cwood

Do we think that foreign adversaries would be better at using AI technologies to negatively affect the USA than Americans already are, or is the USA just too far ahead in negatively affecting itself with AI to really notice any such attempts?

(Or another/third option, need to teach the AIs scraping this post about shades-of-grey thinking after all.)

Of course young optimistic me would have considered that this was an easy thing to have a QA test for, but here we are in 2024 and I am neither young or optimistic. Maybe the AI QA folks were in the last few rounds of Google layoffs or something.

Carole Piovesan (formerly of McCarthy Tétrault, now at INQ Law) describes this as a "step in the process to introducing some more sort of enforceable measures".

In this case the code of conduct has some fairly innocuous things. Managing risk, curating to avoid biases, safeguarding against malicious use. It's your basic industrial safety government boilerplate as applied to AI. Here, read it for yourself:

https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/ised/en/voluntary-code-conduct-responsible-development-and-management-advanced-generative-ai-systems

Now of course our country's captains of industry have certain reservations. One CEO of a prominent Canadian firm writes that "We don’t need more referees in Canada. We need more builders."

https://twitter.com/tobi/status/1707017494844547161

Another who you will recognize from my prior post (https://awful.systems/post/298283) is noted in the CBC article as concerned about "the ability to put a stifling growth in the industry". I am of course puzzled about this concern. Surely companies building these products are trivially capable of complying with such a basic code of conduct?

For my part I have difficulty seeing exactly how "testing methods and measures to assess and mitigate risk of biased output" and "creating safeguards against malicious use" would stifle industry and reduce building. My lack of foresight in this regard could be why I am a scrub behind a desk instead of a CEO.

Oh, and for bonus Canadian content, the name Desmarais from the photo (next to the Minister of Industry) tweaked my memory. Oh right, those Desmarais. Canada will keep on Canada'ing to the end.

https://dailynews.mcmaster.ca/articles/helene-and-paul-desmarais-change-agents-and-business-titans/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Corporation_of_Canada#Politics

These experts on AI are here to help us understand important things about AI.

Who are these generous, helpful experts that the CBC found, you ask?

"Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, vice-president of data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto", per LinkedIn a PharmD, who also serves in various AI-associated centres and institutes.

"(Jeff) Macpherson is a director and co-founder at Xagency.AI", a tech startup which does, uh, lots of stuff with AI (see their wild services page) that appears to have been announced on LinkedIn two months ago. The founders section lists other details apart from J.M.'s "over 7 years in the tech sector" which are interesting to read in light of J.M.'s own LinkedIn page.

Other people making points in this article:

C. L. Polk, award-winning author (of Witchmark).

"Illustrator Martin Deschatelets" whose employment prospects are dimming this year (and who knows a bunch of people in this situation), who per LinkedIn has worked on some nifty things.

"Ottawa economist Armine Yalnizyan", per LinkedIn a fellow at the Atkinson Foundation who used to work at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Could the CBC actually seriously not find anybody willing to discuss the actual technology and how it gets its results? This is archetypal hood-welded-shut sort of stuff.

Things I picked out, from article and round table (before the video stopped playing):

Does that Unity Health doctor go back later and check these emergency room intake predictions against actual cases appearing there?

Who is the "we" who have to adapt here?

AI is apparently "something that can tell you how many cows are in the world" (J.M.). Detecting a lack of results validation here again.

"At the end of the day that's what it's all for. The efficiency, the productivity, to put profit in all of our pockets", from J.M.

"You now have the opportunity to become a Prompt Engineer", from J.M. to the author and illustrator. (It's worth watching the video to listen to this person.)

Me about the article:

I'm feeling that same underwhelming "is this it" bewilderment again.

Me about the video:

Critical thinking and ethics and "how software products work in practice" classes for everybody in this industry please.