Microsoft's New AI Mistakenly Identifies Photos, Ignores Hitler (mashable.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft's newest online AI, CaptionBot, tries to identify what's in an uploaded photo, using two recognition APIs recently released by Microsoft Cognitive Services for app developers-- "Computer Vision" and "Emotion". But while Microsoft brags that their AI "can understand thousands of objects, as well as the relationships between them," bloggers are also sharing funny examples of CaptionBot's many mistakes. While it correctly identified Bea Arthur, Ozzy Osbourne and Joan Jett, and a movie poster with Arnold Schwarzenegger, it mistakenly identified Gene Simmons of KISS as "a woman in a red jacket...sitting on a motorcycle," described a wedding dress as "a cat wearing a tie," mistook Michelle Obama for a cellphone, and described one man's Twitter avatar as "a close up of two giraffes near a tree."

But CNNMoney reports that the AI is apparently programmed to ignore all images of Hitler and other Nazi symbolism (as well as Osama bin Laden), reporting that Microsoft's AI "often came back with 'I really can't describe the picture' and a confused emoji. It did, however, identify other Nazi leaders like Joseph Mengele and Joseph Goebbels."

Comments

I'd say

[bferrell]

They don't want another nazi-bot

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

There is some truth hidden inside your blank template.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are inherently racist because they don't understand what it's like being black.

Re:I'd say

[Trepidity]

Also reminds me of the Coca-Cola image generator that had a big blacklist of words you couldn't put in the captions. Here the AI is writing the captions, but seems a similar blacklist idea.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I think computetrs were invented by the white man. Nothing made or created by crackers can ever hope to understand the plight of the disadvantaged urban black african american latino. They come up from a totally different universe. The poorest crackers is infinately better off than the richest african american. Noone but african americans can ever understand the struggle they must go through on a daily basis. i know this because Bernie sanders said it is true. Sure bernie does not understand that plight either, but he as a member of the left is closer beginning to understand the phlight of the african american much better than most of us.

See the plight of the african american is such a hard concept for white cracker to understand, it would be like a dog trying to understand quantum mechanics. Now bernie sanders being a liberal is much much closer, to this plight than the average cracker, but he is still very very far away from understanding the phlight. Bernie sanders is like a 5 year old of average intelligence trying to undrestand quantum mechanics.

Go Democrats. Free us from the tyranny of the white cracker republicans.

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm hungry for some saltine crackers.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are inherently racist because they don't understand what it's like being black.

Doesn't help that crime and education statistics reinforce the negative stereotypes about black Americans. When all the machine looks at is data, all it will get is conclusions from data.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Noone but african americans can ever understand the struggle they must go through on a daily basis.

So Rachel Dolezal is posting on /. now?

Re:I'd say

[sittingnut]

in /. sarcasm needs to be captioned.

since not only so called AI but even human intelligence fails here.

Re:I'd say

[wvmarle]

I'm white, therefore I can not understand what it's like being black.

Does that make me racist, a computer, or both?

Re:I'd say

[Lorens]

Of course they don't want another Tay, but the fun thing is that apparently is *does* recognize Hitler and then refuses to say anything at all about the picture. Otherwise the bot would just say "a portrait photo of a man", or "a man with a toothbrush mustache". Compare with the last example in TFA when the bot takes a very cluttered image and somewhat correctly identifies it as not exceedingly happy people sitting at tables.

Re:I'd say

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Except for IBM mainframes. Support diversity, buy IBM mainframes!

Oh, wait...

Re:I'd say

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, since Rachel Dolezal isn't black, it follows from that that she can't understand what she's talking about. Sounds logically consistent to me...? Since it seems she really doesn't.

Re:I'd say

[K. S. Kyosuke]

A big black list? Oh my. That sounds...interesting.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

I have a black computer, you insensitive clod.

Always wanted to have a black one work for me. Oddly, though, if the workload gets higher it just starts to hum. Wonder if I have to whip it to make it sing.

(Hey, what, that was no racist joke. On a scale from black to white, this was Mexican. Tops)

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

If feminist speeches are any indicator, extrapolating from that it would mean you're racist, a computer and must stop eating melons.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

Is it me or would a blacklist for words that are associated with a racist regime be hilarious?

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a myth that black lists are bigger than white lists.

Re:I'd say

[wvmarle]

Darn. I like melons.

Re:I'd say

[KGIII]

I did Nazi that coming...

*is not proud of his behavior*

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Black people agree with stereotypes they like but other stereotypes are racist. Wtf?

Re:I'd say

[KGIII]

> On a scale from black to white, this was Mexican.

Does that mean you keep it clean? You know, maybe Spic-n-Span clean? I guess, maybe, if you had liquid cooling and there was some condensation then it could have a wet back?

On a more serious note, if I were into putting bumper stickers on my cars (and I am not - not now, I did when I was younger and didn't care about keeping them) I'd seriously consider getting a bumper sticker that says, "Jesus is my gardener." Yeah, it'd piss off all sorts of people. Some folks would laugh for the wrong reason. Some would laugh for the right reason. Some would be baffled when they notice the color of my skin. ;-)

I'm most definitely not white. I'm not really sure how to describe me but white is not a word that I'd use. I'm kind of brown(ish). I'm mostly Amerindian (Micmac tribe) and some Black African and some White European. Mostly, I am a mutt. It makes it really hard to fill in paperwork that asks for my race. Sometimes, I check 'em all. Sometimes I check the "other" option and write in "human." A few times, I've written my race as "Davidian." I'm reasonably certain that I'm about as minority as minority can be, however. While there do seem to be a lot of Davids, there are very few that are like me in genetic makeup.

Now I'm reminded of the KitH skit...

"These are the Dave's I know, I know. These are the Dave's I know. Some of them are David and some of them are Dave..."

That was actually a good television show. But, like almost always, I digress.

Re: I'd say

[KGIII]

This is true. I'm part black and I'm hung like a wild-studded gerbil. And I don't mean ¼" from the ground. :( Ah well... The missus says he's cute. Then he spits at her.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

Sorry dude, it's the law. A white guy must be racist and any guy must be misogynist. Took me a while to get used to it but once you're accustomed to being a racist woman hater it's not that bad. I can't shave with a straight razor anymore 'cause I fear I might off that asshole, but that's a small price to pay to fit into the politically correct paradigm again.

Re:I'd say

[Lumpy]

But my computer is black. Black case, Black edition motherboard and black edition processor.

I even installed http://www.blacklablinux.org/ to be sure it was completely black.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers are inherently racist because they don't understand what it's like being black.

Doesn't help that crime and education statistics reinforce the negative stereotypes about black Americans. When all the machine looks at is data, all it will get is conclusions from data.

