about things like their use in our "smart" phones, marketing algorithms or manufacturing as this has been commonplace for a while now but concerns over extension of its uses has only increased lately.

A lot of the questions are around safety and morality. In the case of driver-less cars, for example, it is primarily about safety but for control of weapons it is more around the morality of using AI to make decisions of whether to kill or not.

Whilst there are reports of AI being used successfully to write CVs for people, for example, the failings of Microsoft's chatbox have led to questions not only over its suitability but also inherent dangers in the system. Inappropriate responses from the system have led many to stop using it.

In art there is the story of an AI generated photograph winning the Sony picture award and also of AI creating a collaboration Drake/Weekend song. In the case of the latter the technique clearly still needs refinement but the photo looks pretty good! The winner of the photo competition has a wealth of photographic experience however and so the data he has to draw on to assist the tech.to come up with the resulting image was the main reason for its success. It does raise questions about both "art" and also legitimacy of ownership though. In terms of art, I guess "art" has always been a mixture of both idea and craftsmanship. You could still give credit to someone having the idea of using technology to take existing artefacts and "create" something new I suppose. This is nothing new, in music people have always drawn from past works to create new ones for example, whether that be borrowing riffs or chord progression or pure sampling. The ethical issues lie around giving credit to those original artists or asking permission from them. To not do so could easily be seen as a kind of identity theft which is how Drake and the Weekend obviously viewed it. It can be a bit of a grey area though. We are all bound to just sort of absorb influences and it's not always a case of blatantly stealing someone else's ideas. George Harrison famously got sued for using the Chiffons "He's so fine" as a basis for "My Sweet Lord" but the conscious intent was very likely never there. On the other hand many guitar riffs are based on old blues ones and are so common it makes determining the original credit both impossible and pointless. And there are, of course, only so many notes to play with to begin with!

Like all technology, there is the capacity to use it for either good or bad (e.g. deep fake photography could be easily used for criminal activities) so whilst I'm sure there are some benefits to be had, concerns over its misuses leading to some sci-fi like dystopian society may not be far off the mark. Plenty of experts in the field seem to be advising caution. Guess it's a bit like the concept of cloning and genetic engineering. As Jeff Goldblum's character says in Jurassic Park : they were so busy trying to prove that they could do it that nobody stopped to ask if they should.

I'm currently watching series 2 of 3 of a thriller, drama series on BBC IPlayer called The Capture it tackles complex cases involving conspiracies, disinformation & deep fakes it's scary how 'real' situations can be twisted to show something so much different.

[Omegstrat6]

Haven't seen it myself but the recent advances in software that allow someone's body and face to be morphed into another and an increasing ability to also mimic voice and speech patterns could obviously used for less than scrupulous purposes! (Though I'm still not buying this as Randy Andy's explanation for that photo of him and Virginia Guiffre &#128512

All the tech. of this digital age may be very useful and convenient but the whole concept of digital storage and "big data" also worries me. It seems that we seem to be sleepwalking into a situation where we are putting too many of our eggs into one basket which leaves us very vulnerable to either cyber attacks or big brother style control.

[boingy]

Automated services are an absolute pain. As with any new ideas every aspect of everyday life get flooded with them. I spent a lot of last week making clear to various companies how far backwards we have gone. I always start with “Is this conversation being recorded?” “Good” I then proceeded to tell this company that there are many mental health sufferers who after taking half an hour to talk to a human will now be much worse. In contrast in the 1960’s my mother was a switchboard operator for Good years Wolverhampton (one of 50 operators) she could memorize hundreds of phone numbers and could get someone to the correct human in seconds! We all benefit from useful inventions but when you need to talk to a REAL person there is no substitute.

[tomkya]

The simple truth is we need AI we have over a million job vacancies at a time of so-called hardship if people won't work then we need technical advances otherwise we will stagnate as a country.

[Albionic68]

A whole thread devoted to how awkward Al can be, he's going to love being the centre of attention like this 😊 .