
Chinese chatbots apparently re-educated after political faux pas - pseudolus
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-robots-idUSKBN1AK0G1
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narrator
Anyone remember Microsoft's Tae chatbot experiment? 4chan got it to start
spewing hate speech and 9/11 conspiracy theories on Twitter in no time.

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/24/tay-
micro...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/24/tay-microsofts-
ai-chatbot-gets-a-crash-course-in-racism-from-twitter)

It just goes to show that chatbots are easy to manipulate. Since the Chinese
bot said something we agree with we think that it's somehow showing us a
deeper level of truth. Perhaps that deeper level of truth is that humans are
easily fooled by confirmation bias?

You'll know that AI is about to take over the world when it can use our
cognitive biases to convince us of something so strongly that it would take a
human a much longer time to convince us that what the AI made us believe was
not in fact true. Maybe this is what Elon Musk was referring to when he warns
us about AI that is "deep intelligence in the network".

~~~
d0lph
The article doesn't pretend chatbots aren't hard to manipulate, and in fact
mentions the case of the Tay Bot. I don't see anyone claiming that the bot has
shown a deeper truth, although I would agree the Chinese government is
corrupt.

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dogruck
The higher level question is how should we respond when machines, trained on
facts and data, systematically make decisions that go against our
sensitivities?

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alvis
Can't say our machines are trained based on facts, but purely data. What you
get out of it is from what you feed into it.

The challenge we are going to face in this AI era is that the training data
can be biased or include some morally/politically incorrect information.
Someone can intentionally manipulate the data and make us feel that the
response from the machine is trustworthy and factual, which can be devastating
if it is used by a dictating government. Mind the alternative facts!!!

~~~
reader5000
This is not like a "fundamental" AI problem; just dont feed the AI shitty
data.

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Analemma_
What counts as "shitty data" is a subjective question; worse, it's often a
_political_ question. So "don't use shitty data" is a reductive and completely
unhelpful strategy.

~~~
reader5000
Data is shitty if it's intentionally adversarial, otherwise it's fine. Problem
solved.

~~~
danharaj
Intent has no bearing on the intrinsic quality of the data.

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reader5000
Sure it does. If I intentionally doctor data then it is low quality.

~~~
danharaj
And what if you unintentionally doctor data?

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Rjevski
You know that something is very wrong when even an AI doesn't approve of your
shitty government.

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Hasknewbie
This is hilarious, and if these bots are fed actual user data, this means
anti-communist feelings are much more prevalent than the Chinese government
wants to let out. I.e. their censorship is not the brainwashing they wish it
were, but only a curtain attempting to cover existing discontent.

So: funny, but also potentially good news.

~~~
ue_
Does anyone have information as to how the party leadership in China manages
to pass off what's happening in China as "Communism"? I don't understand how
the leadership which calls itself Communist while encouraging wage labour,
private property, money and capitalist organisations can pretend to be in any
way defending Communism, using chatbots or not.

So how is it done? Do they say "Socialism is what's happening in China, full
stop" (which is false and ahistorical) or do they say "China is not yet a
Socialist society, full stop" (which would seem to contradict their goal of
being a Communist leadership)?

~~~
guywhocodes
Currently in China, the locals don't really look upward, it's an unchangeable
fact that they have a corrupt dictatorship. Instead they look around them and
try to cheat each other because they think that is the only way to get the
head.

I'm not sure they actually know much about what communism actually is. I'm
sure they were taught something though

~~~
Markoff
that's just not truth that they don't look upward, plenty of officials got
into trouble when people complained about them online

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DarkKomunalec
Why should a society tolerate seditious speech, that seeks to topple the very
society that allows it to flourish? Free speech should be used responsibly, to
promote the values of a society, not destroy them. Few countries share the
extremist US point of view of allowing all speech (with few exceptions, e.g.
libel and true threats). Instead, they approach it more maturely, to safeguard
their values and not allow extremism to take hold.

It saddens me I have to explicitly tag this as sarcasm.

~~~
learc83
>It saddens me I have to explicitly tag this as sarcasm.

I just thought you were just a pro China poster until I read that. It's a
viewpoint I've commonly heard in Chinese propoganda, and even among ordinary
Chinese people.

~~~
viridian
I think it's common in communist leaning circles in general. I've talked with
a few of the fine folks of anti-fa on twitter, who express similar views. I
think it makes sense in the context of the worldview. After all, why let one
man's words lead to the mental detriment of thousands?

~~~
opportune
Does it really make sense in context of the worldview, or is it an ex-post
facto rationalization they're making solely because of all the
communist/socialist dictatorships in the past (tankies would be the ones doing
this)? I have socialist beliefs but I hate the blatant authoritarianism that a
lot of people on the left espouse. I hate to make a slippery slope argument,
but limitations on free speech scare me simply because what is "unacceptable"
will (in my mind) assuredly grow larger and larger until perfectly reasonable
beliefs are persecuted.

If your society can't exist with free speech, it probably shouldn't exist at
all. Because at that point, you've become the oppressor. I know a lot of the
hate towards "liberals" among those on the left is due to their opinions on
capitalism and such, but given the original meaning of the term liberal (one
who believes in liberalism, generally personal liberty) I fail to see why
anyone would actually oppose that.

~~~
abiox
> Does it really make sense in context of the worldview

it seems there is a strong postmodernist bent in the "anti-fa" crowd. words
are now violence, and sometimes the use of "violence" is justified to defend
against "violence" (ie self-defense and defense of others).

nevermind that this equivocation of "violence" means that anti-fa is
assaulting, hospitalizing, intimidating and harassing people, and destroying
property and businesses.

it's all a righteous and necessary defense against "violence". even though the
"violence" they "defend" against is... words.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Who is anti-fa?

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justicezyx
Very indicative of the growing ineffectiveness of censorship.

~~~
FussyZeus
I've often wondered how long China can keep up this act of having their cake
and eating it too when it comes to operating as a capitalist country with a
controlling, pro-censorship Government. Part of me wonders why the people
still tolerate it at all.

~~~
friedman23
The economy is growing and people are doing better today than they were
yesterday. The problem is that when the growth inevitably stops who will
people blame and how will the government respond?

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bhouston
I feel like I am in the future.

~~~
lithos
Were you expecting bots to have more free speech rights than humans?

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didibus
What's the point of a chatbot appart for automated propaganda?

~~~
honestoHeminway
Oh, you can do great stuff with them. For example you can train them on Q&A
for technical questions, using Databases like Stackoverflow and a NN.

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daodedickinson
Won't be long before neuroscience achieves a whole new level of totalitarian
horror and conspiratorial doctors reprogram brains to remove these sorts of
bugs.

~~~
fekunde
Isn't that already done, if not at the biological level but at an ideological
level via propaganda.

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rangibaby
4\. (CLASSIFIED)