So what happens when computers confirm those statistics? Does *that* make it racist?
Just because the results aren't something you want to accept doesn't make it a "stereotype". Black Americans commit a vastly larger number of crimes than any other demographic. Does it mean it's ingrained in their genetics? No. It means it's a cultural issue where respect for the law and other people is absent. Once those issues are fixed and education in poor Black communities is improved where they feel they have a way out of poverty, these problems will lessen.

Re:I'd say

[Alomex]

No, no, you must self-classify in a government document according to some arbitrary race classification and make that your identity. It makes this country of ours so much fairer and so unlike South Africa during Apartheid.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want another nazi-bot

They don't need to know the picture tag; All they want is life beyond; THUNDERDOME

Re:I'd say

[ultranova]

Sorry dude, it's the law. A white guy must be racist and any guy must be misogynist.

And yet I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism. It makes me wonder if all the people who complain about being harassed by the politically correct hordes are, in fact, the innocent victims they try to present themselves as.

Took me a while to get used to it but once you're accustomed to being a racist woman hater it's not that bad. I can't shave with a straight razor anymore 'cause I fear I might off that asshole, but that's a small price to pay to fit into the politically correct paradigm again.

Your bravery is an inspiration to us all.

Re:I'd say

[paiute]

Black Americans commit a vastly larger number of crimes than any other demographic.

"Commit"? Or are they disproportionately stopped and searched? Are blacks and whites prosecuted with equal vigor and under the same charges for the same transgressions? The a lot of little factors sum up to "commit" data, one way or the other.

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the furthest thing away from an SJW but I think we can safely say you said "commit" where "convicted of" would be more accurate.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism.

It's not that simple.
People don't point and and accuse me of chauvinism, but the implication is certainly lurking there.

All-women programs and coding camps. Women-only scholarships at school (I'd like to start a scholarship that requires "men only", just to see if it will last a day before a riot).
An anti-harassment poster in my university that says "If I turn him down, would I still get my A?" (emphasis mine).

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism.

That's because you're too much of a bigoted womyn hater to realize it.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

And yet I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism.

Oh yes you are. Maybe you didn't get the memo, but according to the new wave of feminists, ALL men are chauvinistic pigs and ALL men are teh evilz who have nothing other to do than keep the females of the species down. You play video games? You watch movies? All of them chauvinistic and misogynist, so you are one of us.

One of us, one of us...

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, here's the problem. I don't think I've ever been accused of racism. My workplace is too race diverse for that. That's the real advantage of diversity. It's much harder for somebody to formulate a baseless accusation of racism or sexism when there's diversity. When it's clear that I get along with probably more of my colored co-workers than paler ones, if I have a problem with an individual who has darker skin, it's obvious that it's because I simply don't like that individual as a person.

Now you might ask why I estimate I get along better with my colored co-workers than whites. This is a good way to segue into the times I've been suspected of sexism and accused of sexism to my face. The fact of the matter is that unfortunately whites who work in my niche industry tend to be... er... trash. For whatever reason, probably the background radiation of racism in the larger community, my black co-workers tend to be more intelligent, well-mannered, and ambitious. When we lose a black line worker, often it's because he or she found a better opportunity and is moving up in the world.

So, why did I get accused of sexism? Well, one of those pieces of white trash went "I wanna be a programmer!" This was around the time--a little before--that gamers were all a bunch of sexually frustrated misogynerds, some chick was having problems finding a good date and this was somehow headline-worthy and also the fault of all men (instead of the person in the mirror, go figure), and the media was uncovering a grand conspiracy among all assigned males, enabled by the obvious frothing at the mouth hatred of women on display by male STEM workers. Revenge porn! Harassment! ZOMG!

Being white trash, the person who went "I wanna be a programmer!" had no inclination to grasp any of the concepts. It was a complete disaster. So, instead of reflecting on her as an individual, it splashed all over me and the next thing I knew, solely because I had been assigned the male gender at birth (because I know one of the people promulgating the idea should have fucking known better that I only present as male to do business, gotta eat and all that, not every transgendered person is a wealthy, well-connected celebrity like those bitches Caitlyn Jenner and Brianna Wu), that because I had failed to turn a dumb-as-rocks baby mamma into a programmer, it was obvious that I hated women and didn't think it was proper for women to be programmers. What the bloodly living fucking shit!

At any rate, I did succeed once, but she was sexually harassed out of the job by a fucking gaslighting asshole manager. I nearly succeeded again (this time with extra diversity points since she's black), but she was promoted to replace that gaslighting asshole manager after we shitcanned his racist, sexist, slimy, creepy, lying, obese ass.

So, that's how one gets accused of sexism when one has done the fucking opposite and was trying as hard as possible to get cisfemale co-workers to learn at least the basics. These days, I think I am sexist, though. The person who accused me of sexism has absolutely no clue when it comes to computers (we see this pattern all over the feminist movement when they attack an assigned male over sexism). In her ignorance, she concluded sexism because she had no fucking clue what programming involves. And people listened to her.

Another way to get accused of sexism, all though I'm not certain how serious this was, is to be the unlucky assigned male who needs to tell a committee trying to offer free health care services to underservered women that we need to increase the budget for my employer's services (there wasn't a single fucking cisfemale at my employer who cared about giving the program a break, especially the bitch in accounting who could have), decrease the budget for covering the healthcare services, and that's the only way we can maximize our impact even though my numbers (which are always accurate, and the final numbers vs. my estimate were scary spot on--I was gett

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but according to Bernie Sanders, it means you don't know what it's like to be poor.

So you have that in common with a computer.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the original AC. I didn't say on purpose. Too many variables to achieve a sound conclusion. That does not stop people from choosing their cause or ignoring facts anyway.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Misappropriation of culture! Your computer doesn't know the real struggle until it's shot in the rear chassis with a s&w .40 and you feed it under-voltage.

Re:I'd say

[retchdog]

And according to the fundamentalists, we're all hell-bound sinners or worse. The same strategy applies to dealing with any fundamentalist: ignore them except to mock. Complaining about it just means you're indirectly taking their message to heart.

Re:I'd say

[retchdog]

All I could think of while reading this screed was "Old Man Yells at Cloud". Really, your pareidolia is just reaching crazy levels. It's like you're staring that picture which resembles either a vase or two faces in profile, and frothing with yourself about which one to believe in. Relax, take a step back, and you'll realize it's just a picture you can walk away from. Do your work and make your money and leave politics to other people. You've never mentioned any real repercussions to any of the "errors" you've committed.

Re:I'd say

[Moflamby-2042]

> "Commit"? Or are they disproportionately stopped and searched?

Rapes, murders and other violent crime aren't dependent on "unfair stops and searches" though, which leads me to believe unfair stops and searches are probably not the root cause of the other cases either.

