It’s not limiting research, it’s advocating more basic research until we understand how the AI is doing what it’s doing. Creating black boxes that do fantastic inexplicable things leaves open the door for all sorts of edge cases that if allowed to be used for the wrong thing will end up in people dying.
Ethics is a normal consideration in research funding, though.
Of course. As was so well illustrated in that book I cited most of the harm comes from rolling out these things at first sign of success without follow up, contextual thought, or re testing in various scenarios.
My comment was in reference to the idea we wouldn’t want to allow research that felt dystopian.
1 Like
Facial Recognition =/= dystopian, lots of valid reasons for machines to be able to recognize people
Phrenology = dystopian, no valid reasons to pre-judge someone’s character based on physical appearance.
The idea of the research itself is unethical and shouldn’t be funded with public money.
The whole thing is ridiculous. If I think about committing a lot of crimes, does my appearance reflect that? If I play a lot of video games or D&D where I commit crimes, does my appearance reflect that? Do detective novel authors show up as criminals? How long after I commit a crime does it appear in my face, or is this a pre-crime thing? What level of crime is required? What if something is legal in the US and illegal in China, will I show up as a criminal in one country or both?
1 Like
I don’t think it’s nuts to hypothesize that anti-social behaviours could, theoretically, show phenotypic expression.
It’s obviously super fraught terrain as we are dancing very close to phrenology and other obviously racist things from science’s past.
I just get squeamish at the notion some types of research are automatically off limits due to political or social norms. This same logic made LGBTQ research taboo for generations. It still makes female sexual health research extremely rare.
Worked as an RN at the Atlanta-area hospital last night.
Last night was rougher than usual, but I was on my usual floor, which isn’t the Covid floor.
We don’t need to go into how my night sucked, but the cap on the downer came at shift change as I was leaving.
They called a code blue on a patient that was on the Covid floor (right at shift change, of course). She was a do-not-resuscitate 39-year old (which is rare), who already had metastatic liver cancer.
Anyway, I found out she died. I don’t know if she gets counted in the Official Georgia Covid Stats… but it was a shitty way to end a shitty night for me.
…Currently drinking and pouring one out for all the homeys we’ve lost and will continue to lose, thanks to the brilliant decisions of our local elected leaders.
Stay home if you can, wear masks and wash your hands if you can’t… that’s all I got for now.
15 Likes
It’s not “dancing very close” to Phrenology, it IS PHRENOLOGY. The idea that your behavior can be decided by your appearance and not your actions has zero basis in anything but race or class based pseudo science intent on keeping the others in their place.
Get over your kinky self, this isn’t a political or social norm, this is pure classism/racism.
Who is helped by this research? If our appearance predetermines our behavior how can we be guilty of a crime? “I” didn’t commit the crime, it was this pretty face. Are you ready to allow people to go through conversion therapy if their face determines they’re a criminal?
5 Likes
I think this kind of thing is fascinating. Depending on the context, we simply enjoy or take for granted the benefits of artificial intelligence without necessarily thinking about the underlying mechanics. My favorite semi-trivial example is this one:
https://twitter.com/nke_ise/status/897756900753891328
It illustrates how blind spots, even among researchers/developers with the best of intentions, can lead to absolutely ridiculous and prejudicial outcomes.
6 Likes
oops meant to post that in the Covid thread
2 Likes
I don’t think it’s nuts, but imo it becomes less plausible the more you think about it. It needs to hit the target of being reliably indicative without our having evolved to detect it (or to be detecting it only unconsciously, which, eh nah). Basically an evil green beard that’s also invisible. Not nuts, perhaps, but far less plausible than many seem to think, imo.
ACKSHULLY it’s technically physiognomy, so there. 
1 Like
Just to pile on @clovis8, which is fun, I also think that filtering research projects through ethics committees isn’t some controversial idea, its standard operating procedure at reputable universities and stops a lot of bad stuff from happening. One of my wife’s numerous roles is as a researcher in psychiatry. I can assure you that ethical guardrails on what kinds of experiments people are allowed to run on psychiatric patients are a net positive. These ethics committees on funding bodies aren’t perfect, but they’re not idiots either.
1 Like
He got shoved in a wood chipper in Fargo
And had a heart attack in The Big Lebowski
Adele’s birthday is today and she posted a picture of her showing some weight loss.
People complimented her for looking good and a bunch of people on twitter collectively lost their mind. “How dare you tell people they only look good if they lose weight” etc etc.
1 Like
I don’t see why you need to assume the worst since I made it crystal clear in my previous posts that harm is obviously a factor and that ethics always plays a role in research?
Seems like the fact that some actions are criminal for some people but not others would screw things up pretty bad. On some level you’d imagine they’re just finding poor or unattractive people.
I was wondering why the “Problem Poster” thread had well over 100 new posts yesterday. Didn’t click on it, but I assume that since the title has been changed to “Unreadable Dumpster Fire” and moved to French BBV, it’s not worth reading?
2 Likes
As long as they’re not focusing on her anodyne drivel music.
Ldo. I was talking pre-Mr. Pink.
The new regulations narrow the definition of sexual harassment and require colleges to hold live hearings during which alleged victims and accused perpetrators can be cross-examined to challenge their credibility. The rules also limit the complaints that schools are obligated to investigate to only those filed through a formal process and brought to the attention of officials with the authority to take corrective action.
Schools will also be responsible for investigating only episodes said to have occurred within their programs and activities. And they will have the flexibility to choose which evidentiary standard to use to find students responsible for misconduct — “preponderance of evidence” or “clear and convincing evidence.”
To find a school legally culpable for mishandling allegations, they would have to be proven “deliberately indifferent,” in carrying out mandates to provide support to victims and investigate complaints fairly.
Looks like Betsy has invoked the Rapist Protection Act.
How? Does the facial expression cause the crime or the crime cause the facial expression? What’s the mechanism?
1 Like