The trolley problem is a classic ethical dilemma that asks what you would do if you had to choose between saving one person or saving many people from a runaway trolley. For example, would you pull a lever to divert the trolley from hitting five workers on the track, but instead hit one worker on a different track? This problem is important to generative AI because it illustrates the challenges of … [Read more...]
Self-driving car from 1958
GM produced a self-driving car prototype...in 1958. There's a short documentary about it. Required wires in the road rather than machine learning. Presumably their PR machine said, "They'll be commercially viable by 1959." … [Read more...]
Sentient AI
Gary Marcus addresses the nonsense in the popular press about Google's LaMDA AI system being sentient. He leads with a great quote, from Abeba Birhane, that sums up the whole thing. we have arrived at peak AI hype accompanied by minimal critical thinking … [Read more...]
Faith in technology
"AI" has been confusing people for over a century. Nineteenth century British politicians demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of Charles Baggage's difference engine, leaving him to comment, On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly … [Read more...]
Decision fatigue
This Economist has an article this week on the dangers of decision fatigue. Research suggests that people fall back into making "default" decisions when they are tired. Examples are cited from finance, law and medicine. One thing that isn't discussed is the obvious benefits of automated decision-making---computers don't suffer from exhaustion. The more we can have computers advise … [Read more...]