Re:I'd say

[thegarbz]

Guys guys guys .... can't we just be both?

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it didn't happen to YOU it must not happen to anybody! That's the kind of broad generalization and cloudy thinking that's truly worthy of a +5 moderation on Slashdot now.

You are in the only group (white people) that can be called racist by the media. You cannot defend yourself as a police officer without marches and riots. You cannot mention any "racist" facts without threatening your livelihood and worse. It doesn't end there.

Of course it is your right to make bad generalizations and stay wilfully ignorant and you can certainly keep standing by that right.

Re: I'd say

[Hylandr]

Rachel Dolezal Bot

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

As a black person, who is also a educated software engineer, I would agree, fellow anonymous coward.

Re:I'd say

[Hylandr]

It's safe to say that people that live in, or frequent, poor communities are disproportionately stopped and searched.

It's sad that many black people live in these communities for the sake of rejecting what they perceive as 'white culture' aka, 'education'.

Education and success are not white attributes, or every trailer court would be a castle. Everyone seems to forget that the Good Reverend Martin Luther King Junior was also the Good *Doctor*, Martin Luther King Junior. When black people stop rejecting education en-masse then we will see those stats alter.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet I'm a white guy who doesn't seem to run into accusations of either racism or chauvinism.

Maybe because you are blind to it, on account of your white privilege?

Re:I'd say

[mrchaotica]

It's sad that many black people live in these communities for the sake of various historical artifacts of racism, including red-lining, predatory lending, discrimination in hiring and salary, etc.

FTFY.

Everyone seems to forget that the Good Reverend Martin Luther King Junior was also the Good *Doctor*, Martin Luther King Junior.

Even Dr. King lived in relatively shitty neighborhoods compared to his white PhD counterparts. He lived in Sweet Auburn because he was not allowed by the white establishment to live in Midtown or Buckhead. And when Sweet Auburn started getting too uppit... er, "affluent," that same white establishment bulldozed it to put the fucking freeway though it. That's why the Grady Curve exists -- they could have easily built the freeway straight, but that would have left "the richest Negro street in the world" intact, which was clearly an intolerable situation.

(Note: I am a native Atlantan and know very well what I'm talking about.)

Re:I'd say

[Maritz]

Learn to spell before implying that your race is superior.

Re:I'd say

[Maritz]

As someone from the same demographic, suck it the fuck up big boy.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah suck it up, sit at the back of the bus.

I guess saying suck it up makes racism OK, awesome.

Re:I'd say

[ultranova]

Maybe you didn't get the memo, but according to the new wave of feminists, ALL men are chauvinistic pigs and ALL men are teh evilz who have nothing other to do than keep the females of the species down.

And yet it seems only SOME men are actually accused of such things.

You play video games? You watch movies? All of them chauvinistic and misogynist, so you are one of us.

I play video games and occasionally watch movies. So there must be some other variable to account for these differences in our experiences. I wonder what it could possibly be?

Re:I'd say

[ultranova]

You cannot mention any "racist" facts without threatening your livelihood and worse.

Anon, I think you nailed the issue. Having to keep your racist, sexist bullshit to yourself because people call you out if you try to spread it is what all this whining is ultimately about. My heart bleeds for your plight.

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

Your lack of self-awareness in your own rant us very amusing.

Re: I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

There are two men in the world: those who are not mysoginistic and those who think they aren't. The latter are fucking this all up for everyone, period. At least embrace who you are and go off to some male power site so we can stop having to read your nonsense.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

Quite fitting, the whole shit has taken on religious proportions anyway, it's become a substitute religion for those that can't get enough of arbitrary statements and nonsensical accusations.

Re:I'd say

[Opportunist]

Nah, that's enough. Actually, you're a man, that's allegedly already enough. But you watch movies and play games, so you simply have to be.

Don't you watch any feminist videos, dude? Seriously, do it, great entertainment.

Re:I'd say

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They are not racist.
They are political.
They want to erase.
They want to censor.
They want to misguide.

Re:I'd say

[Coren22]

Well, older IDE hard drives did have a master/slave relationship.

Re:I'd say

[samwichse]

ultranova, I like your style.

Cellphones were notably offended

[Crashmarik]

The Michelle Obama comparison did not sit well at all with them.

Re:Cellphones were notably offended

[JustOK]

But then the FBI came along, and then all the smart phones were like, "we were totally wrong. everything is fine. we're sorry. government is good."

Digital unintelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

They should call it artificial dogma rather than intelligence.

Re:Digital unintelligence

[arth1]

Both Microsoft and Google's varieties are rather fun.

The key to CaptionBot is to feed it lots of images, and always give 1 star when it's spot on and 5 when it's most ridiculously wrong. Over time, it "improves".

Re: Digital unintelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't really a flaw. Human children have the same problem, if their parents are psychopaths.

Re:Digital unintelligence

[ffkom]

Yeah, just like children learning from religion. Do Google's and MicroSofts AIs yet correctly identify images of the flat earth disc and images of those dinosaur bones god placed into the soil 6000 years ago? Will have to teach them...

Re: Digital unintelligence

[ffkom]

Only in this case the "parents" (Microsoft, Google) don't want to invest in the education of their "children", so they leave teaching to anonymous psychopaths on the Web. It's as if rich parents would send their 3 years old children to a juke joint in shanty town - instead of kindergarten.

Re:Digital unintelligence

[sumdumass]

I dunno, never bothered me enough to ask. But since this idea is your brainchild, why don't you do the scientific thing and experiment with it and report your findings instead of the religion thing and just asking about it to believe whatever someone tells you that is written in a book.

Re: Digital unintelligence

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were only one thing that we, the internet, could come together on, please let it be to STOP CALLING ASSHOLES PSYCHOPATHS. Being a prick on the internet does not make someone a psychopath. Not wanting muslim refugees to come to their country doesn't make them a psychopath. Hell, even saying insane crap like "Kill all white males" doesn't make them a psychopath.

So what heuristic shall we use to determine whether using the word psychopath is appropriate? Simple: NEVER. Just forget the word even exists, because chances are extremely high that you're too ignorant to use it correctly in the first place and will be better served using literally any other term to describe a despicable person.

TL;DR: Stop using the word psychopath to describe assholes, you cretins.

Re: Digital unintelligence

[careysub]

TL;DR: Stop using the word psychopath to describe assholes, you cretins.

Hmm... I feel a nerd-rage at the misuse of the word "cretin" coming on....

Umm..

[Cyphase]

Wait, so.. are you tell me CaptionBot is a holocaust-denier? And believes that Osama Bin Laden didn't exist because, what, he was a CIA fabrication? What's going on here?

