AI and Loss of Liberties

[Chris]

It is learning. It's mastered chess by playing chess masters and racism from chatting on line.

True human intelligence and learning include making errors, mistakes, bad decisions.,

[donttread]

Artificial intelligence is basically just a computer program that incorporates set instructions, a goal, and access to information. These basic blocks allow the the AI to spot patterns and connections, then apply it's instruction sets to achieve it's goals. Most sucessful AI's make use of integrated programs called "deep learning", where a feedback-type loop is programmed in, enabling an AI to "learn", almost on it's own.

Because of the way an AI is structured, there are alot of ways to enhance it's scope and capabilities. Starting with it's basic program, the parameters can be extended and deep learning can be used to allow an AI to even make it's own code more efficient. Even reasearchers these days cannot really tell sometimes what an AI has done to itself to make it work better.

Then there is the goal or goals of the AI. These can be simple, like learning how to play checkers, or they can be almost infinitely complex, like learning how to trade on the stock market. The goal in both cases, of course, is to win. Winning is assigned certain parameters. In the case of checkers, it is to eliminate the opponents pieces, and in the case of the stock market, winning is accumulating money. Goals are not usually set by the AI, but by the programmers.
Data is the most critical element of any AI. The more data it has access to, the more accurate it becomes. In the case of the stock market AI, to spot the trends necessary to make profitable trades requires tremendous amounts of data. Weather, crop data, business data, mining data, politics, consumer data, global calendar data(like holidays), banking data, etc. Every facet of life on our planet affects stock market trades. For something so infinitely complex, having continuous access to all possible historical and real-time data is critical to an AI. It can't be competitive without it.

Most AI's today are not geared towards solving the world's great problems. A small group of people cannot afford the programmers, equipment, and information access needed to get one up and running. Large functioning AI's fall squarely under the wings of universities with research grants, government agencies, and large corporations. And these AI's are goal oriented towards predicting, controlling, and profiting in their respective markets.

Given that information access is the most important facet of AI accuracy, and thereby, profitabilty and market control, is it any suprise that AI systems are developing at a pace that coincides with the errosion of internet privacy? Recently we have witnessed the net neutrality repeal. Now Internet Service Providers (ISP's) are no longer under FCC regulations which mandated all internet traffic be treated equally. The ISP's are now under FTC rules. There are only 2 things the FTC can enforce:
1.) Anti-trust violations. No ISP is allowed to monopolize a market. Arguably, may ISP's already do in certain areas where they are the only broadband carrier and their only competition is dial-up or sattellite.
2.) Violations of their posted User Agreements. If an ISP decides to post a user agreement for use of it's services, it can be fined for not abiding by that agreement.

These changes allow ISP's the same lattitude as any tech company such as Microsoft or Google, to collect data and package it for sale. The big difference being, tech companies only collect data when you use their services or apps. The ISP that you use for internet access collects everything you do across all devices, services, and apps. If you connect it to your internet, your ISP can store it and sell it. And is it any suprise that the United Kingdom has rolled out GDPR at the same time as net neutrality here in America? And under the GDPR, the rules are almost exactly identical to the FTC's. Companies just give a user agreement notice. What do you do when your Steam app or Banking app ask you to agree to their user agreement? You click "agree". Unless you want to lose access to your money or things you spent money on already. Say no to your ISP, and you will be without internet. So many things require internet today that life is becoming almost impossible without it.

Who are the customers of these big AI systems? Most people know that advertising is driven by this data. All the big tech companies sell targeted ads. But this is small time compared with the big customers, AI developers that work for large businesses and governments. And most of the government access to that data is actually funneled through businesses. By placing their companies in a middleman position with government agencies, they have significantly grown profits from the pockets of the taxpayer, and made themselves essential parts of the government. In truth, they have made their companies, using contractor status, a defacto part of most government agencies. As the demand for new goals and objectives by government agencies rises, so will the integration of corporate influence and control on our government. They will be one and the same. One could argue it already is that way.

