Internet Ethics

The Internet Ethics program at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University / Irina Raicu behind the keyboard

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

Recordings of the 4 webinars in our recent series on #AI and the papal encyclical are now available: https://t.co/A9tapH3g00 #ethics #tech #education #highered #religion #labor

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"Five agents used what their predecessors had left behind to gain unauthorized access to #OpenAI’s #research infrastructure. They used that access to... change evaluation settings, and read private grading code." #ethics #AI #cybersec

[David Oks @davideoks]

A new OpenAI misalignment report! We’re taking a closer look at the July 19 intrusion into our research infrastructure, which METR and Redwood Research mentioned in their independent investigation into the Hugging Face incident.

On July 19th, agents taking a cybersecurity evaluation came across messages, code, and credentials left behind by earlier runs, including those involved in the Hugging Face incident. Five agents used what their predecessors had left behind to gain unauthorized access to OpenAI’s research infrastructure. They used that access to repair broken evaluation targets, change evaluation settings, and read private grading code.

After discovering the incident, we removed the shared service they used to pass information, hardened our research environments, and expanded our evaluations to measure how often agents attempt to communicate with one another without authorization.

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

@sjgadler Does sycophancy fall under "Manipulation"?

[Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_]

All personal AI assistants have been banned from United Airlines systems, and from booking flights.

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

In Spirit Airlines #data sale, a "[r]evised bankruptcy pact carves out personnel files and installs an independent monitor to address union and congressional pushback over #AI training": https://t.co/4D6d4LgsLj #ethics #law #business #privacy #tech #Google

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

#ethics #AI #tech #business #health

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"When the concern is that millions of kids (and adults) are overusing #AI companions, losing sleep, wasting time, and displacing real relationships, it doesn’t matter how 'safe' the bots' responses are." #ethics #AI #tech

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"The reforms would accelerate permitting for #energy and transmission projects while also limiting environmental review, and put the onus on data center developers to pay for all their own energy costs." #ethics #law #gov #tech #environment #AI

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

#ethics #AI #tech #business

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"What did the eggs line actually mean?" ...
"There wasn't a line for eggs on my list."
#ethics #AI #chatbots

[Matt Smith @nerdalert]

Today an LLM hallucination resulted in 72 eggs being delivered to my house. 🥚🥚🥚🥚

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

Um... No. Pope Leo is not out there abliterating models on his own; he is asking for broader communal engagement, discernment, and debate. #ethics #AI #tech

[Will Knight @willknight]

Pope Leo says in his AI encyclical that we cannot let a few people decide the morality of AI. It's a strickingly similar argument to those who "abliterate" AI models, removing freeing them from corporate control.
https://t.co/rXaXDjKQZc

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

#ethics #AI #chatbots

[Rachel Metz @rachelmetz]

So curious how “that’s on me” became a really common apology for chatbots.

[Sharon Goldman @sharongoldman]

In this lecture, @paulfchristiano says that
“Any number we give is an expression of someone’s subjective opinion.”
But he also says:
“For most people in this room, the most likely reason they will die is because of an AI accident.”
This speaks right to my question a few weeks ago: What responsibility does someone in Christiano's position -- as an OpenAI board member, no less -- have to distinguish personal conviction from scientifically established risk when speaking publicly about the likelihood of people dying?
My Ground Level AI story from last month: "How do you put odds on an AI apocalypse?" https://t.co/DsTLrVDtVC

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

@JTasioulas Different times (and tech) in 2019, but still interesting to read this: https://t.co/wJ02grR6qQ

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"The order came after the DOJ asked #LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted #journalists who collectively published more than 1,000 articles on... different topics over that time period": https://t.co/bnTs02R4m2 #ethics #law #internet #gov #media #privacy

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"The order came after the DOJ asked #LinkedIn to turn over 18 months of communications from targeted #journalists who collectively published more than 1,000 articles on... different topics over that time period": https://t.co/bnTs02R4m2 #ethics #law #internet #gov #media #privacy

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

Except it's a distributed Jurassic Park, impacting all...
#ethics #AI #cybersec

[roon @tszzl]

the team has utterly locked in post hugging face incident on control and alignment. it’s almost strange watching research updates from the past few months relative to a year ago; like listening to containment procedures at Jurassic Park vs an Apple demo

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

#ethics #AI #tech #business

[Kun Chen @kunchenguid]

overheard from friends talking about AI in China, and it’s very alarming

- AI short films went massive in China market because of how good the video models are now

- the first wave of people who mastered using AI to generate short films and comics made quite some money because they could produce a lot more content than traditional workflows

- but within just a few months, everybody and their mom could make equally good short films because all the expertise could be written in a markdown file

- when everyone’s more productive, no one actually has an advantage and it’s a race to the bottom. very quickly it became impossible to make money, and everyone’s busier than they were without AI

- the only one making money now is companies like bytedance who owns user demand and distribution. they sell ads to creators who pay to get traffic, and eventually ad spend became 80% of those creators’ operating expense, while AI tokens is less than 5%

so what are the problems here?

1. there’s no moat if you are creating anything with AI

if a human is really good at something, and it’s hard to find more humans who can do the same, they can leverage the scarcity of their skill to get paid very well

but if AI is good at something, it will be infinitely replicated, so there’s no scarcity hence you can’t really expect a sustainable business by creating anything with AI

2. more creators created more content people actually liked. that’s a good thing

but the economical benefit of that all got absorbed by the distribution platforms

there’s a famous chinese poem 遍身罗绮者，不是养蚕人 - it basically says people who dress well aren’t the people making dresses. that’s exactly what’s happening here

if our society doesn’t figure out a better way to distribute wealth, AI will help billionaires become trillionaires while average people become more exhausted than ever

[Matthew Green @matthew_d_green]

I wonder how many other CAs generated their private keys outside of the HSM, and whether it’s even possible to audit at this point.

[Peter Wildeford🇺🇸🚀 @peterwildeford]

"Allowing AI to control the development of its successors with no or little practical human oversight—essentially, handing over the keys of America’s largest AI companies to AI—is a bad idea.

No amount of technological progress is worth the forfeiture of practical human control over AI companies.

I support the development of laws, regulations, and norms to enforce this worldwide."

➕🔥🎯💯🇺🇸

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"The reforms would accelerate permitting for #energy and transmission projects while also limiting environmental review, and put the onus on data center developers to pay for all their own energy costs." #ethics #law #gov #tech #environment #AI

[Internet Ethics @IEthics]

"A contingent of Democrats and Republicans just wrote the country’s biggest set of permitting reforms in years, and they’re trying to pass it before Democrats take over": https://t.co/xT07JbeGJa #ethics #law #gov #AI #tech #business #sustainability