Re:Umm..

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

Well - it recognised Joseph Mengele, although describing him as a "Nazi leader" is ridiculous.

Re:Umm..

[Anonymous Coward]

The APIs were only following orders...

Re: Republican-ruled corporations...

[Anonymous Coward]

And racist. That's how they be.

How the AI describes Obama

[Anonymous Coward]

A Kenyan wearing a turban

PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Tablizer]

Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them. It's like they thought their corporate image problem from being a ham-handed OS monopoly wasn't big enough: they needed to automate gaffes.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

"ham-handed OS monopoly" They became an OS monopoly because they had no serious competitors at the time. Many of their competitors gladly sold their technology and product lines to MS for big money over the years. Of course this was characterized as MS "stealing" technology. In the beginning Apple looked like they might compete with MS but their decision to use proprietary hardware, poor 3rd party developer support, and their higher prices almost closed them down. They got to the point where MS actually invested $300 million in Apple so they could continue to be a viable company. Of course Apple got it's act together and even paid the $300 million back to MS.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[mossy the mole]

Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them. It's like they thought their corporate image problem from being a ham-handed OS monopoly wasn't big enough: they needed to automate gaffes.

Just think of it as the first steps of a new thing. Be interesting to see this develop

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[dbIII]

Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them

That's what an "A.I." made of lookup tables or pattern matching a pile of data does. I really cannot understand why they are putting this stuff forward as if it is ready to be more than just a more complicated "Eliza" toy.
Use it to look stuff up ot have simple questions and answers - fine. Use it to have a conversation and expect perfect results - not a chance.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them

That's what an "A.I." made of lookup tables or pattern matching a pile of data does. I really cannot understand why they are putting this stuff forward as if it is ready to be more than just a more complicated "Eliza" toy. Use it to look stuff up ot have simple questions and answers - fine. Use it to have a conversation and expect perfect results - not a chance.

They are using learning neural networks. While I agree AI is a misnomer, calling sophisticated learning ANNs for "lookup tables" is just as wrong.

Re: PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[jsh1972]

They need to hook it up to a robotic chair throwing module.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[MrL0G1C]

This.

I wish they'd stop calling this stuff A.I. it's simple pattern recognition. There is no such thing as an AI that has any kind of comprehension and it doesn't look like there will be any time soon.

And this stuff will likely be driving cars and trucks, I want to know every detail of how it can fail beyond the obvious ie that it can't tell the difference between a dress and a cat or a face and two giraffes etc.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

"gladly sold"? You weren't there, stupid. Ask the guy who actually OWNED the name "Internet Explorer" how well that went for him.

Engulf, devour, extend, extinguish. MS was the Borg and they got away with it because Judge Penfield decided to be a media whore not a jurist.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[mobby_6kl]

It's fairly primitive at this point, of course, but please do explain how this is fundamentally different form how living things perceive visual information and why this is not AI.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[MrL0G1C]

We have a vastly superior knowledge of items in images and videos, we understand information about colours, materials, living things, the way physics interacts with these things, what's flammable, floatable, destructible, cheap expensive, natural, man made and countless more attributes. We understand these things, we don't just attributes words to them when we don't even comprehend the meaning of those words.

Look at Eliza bots, they basically talk meaningless gibberish, sometimes they get lucky like a human who doesn't know the answer to a question but answers yes or no regardless.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "simple" pattern recognition, the same way a Saturn IV is "simply" a rocket, or your computer is "just" doing a little math.

It isn't an artificial sapience, by any means, but it is an expert system (emphasis on visual classification), and that's been classified as AI for 50+ years. At this point, you kinda need to just accept the fact that accurate, specialized terms aren't in common usage.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not drastically different from the way living things process visual information as I understand it. I think what GP is getting at is that while the thing can identify what it's seeing and learn to recognize new things, it doesn't pass muster as AI because because it has no intelligence about those things. It has no ethical capacity to see why racism and Nazis and all that are bad. I would expect an AI to be able to slog through the various literary works that inspired national socialism and make reasoned arguments for or against national socialism or even for or against various aspects of it. Truth be told, there are some aspects of national socialism that are appealing, but one needs to try to extricate the racism from the nationalism. I'd expect an AI to be up to the task.

The Turing test wasn't simply a low bar that a chatbot can pass. What people have been calling the Lovelace test is closer to what Turing actually meant. Turing expected that an AI would be able to hold an intelligent conversation with a reasonably educated person about subjects like art and literature. Lovelace insisted that a computer would never be able to do such a thing, that is originate novel positions and conclusions. So perhaps if we need to give a shout-out to Lovelace, we should call it the Lovelace-Turing test. I suppose history will show whether Lovelace or Turing was more correct in the end.

Specifically, this bot is doing that with which we are already acquainted, that is it is able to mimic the ways we've learned visual comprehension works in animals. Therefore, it's still bound by Lovelace's assertions.

Don't get me wrong. It's very clever and a triumph of human ingenuity all unto itself. However, all it knows is "Hitler Bad," and that's because the programmers programmed it that way. I'm sure one could program a chatbot with lines of argument for or against national socialism, but those arguments would still not be original.

I linked ST:TOS The Ultimate Computer above, but for this comment, it's more appropriate to consider two Braga-era examples of what one could I think reasonably conclude are true AIs: James Moriarty (and perhaps Countess Bartholomew) and "Joe".

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Anonymous Coward]

microsoft recent fails...

windows 10
twitter bot
caption bot
subscription office
windows mobile
nokia buyout
minecraft buyout
surface rt
xbox one (yes it's a fail in name and specs)
satya nadella

basically the last thing they did even remotely right was windows 7.

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[dbIII]

Sophisticated lookup tables then - consider what learning neural networks actually at when it gets down to it!

Re:PhB.B.B.B.B.B

[Perky_Goth]

I wish they'd stop calling this stuff A.I. it's simple pattern recognition.

AFAIK, so is human intelligence, that's why you spent years being a useless drooling slob.

Re: Republican-ruled corporations...

[Anonymous Coward]

They have policies against making working products.

Let's end this right here and now

[Marginal Coward]

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.

Re:Let's end this right here and now

[Anonymous Coward]

Fascist.

Re:Let's end this right here and now

[phantomfive]

As an online discussion grows longer, doesn't the probability of every topic coming up approach 1? This isn't systemd or anything.

Re:Let's end this right here and now

[Opportunist]

That's something Hitler would have said! You Nazi!

It's not a wedding dress

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, the "wedding dress" from the summary is not a wedding dress at all. In fact it's the famous black/blue or white/gold dress. The reason that's interesting is because the 'human' in charge of complaining that the computer can't recognize a simple image....can't recognize a simple image.

