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In the Wake of Fake News, Several Universities Including MIT and Harvard Introduce New Course On Ethics and Regulation of AI (nytimes.com)
The medical profession has an ethic: First, do no harm. Silicon Valley has an ethos: Build it first and ask for forgiveness later. Now, in the wake of fake news and other troubles at tech companies, universities that helped produce some of Silicon Valley's top technologists are hustling to bring a more medicine-like morality to computer science, the New York Times reporter. From the report: This semester, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are jointly offering a new course on the ethics and regulation of artificial intelligence. The University of Texas at Austin just introduced a course titled "Ethical Foundations of Computer Science" -- with the idea of eventually requiring it for all computer science majors. And at Stanford University, the academic heart of the industry, three professors and a research fellow are developing a computer science ethics course for next year. They hope several hundred students will enroll. The idea is to train the next generation of technologists and policymakers to consider the ramifications of innovations -- like autonomous weapons or self-driving cars -- before those products go on sale.
Ever see what people share on fake news. Just yesterday, stuff like NAACP wants to destroy all Civil War monuments (which Snopes showed as false, as it was only one person who was a member that said that.) Or, Oprah wanting to kill all old people (again, false.)
Fake news is very common, especially from the right. Oftentimes, it is something with a tiny grain of truth, wrapped up in a boulder sized turd.
I do know it influenced other people I know to vote the way they did, when they quoted propaganda from the Russian sites. Things like the "Schumer Shutdown", which was repeated by thousands of Russian bot accounts don't help either.