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.

Comments

Obvious question

[grasshoppa]

Has it even been proven that "fake news" is really an issue? I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

Re:Obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

They didn't influence anything. It's pure scapegoating and deflection by the losers. The republicans were ready to do the same if they had lost. This whole "fake news" shtick is nothing more than the quest for control of mass media in its confrontation with an open internet

Re:Obvious question

[grasshoppa]

Speaking of obvious, until you can definitely prove that "shenanigans" did not influence who was or is elected leader of one of the most powerful countries on the planet, you have no grounds to say that fake news isn't an issue.

That's not how it works at all. If you want to change the status quo, you have to prove your position ( that being that fake news has significant influence ). Of course, the more you research this the more you realize it's not necessarily "fake news" that has the media in an uproar, it's more along the lines of "not our brand of dog food" fake news. It's all fine and dandy when it's fox or cnn doing it, but some uncontrolled actor? Sharpen the pitchfork and pull out your torches!

Re:Obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Obvious question

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, who marked this -1? I'm a conservative, but this is entirely true. Remember Trump and his claims of "hacking the election" when he thought he'd lose and the Dems claiming that our election couldn't be hacked? That was the Rs bracing for scapegoating. The reason why the whole thing is funny for those of us with a memory longer than a gold fish is that it was the Rs preping with "ther election were haxor'd!!!!!!" when they thought they were going to fail with the D's claiming it was impossible, with the positions perfectly swapping the second the results came in, and watching all the partisan hacks running around trying to justify "their sides" when the swap came. Yes, Ds, you're pathetic. And yes, Rs, you're pathetic.

Re:Obvious question

[CrimsonAvenger]

Now normally this is just a slap in the wrist type of violation, because we were electing a president not a CIO.

Well, no. If any random Federal employee had done that with classified emails, he'd have been fired, as a minimum, and quite likely sent to jail. The government takes mishandling of classified documents seriously....

Re:Obvious question

[PopeRatzo]

I saw the shenanigans that Russia got up to on facebook and have a hard time believing that influenced anyone to vote differently than they otherwise might have.

To sway the election, they only had to influence a few tens of thousands of people. If you don't believe there are tens of thousands of Americans who can be influenced by nonsense, I suggest googling, "Church of Scientology".

In related news, just over an hour ago, the United States Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, who was appointed by Donald Trump, speaking for six intelligence agencies before Congress, said that Russia's attacks on the 2016 elections were indisputable and more cyber-attacks on US elections are "likely" and that all of the agencies are expecting attacks on the 2018 midterm elections.

https://reut.rs/2Ep1eCb

Re:Obvious question

[swillden]

You're the one making the claim that has to be defended. You're saying that this new stream of disinformation has no effect. In general, disinformation is a tried and true technique with a long history of success, so it's on you to demonstrate why this particular form of it is ineffectual.

Now, if someone comes along and claims that the Russian disinformation did change the election outcome, then it's on them to support their claim. But the claim that it might have follows logically from the fact that disinformation has often been effective in other contexts.

And given the stakes here, I'd argue that it behooves us to assume that social media disinformation campaigns are a threat to the integrity of our democratic process and take steps to remedy them. Unless someone can satisfactorily prove that they aren't.

Re:Obvious question

[ShanghaiBill]

Well if you looked at the pooling,

Polls have systematic biases. For instance, Democrats are more willing to participate in polls.

Re:Obvious question

[Dread_ed]

This whole fake news "problem" boils down to one thing:

Politicians, news outlets, and technology companies are pissed that someone else is doing a better job of lying to the American electorate than they are.

Re:Obvious question

[DNS-and-BIND]

The DNC rigged the primary to put up literally the only person in the US who could lose against Donald Trump.

Re:Obvious question

[chispito]

You're the one making the claim that has to be defended. You're saying that this new stream of disinformation has no effect.

How can somebody disprove an effect if nobody is able to describe or quantify it?

Re:Obvious question

[swillden]

You're the one making the claim that has to be defended. You're saying that this new stream of disinformation has no effect.

How can somebody disprove an effect if nobody is able to describe or quantify it?

Describing it is easy. Quantifying it... doing that would prove or disprove it, or more likely somewhere in between. That's really hard.