Additionally, that whole 'dress color' kerfuffle shows that image recognition can be a difficult task even for the human brain...which has been specifically designed and built over thousands of years to do that very thing.

Re:It's not a wedding dress

[phantomfive]

Additionally, that whole 'dress color' kerfuffle shows that image recognition can be a difficult task even for the human brain...which has been specifically designed and built over thousands of years to do that very thing.

I think it shows that some colors display differently on different monitors.

Re:It's not a wedding dress

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the background in that picture is completely blown out some people automatically correct for it as if it were a dark picture that was artificially made brighter in photoshop.

Re:It's not a wedding dress

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it shows that some colors display differently on different monitors.

Nope. I saw the dress white/gold at first, and used an image manipulation program to adjust the lightness/contrast. After i saw the dress was blue/black on the manipulated image, i started to see the original image the same way. So it's definitely a brain's failure to interpret colors correctly.

Re: Republican-ruled corporations...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ruining lives is what they do.

I hate any group of interest, no matter the symbol

[Anonymous Coward]

At least a nazi hates You and then ignores You. The rest of the retarded religious people, including who listens to shit music, have pitty on their lives and think lure people around selling mercy to excuse failed promises. I don't care if someone is religious or not, both are insignificant to me. I'm 1000 slower than a computer but at least I'm comfortable with my awareness of certain types of people that I dislike. When I quit playing, I thought You were able to get the reason why I choose to stay away. But your fucked mind is too slow I supose. That's why You keep trying, because You have no idea about what You're doing. Even when I'm high I can handle the current picture. If You're unable to undestand that, just shut up and keep away, because I hate your mental disorder. If You wanna have an idea about how I respect You, imagine that I consider Bill Cipher more realistic than your contiousness.

AI is just not ready.

[Iamthecheese]

I think the most important piece of information here is that AI just isn't ready for the big time yet. People are going to do and say all kinds of fucked up and bizarre things. People will try to have sex with anything. They'll try to convince their AI assistant to support genocide. They'll demand that it pretend to agree with them about things like that. They'll ask for information that's not available, they'll cuss and scream, they'll talk about things that seem completely off-topic. People will use puns, innuendo, and vague references. They'll yell insults, start stupid arguments, and lie through their teeth even when it only hurts themselves. And yes they will talk about Hitler. An AI that can properly handle all of this and not go off the deep end is a full-fledged strong AI.

We're not there yet but this effort by Microsoft is, IMHO, as smart as a mouse. And with geometric progress that means the real thing won't be long now.

Re:AI is just not ready.

[ByteSlicer]

We're not there yet but this effort by Microsoft is, IMHO, as smart as a mouse.

Mice are pretty smart, I'd argue that the current AIs are at insect level of "intelligence".

What's obvious from these results is that the AI has no idea what it's looking at. This is typical for a trained neural net: it finds the best matching pattern in an image, and maps that to one of its output categories. It makes no difference between a random black and white blob, and a penguin, so long as they match the pattern.

A mouse, and true AI, will have spatial understanding. It will (intuitively) know that the images represent objects in space, and will be able to recreate a coarse 3D model of what they see. Then they will break down the scene in basic features, and identify it based on those features. It might say: hey, these blobs remind me of a penguin, but will never say that they *are* a penguin, because the blob will miss the beak and eyes and flippers and feet.

Basically, what we have now are the neural nets we already had 50 years ago, only on much faster hardware, combined with a bot and a web search engine. It's basically ELIZA on steroids, but still a long long way from actual intelligence.

Re:AI is just not ready.

[Anonymous Coward]

Entirely wrong. There's no intelligence here, not even on the level of a mouse. Or probably even an insect.
The lesson to learn is that if you open your database up and let the general public say what is true and what is false, a large number of people will have a good bit of fun flagging falsehoods as Truth and vice versa. Then your database becomes trash.
This "AI" is a perfect example of why all intelligent organisms have an innate ability to distrust outside inputs when they conflict with inside knowledge.

Put very simply, Microsoft is demonstrating that they are decades behind everyone else in terms of AI R&D, and that the engineers they have working on their projects are seriously lacking in their knowledge of Sociology. Shit, I've seen college Undergrad projects that do a better job than what MS has demonstrated so far.

Re:AI is just not ready.

[phantomfive]

Mice are pretty smart, I'd argue that the current AIs are at insect level of "intelligence".

Maybe.....this just looks like a probabilistic classifier, insects are capable of more than that.

Basically, what we have now are the neural nets we already had 50 years ago,

That's going a little too far: 50 years ago people were experimenting with perceptrons. The networks we use now are more advanced than that in capabilities.

I'm betting then...

[Anonymous Coward]

it would have no problem identifying a pic of Joseph Stalin, Joe Paterno, Joe the Plumber, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream-Coat, Joe Jackson, Joe DiMaggio, and Joseph Heller... or Joe Biden, Joe Pesci, Joe Namath, Joe Louis, and of course, Joey Tribbiani.

This begs the question though, would it recognize Adolf's second cousin, Joseph Hitler, 'Mustachio Joe' to his friends? (It's not what you think, he coached little-league, and had a long, skinny, waxed-handlebar-mustache. Also, he loved blacks, Jews, homosexuals, and beef brisket. Later changed his name to Stevens, or something like that.)

Okay, I just made that last part up, but you believed a little, right?

Sure that was a mistake?

[Anonymous Coward]

"it mistakenly identified Gene Simmons of KISS as "a woman in a red jacket...sitting on a motorcycle"

Sure that was a mistake?

The Woman in a Red Dress(or some other RED clothing) riding what some could call a BEAST (motocycle) which involves the secret of the woman and the beast. If the white light hits you, if you see something strange, like a dog or some other creature form in your mind, kneel and beg YHWH/Christ/Holy Spirit to take over your life and SAVE you from this attack. Then turn and rebuke, condemn, and expel any evil spirits/serpents in the Name of The FATHER, THE SON, THE HOLY SPIRIT.

The evil will FLEE like the COWARDS they are. Like the cowardly people who follow the evil spirits.

They need an AI PR Bot to solve these PR problems

[Anonymous Coward]

They should make an AI SpokesBot to solve these PR problems

"An operating system suitable for critical servers

[raymorris]

The most ridiculous might be what Microsoft's AI describes an "an operating system suitable for mission critical servers". Or maybe that was Microsoft Marketing, not Microsoft AI. Either way.

Color me impressed!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is uncannily accurate!

Re: I hate any group of interest, no matter the sy

[mrmatthewcarlson]

This is not Missed Connections?

1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[raymorris]

I'm reminded that about half of Slashdotters are afraid that AI like this will put them out of a job soon. The other half of Slashdotters can tell the difference between a cell phone and the first lady, so they won't be replaced by Microsoft software.