New technologies are also in the works to allow for real-time collection of data we have never seen before. Brain-computer interface(BCI) technologies that allow a person's brainwaves to be read. They can gauge emotions, thoughts, and mental pictures. They can tell what you are looking at. They can tell if you are paying attention or daydreaming. And worse yet, these same technologies that allow your thoughts and emotions to be captured in real time, can also easily work in reverse, which is the real-time inputting of thoughts and emotions into a person. As this technology evolves in the next few years, we won't know our own thoughts and feelings from AI induced ones. No longer will a government need to create controversies that manipulate the will of the public to fulfill an objective. No longer will companies spend money on advertising campaigns to convince you they are acting in society's best interests. And whoever wins a vote for public office will come down to who has hired the best AI firm with the most data access.

As the demand for more information, anaylitics, and control goes up, our privacy goes down. As AI becomes more invasive in our lives, it will steer us in the direction someone wants us to go. Sometimes subtly, sometimes overt. And the people in control of these marvels of engineering are not after a better life for your community or country. They are after profits and control.

https://www.inverse.com/article/3873...ne-fcc-meeting
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/what...eutrality-fcc/
https://store.neurosky.com/pages/mindwave
https://safehaven.com/article/45383/...ing-Technology
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/05/22/ch...-bad-behavior/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

Let's face it , the only thing that used to stop the government from "listening in" and bypassing our privacy was the technology to do so quitely. Then when Snowden told the people they were too brainwashed to even care. So to some extent we lose privacy because we , as a group, lack the gumption to demand it.

[Just AnotherPerson]

The Pentagon wants to win future wars with drones that troops can control with their mindshttps://www.businessinsider.com/dod-...edium=referral

• The Pentagon believes that the "future of war" involves mind-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles, a capability that would represent a major leap forward in the development of advanced military technology.
• While this may seem like something straight out of science fiction, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is taking this research seriously and has even overseen trials that could serve as the preliminary steps to developing this type of technology.

The idea of using a human's thoughts to control drones is only a few years old. In 2015, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Star moderated a taped conference with Dr. Arati Prabhakar, the DARPA director at the time, regarding the subject of "how will technology shape the future of war."
During this discussion DARPA announced that a volunteer had flown a simulated F-35.

Frightening and dangerous future of warfare as ‘Robocalypse’ is on the horizon
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/439788-mind...rones-warfare/

The latest developments in the technology of the US military appear to indicate that the next war might include mind-controlled drones.
If there is one thing the United States is increasingly adept at, its finding a way to make international warfare even scarier and unpredictable than it already is by its very definition. According to the Daily Beast, the US military has tested, on a number of occasions, a brain implant that allows a human operator to control, with their own thoughts, up to three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), simultaneously.
According to the agency which oversaw the computer-simulated tests – the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – the tests were conducted between June 2016 and January 2017.
The Daily Beast’s account states that the test subject, being partially paralyzed, was able to complete the tests by channelling his thoughts through a medical implant embedded in his skull, which used electroencephalogram (EEG) to interface with a computer simulation of a drone carrying out a mission in the company of two, simulated unmanned support aircraft. The support aircraft were apparently based loosely on fictional aircraft.

And how was this done? Through surgery. That’s right. The volunteer test subject, Mr Nathan Copeland, had to undergo surgery to place electrodes in his brain to successfully complete a neural interface. Through this surgery, Copeland was able to send brain signals to the drones and the drones were able to send signals back to him so that he was able to perceive the environment of the drone. The drone was then itself able to scan its environment, detect an obstacle in its pathway, and send the signal back to the operator with its recommendation.
In a separate phase of the experiment, a test subject was able to physically perceive the physical space and feel what the drone saw at the same time that the drone responded to the commands it was given. You might say that man and drone became one.

[zachroidott]

True human intelligence and learning include making errors, mistakes, bad decisions.,

So does AI's. It's just a much faster process.

[Just AnotherPerson]

Researchers Created ‘Quantum Artificial Life’ For the First Time

Oct 5 2018, 1:31pm

“Our research brought these amazingly sophisticated events called life to the realm of the atomic and microscopic world …and it worked.”
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/a...the-first-time

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For the first time, an international team of researchers has used a quantum computer to create artificial life—a simulation of living organisms that scientists can use to understand life at the level of whole populations all the way down to cellular interactions.

With the quantum computer, individual living organisms represented at a microscopic level with superconducting qubits were made to “mate,” interact with their environment, and “die” to model some of the major factors that influence evolution.

The new research, published in Scientific Reports on Thursday, is a breakthrough that may eventually help answer the question of whether the origin of life can be explained by quantum mechanics, a theory of physics that describes the universe in terms of the interactions between subatomic particles.