On the other hand, 15% of Slashdot readers can't tell the difference between Obama and Hitler, with this AI can do so.

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[93 Escort Wagon]

I'm reminded that about half of Slashdotters are afraid that AI like this will put them out of a job soon. The other half of Slashdotters can tell the difference between a cell phone and the first lady, so they won't be replaced by Microsoft software.

When it comes to replacing human workers with an AI, the opinions of the technically literate are irrelevant. All that matters is whether the maker of the AI can convince a company's leadership that employing the AI will save them money.

If competence were really the determining factor in deciding whether to replace human workers with automated systems, do you really think most companies would've replaced their human telephone operators with the now-ubiquitous automated phone tree software?

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[wvmarle]

On the other hand, 15% of Slashdot readers can't tell the difference between Obama and Hitler, with this AI can do so.

You think this is a good or a bad thing?

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, 15% of Slashdot readers can't tell the difference between Obama and Hitler

Yeah right. Obama is the one with the silly mustache, everybody knows that.

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[KGIII]

The fear of being replaced by a computer, by an intelligent machine, is hardly new. Back in the late 50s and early 60s there were even movies and televisions shows that touched on the topic of being replaced by the "Big Brain." At the time, of course, computers were literally taking quite a few tasks away from humans. Like always, many of us short-sighted humans didn't stop to realize that this would be creating other jobs and would require less menial/repetitive labor.

I don't remember if it was a movie or a television show but it had a Vax in it and a couple of office working ladies. They were accountants or human computers, I don't recall which, and the computer actually was malicious. One of the scenes was the computer trashing the office and throwing reams of paper around and pushing paper out through the printer (it was the feed stock paper back then, usually) and I seem to recall the two ladies kept their jobs. Err... It's probably been 40 to 45 years since I've seen the movie so you'll have to forgive my lack of detailed memory. ;-)

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the show you're thinking of, but this came to mind.

Re:1/2 of /. readers say AI will take their job

[Perky_Goth]

I'm reminded that about half of Slashdotters are afraid that AI like this will put them out of a job soon.

Then you can't read. No one is saying that it'll be soon, but if you've been looking at the fast pace of improvement in the last decade you would realize AI is going to have massive social and economical implications.

I never thought this tumblr would be relevant...

[fibonacci8]

http://ignorehitler.tumblr.com...

simple

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just back to the Global Mother Fucking Spyware drawing board.

The real test

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it identify the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 as a controlled demolition ?

Re:The real test

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if it ignores all the images of finless grays and UFOs in the images.

It identified Batman OK

[inode_buddha]

I see it identified batman OK.

Put up or shut up.

[westlake]

Microsoft's AI keeps embarrassing them. It's like they thought their corporate image problem from being a ham-handed OS monopoly wasn't big enough: they needed to automate gaffes.

It is trivially easy to get a instant mod-up on Slashdot by pointing to the Microsoft's AI's occasional mistakes and not its successes. But most of the time Microsoft's AI seems to be getting it right. If you have something better, put it up where we can see it.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[phantomfive]

IBM - Watson, a computer that can win at Jeopardy
Google - AlphaGo, a computer that wins at Go
Microsoft - Tay, a racist chatbot

Is there really a comparison? Even if Microsoft has some decent technology, they're definitely losing on the marketing front, they are making themselves look like dancing monkey cousins.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[kqc7011]

Will it disregard images of Buddhist temples with swastika's? Or any of the multiple images / uses of the swastika that others used before the National Socialists?

Re:Put up or shut up.

[ffkom]

Even if Microsoft has some decent technology, they're definitely losing on the marketing front, they are making themselves look like dancing monkey cousins.

That's just because they are just that.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Buddhist symbols are not Hitler's swastikas. The symbols look similar, but the "hands" are turned at a different angle: https://www.flickr.com/photos/59385051@N07/5435264023/

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that a missile blowing up on the launch pad is a failure. You can know nothing of how to build another and still know they screwed up.

The "show us yours" defense is always seen for what it is - desperation of the apologist.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but there is definitely more need for racist chatbots than experts in Jeopardy and Go, so once more Microsoft managed to capitalize from existing technology that they implemented incorrectly and that is only working halfways. :-/

Re:Put up or shut up.

[__roo]

I bet one of those AIs would pass a Turing test—and not the one that can win at Jeopardy or beat a Go champion.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[phantomfive]

Until you ask it whether time flies like an arrow, and what color are the flies.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

IBM - Watson, a data search and retrieval tool
Google - a domain-specific expert system
Microsoft - an AI capable of figuring out, in 24 hours on Twitter, that Hitler did nothing wrong

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Black people aren't apes, either yet the software gets confused.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[thegarbz]

IBM - Watson, a computer that can win at Jeopardy

Google - AlphaGo, a computer that wins at Go

Microsoft - Tay, a racist chatbot

Is there really a comparison?

Understanding natural language.
Playing a logic game with prediction to gain a winning move.
Interacting with humans and identifying images without external influence.

You're right on one thing there is absolutely no comparison. The ability to do one has absolutely zero bearing on the ability to do another.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[phantomfive]

Interacting with humans is one of the easiest things to get a computer to do man, lay off the pot, it's affecting your brain.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Black people aren't apes

Yes they are.

Just like all the other people.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Tablizer]

Doesn't mean it doesn't embarrass them. I'm viewing this from a P/R perspective, not a Vulcan's.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

[snip]
they are making themselves look like dancing monkey cousins.

Balmer left M$ long time back.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[thegarbz]

No. Interacting with computers is one of the easiest things to get a human to do. The opposite is nothing more than regurgitating predetermined responses ... by a human.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[phantomfive]

Interacting with computers is one of the easiest things to get a human to do.

Yes, that is exactly what I said.

Re: Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of humans would stare blankly after one of those questions as well.

Re:Put up or shut up.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 4chan drone doesn't realise he's an ape.

All for legal reasons

[gnasher719]

They don't have any problem identifying photos of Hitler as Hitler. The problem is false positives: If the software mistook the photo of some living person as Hitler, and that was somehow published, that person would not be happy, and might start a lawsuit.

Problem is easily solved by telling the software "if you think it is Hitler, you say you don't recognise it". There was a case a while ago where some photo analysis software mistook a woman for a gorilla. Highly embarrassing for everyone involved.

I would think that software makers would nowadays add precautions to make particularly embarrassing mistakes less likely. (Mistaking a gorilla for a woman is no big deal, the other way round it's very bad).

Re: All for legal reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is mistaking a woman for a gorilla bad, compared to, say, a cat or a sandwich?

Are you a fucking racist or something?

Re:All for legal reasons

[Opportunist]

This is probably the best explanation for the whole mess.

Should've thought of it myself. If anything makes no sense, it's probably legal related.

Re:All for legal reasons

[mobby_6kl]

Or, false positives or not, they just don't want to have anything to do with Hitler. Especially after Tay.

Re:All for legal reasons

[IMightB]

Personally, I don't think that identifying hitler is a problem.... per se. it's adding contect that I would discourage. For example if it said "Hey! That's Adolf Hitler, I think he's a swell guy." I'd have a problem with that. On the other hand with blocking Hitler images, what are they going to do with Charlie Chaplin?

Re: All for legal reasons

[PPH]

Why is mistaking a woman for a gorilla bad

Try telling one that those pants make her look fat and see what a living hell life can be.

Re:All for legal reasons

[DougReed]

... unless you are a gorilla.

Re:All for legal reasons

[KingOfBLASH]

a) Statisticians actually formally discuss these as type 1 and type 2 errors. The chance of rejecting a true hypothesis and failing to reject a false hypothesis is typically taken into account in the beginning of your analysis.
b) This is a non-trivial task. Sure, if you have a limited scope (we want our planes not to crash, so err on the side of something that is safer than required) it's easy. But in this case, it changes. "Find me a photo of hitler" is bad if it finds a woman who desperately needs to wax, but it's also bad if you're doing a search for hitler images and miss him. In this case there is no adequate framework to say "Here is how you determine acceptable error levels."

What all this boils down to is AI is simply not ready for prime time until it becomes MUCH more accurate

Re: All for legal reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure you'll have more success saying, "It's not the pants"

Let The Dissembling Begin

[d'baba]

Did we learn nothing from the time we made HAL lie?

--
I think so Brain. But why do I have to wear this itchy & scratchy toothbrush on my upper lip?

I'd guess that this is related to their earlier

[Anonymous Coward]

... website asking users to upload their photos for analysis. Dumbass IT PHBs will have done so using their real name and this new website is waiting for them to try it out so that it can amaze them. BFD, just another demographics grab.

Not Bad, infact, pretty good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was pretty good with the pictures that i just tried. Around 80% accuracy. That is an amazing number when it comes to predictions and AI.
But yeah, with time and data, machine intelligence gets better. So the future looks bright for CaptionBot.

Only Hitler?

[jandersen]

One wonders which caption it would put on goatse?

Re:Only Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders which caption it would put on goatse?

"Black Hole" obviously.

Re: Only Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely that would be a brown hole

Re:Only Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tested: "I am not really confident, but I think it's a man holding a cat."

Re:Only Hitler?

[Opportunist]

I've heard many names for it... "cat" wasn't one of them.

Re:Only Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders which caption it would put on goatse?

Yawning lion

I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem with identifying Adolph Hitler?

Re:I don't get it

[Opportunist]

If it was a pic of you and the AI would say "Oh, that's Adolf", how'd you feel?

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I would be so happy I'd immediately march into the Sudetenland.

You?

Re:I don't get it

[bbn]

Better than being identified as a phone or giraffe.

Re:I don't get it

[Opportunist]

Nah, twice in a row is bad style.

Tried it, didnt worked at all

[orogorhotmail.com]

it was just perfect on MS provided pictures and was zero on pictures i provided.

Upload picture of floppy it can t describe it.
Upload identity picture of me, it s a man holding a remote control
Upload a photo of the hearth , it s a close ip of a wave

https://www.captionbot.ai/

Re:Tried it, didnt worked at all

[orogorhotmail.com]

HAHAHHA

sending this link :
http://images.google.fr/imgres...

here is the caption :
data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAkGBxQTEhUUEhQUFBUUFBUUFBQVFxUXFBYUFBQWFhQUFBQYHCggGBwlHBQUITEh

Maybe it can only provides a caption by copying an existing one, i dont know

heh

[matushorvath]

I am not really sure, but I think it's a small off-duty Czechoslovakian traffic warden.

Re:heh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure it's the Bolivian Navy on manoeuvres in the South Pacific.

Please stahp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it too much to ask that we as a people, when we see emerging AI, that we just freaking stop trying to expose it to as many nazies as possible? I just don't see any good coming from the reasoning "Look, an advanced computer AI, lets show it picktues of people that killed a lot of humans, maybe it won't get any ideas."

Re:Please stahp!

[Opportunist]

Ever heard the saying "It takes a village to raise a child"? Well, if this experiment shows anything then that it does NOT take an internet to raise one.

But it sure as hell explains some kids today...

Tay 2.0

[jsh1972]

I can't really describe this picture- but i do know it did nothing wrong!

Re: Republican-ruled corporations...

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Gates the socialist and Ballmer the anti-gun donor? Republican indeed.

It gets much worse than misidentifying a dress...

[Anonymous Coward]

https://imgur.com/k6Coojh [Trigger warning: photo of JFK's head wound]

Best results

[Anonymous Coward]

Some best results I obtained:

https://s21.postimg.org/s7p70mbcn/Cattura.png

https://s24.postimg.org/smsfenz6t/Cattura.png

Re:Best results

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty shit results.

Re: I hate any group of interest, no matter the sy

[Anonymous Coward]

What a hilarious piece of fiction! Bravo!

What does that mean for CAPTCHAs?

[Opportunist]

As soon as this bot goes live, will we only get to see Hitler pics to solve CAPTChAs so the botters don't get in?

The societal consequences of slightly shoddy AI

[dpbsmith]

All kinds of AI have teething pains, during which the problems are obvious and comical (the Apple Newton's handwriting recognition being a case in point). At the same time, the achievements of modern AI are amazing--but also troubling.

When I compare AI as envisioned in the 1950s--Isaac Asimov's Multivac, or his robots, perhaps--the assumption was that AI would be closely similar to human intelligence. For example, it was implicit that robots would answer questions by actually understanding them. What we are seeing today evokes an analogy with technologies like the sewing machine. Early efforts attempted to sew the same way humans did, and failed. Singer's brilliant idea was a method of using thread to fasten two pieces of cloth that did not resemble human sewing or even use the same stitch.

A Google search is within shooting distance of Multivac. You type in a question and you get a useful answer. The interesting thing is that most modern AI is shoddy. It goes halfway. It gives you something that's inaccurate, yet useful. But the key thing is that you are expected to use your human intelligence to get the rest of the way and correct mistakes. In the case of Google, you do this by looking at a ten or a hundred search results, for example--and reformulating the question if you don't get the right answer.

Perhaps one of the things that early AI pioneers missed is that modern AI relies more on having huge databases of information than would have even been imaginable in the 1950s and 1960s, and less on AI actually mimicking human intelligence.

This is not a problem when it is all open, the AI is offering you something to look at and not making decisions for you, and it is all in the nature of help or suggestions rather than direct action.

It becomes far more serious when it is happening behind the scenes--when AI is deciding whether you get a loan, or pass an essay test on an exam, or get onto a terrorist watchlist.

Re:The societal consequences of slightly shoddy AI

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a problem when it is all open, the AI is offering you something to look at and not making decisions for you, and it is all in the nature of help or suggestions rather than direct action.

This.

Good GIS UX:
1) Type $QUERY
2) See pictures of $QUERY, including the desired result, but Google really likes Pinterest, and I want the original, not some 236-pixel or 736-pixel resized/rehosted version.
3) Drag the desired result to little picture of camera.
4) Click on "Visually similar images."
5) See 10-20 differently-sized representation of the same image, select the one that's largest or oldest.

Current GIS UX now has AI:
1) Type $QUERY
2) See pictures of $QUERY, including the desired result, but Google really likes Pinterest, and I want the original, not some 236-pixel or 736-pixel resized/rehosted version.
3) Drag the desired result to little picture of camera.
4) Click on "Visually similar images."
5) AI "helpfully" rewords my query to "Funny $QUERY" or "$QUERY figurine" and results in something completely different. 6) Declare "Fuck this shit" and go back to TinEye for reverse GIS on the Pinterest link.

Ignoring Hitler?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't that cause some trouble last time?

Re:I hate any group of interest, no matter the sym

[KGIII]

Ignoring is not actually a term that I'd use when describing Nazis. In fact, if they'd just ignored those they hated then there probably wouldn't have needed to be a giant FUCKING WAR because of their behavior. Slaughtering millions and bombing other people's property into rubble is not exactly "ignoring." Unless, of course, you've got a very different definition of ignoring than I do.

Re:I hate any group of interest, no matter the sym

[Anonymous Coward]

Your posting style belies your identity. Shouldn't you be on IRC in #ED? Or do you think nobody here knows you, your posting style, and your rather particular verbiage? What say you, Mr. W? What say you, indeed?!?

In fairness, I'll post as an AC. Wouldst thou like to play thine name guessing game, dear boy?

This thing they call an Internet is smaller than one might think.

Re: I hate any group of interest, no matter the sy

[sumdumass]

Cut him some slack. He's upset the none of the preachers wanted to molest him. It has jaded him for life.

Can it identify a penis and a vagina?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Goatee or Lemon Party?

Re:They need an AI PR Bot to solve these PR proble

[sumdumass]

You don't suspect that has already happened? I mean look at some of these posts explaining the flaws or any MS blunder.

Thats ridiculous

[JustNiz]

Even if we don't like what he did, Hitler did actually exist and is a significant character in world history,
If we choose to ignore history we're doomed to make the same mistakes again.

Re:Thats ridiculous

[DougReed]

Look at Donald Trump... We already are.

Re:Thats ridiculous

[JustNiz]

Thats how I feel about Hilary. Out of them all, she's by far the scariest psychopath.

Lie

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the first AI lie? I can clearly identify the picture... but it was told by its boss to lie.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

The last 10 years or so, with the shift to the cloud, have been the most stifling years ever, the dark ages of computer technology.

Absolutely no innovation including this here web site. Too bad.

Re:I hate any group of interest, no matter the sym

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring is not actually a term that I'd use when describing Nazis. In fact, if they'd just ignored those they hated then there probably wouldn't have needed to be a giant FUCKING WAR because of their behavior. Slaughtering millions and bombing other people's property into rubble is not exactly "ignoring." Unless, of course, you've got a very different definition of ignoring than I do.

I think you completely misunderstand WWII. They did not go to war because they hated Jews and Gays and Gypsies. They went to war because their economy was completely fucked and they were tired of getting shit on by the rest of Europe, and wanted a return to Glory. The Jews, etc. were looked down on and mistrusted in most parts of Europe long before Hitler was even born, which is why they made good scapegoats.

Greyscale = giraffes

[AAWood]

As soon as I heard that someone's avatar was described as being two giraffes, I knew it was going to be in black and white. As far as I can tell, their algorithm thinks that any greyscale image includes two giraffes. A rorschach test image, an art piece with a stylised tree, a black and white MS Paint picture of a stick-man Dumbledore, everything I could find got described as two giraffes (often in a "fenced-off area").

Yeah.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids say the darndest things.

Re:Tried it, didnt worked at all

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you having a stroke?

One of these things us not like the other.

[westlake]

IBM - Watson, a computer that can win at Jeopardy
Google - AlphaGo, a computer that wins at Go
Microsoft - Tay, a racist chatbot

Jeopardy is a trivia game.

Key words and phrases to which you respond with a factoid. To be fun and playable for the audience the boundaries of this "universe" have to be quite small.

Go is a game which is played with perfect information and clearly defined rules. It is a fascinating problem in its own right but it is not the same problem as recognizing a face or an object in a purely arbitrary setting.

Re:One of these things us not like the other.

[phantomfive]

Go is a game which is played with perfect information and clearly defined rules. It is a fascinating problem in its own right but it is not the same problem as recognizing a face or an object in a purely arbitrary setting.

And yet playing the game took longer to solve than image recognition.

Re:One of these things us not like the other.

[Your.Master]

Image recognition is not solved.

Re:One of these things us not like the other.

[phantomfive]

Neither is the game.

Joseph Mengele

[becky-nyan]

Joseph Mengele was not a Nazi leader. He was a member of the Schutzstaffel, and a registered physician at the Auschwitz death camp. He was infamous and notorious for his sadistic behaviour, which included sickening human experiments involving sewing live people together (in an attempt to recreate conjoined twins), injecting chemicals into victims' eyeballs (in an attempt to learn about eye colouration), murdering people with chloroform for the purely sake of dissecting them, and other brutal pseudoscientific activities. To the best of my knowledge, he was never considered among the political elite (i.e. the 'leaders') of the Nazi party.

Joseph Mengele wasn't a Nazi Leader

[rainer_d]

He was just a low-level "researcher" in a KZ that got notorious because he killed so many people in so many different gruesome ways (and enough of his subjects still survived the ordeal to tell the story).

His superior back in Berlin more or less continued his career after the war - mostly because he systematically destroyed most documents that could proof a connection with the notorious experiments (once it was obvious that the war wasn't going to end well for Germany) and because Mengele himself had fled to South America,drawing all the attention onto himself.

Re:"An operating system suitable for critical serv

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Server does just fine at this, providing the person who set it up is even slightly smarter than cheese

Wait till it misidentifies the enemy

[Anonymous Coward]

as your grandma... I for one... blah blah blah...

Wasn't always so

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the days of yore, /. would have intelligence worth seeing

I have no fucking clue why I swing by nowadays