But I stand by my previously-stated position: Given that this affects the integrity of our democracy, we should assume that it may be a risk and work to mitigate it, until someone can prove that it doesn't exist, or exists but is negligible.

Re:Obvious question

[swillden]

So I guess you are a believer in voter id laws then?

Precisely the opposite. That's a case where we can fairly easily measure the impact of the laws, in both directions and in multiple ways, and it's easy to demonstrate that they harm democracy by disenfranchising the poor far more than they help it by eliminating fraudulent voting.

Re:Obvious question

[Bryansix]

What part of the email story was fake? The part where she admitted to it in an open televised debate or the part where she was not prosecuted under a statute that two different people have been prosecuted on before and after her case?

Really?

[argStyopa]

Do they have an "Ethics in Physics" class required for people who might design nuclear weapons?

Or an "Ethics in Chemistry" for those who might design mundane explosives or chemical weapons?

Or an "Ethics in Biomedical Engineering" for those who may eventually build killer cyborgs?

Yes, I'm saying this is silly.
Ethics is ethics, and if you're going to REQUIRE it, require it of everyone - I think our entire culture could use a good shot of ethics.

Isn't this just oxymoron driven buzz?

[adosch]

I commend MIT, as an elite academic institution who gets a ton of top-talent world-wide, putting a buzzy ethics topic in the computer science world for AI. But isn't a bit contradictory to think, without really any facts in my end, but I guess a healthy crop of MIT grad's exist in Silicon Valley, and surely may not be the big names in the social startups we have today, but probably have a good engineering and intellectual hand in all of it.

I think Silicon Valley in it's entirety should now be the ones taking that alma mater course being offered. At scale, they are the very ones TO abuse it (and already are, by magnitudes that we don't even publicly know about). Sure, this is like teaching kids today that contact American football is dangerous and concussions cause CTE, but didn't we know all along without an acronym like CTE that getting your head knocked-the-fuck around, you're going to get messed up? I think this is just a I-told-you-so shit that Bezos has been preaching about the last few years.

Wrong Target

[tsqr]

You don't need to teach ethics to CS majors. You need to teach ethics to Business majors.

Adding "on the Internet" for money.

[houghi]

Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.

The fact that they just added 'for AI' means they are just cashing in. This is just like all the patent trolls that added 'on the Internet' on existing ones to "create" a new one.

Ethics is the same regardless if it is done by an AI or by a human. Why, you ask? Well, that is explained in a Ethics class. Not just a subset of Ethics, like Ethics for AI or Ethics for Women or Ethics on the Internet.

If there is a difference in ethics for AI and for non-AI I would like to hear it.

Re:Soooo...

[Zmobie]

I'm confused myself. It has been about seven years since I graduated, but all engineering students at my university were required to take an ethics course then already (Pretty sure all ABET accredited degrees require some form of ethics). It covered both legal implications/liability and the actual moral side and importance of being responsible when doing any type of work in the field. We even discussed in depth the societal implications and impact several engineering disciplines can have on society (including Computer Science). Hell I remember at least a few times where the professor brought up the medical ethics saying precisely telling us that should always be kept in mind. My university may have been/still is one of the top CS programs for us normal people (top 50 ranking), but I would think places like MIT/Stanford/UT Austin would have had this a looooooooooooong time ago.

Re:"Fake News" means anything not far left

[DRJlaw]

When liberals accuse CNN of fake news, they mean CNN caught red-handed deliberately lying.

When Trumpites speak of "fake news" they mean anything that does not fit their agenda.

FTFY. Really, you shouldn't have picked a topic that is so easily refuted.

Re:Obvious question -- unfortunately

[fish_in_the_c]

The value of facts is a moral and philosophical position. It is part of a religious framework that values truth and rational capacity of human being to known.
Modern liberalism has ensured that any discussion about actual facts or the value of truth and rational thought has been banished from the educational system under the guise of 'freedom of religion' There is no longer any such things as 'facts' that lead to 'truth' there is only 'your truth' and 'my truth' and both are to be equally valued. Trumps brilliance, weather intentional or not, is that he tied directly into that thought process and used it to push a specific agenda. He has exposed the hypocrisy on the left by exploiting ignorance of the right as it has been taught to them.

Anyone who talks about 'alternative truth' is engaging in moral relativism , which is exactly the opposite of 'traditional western thought' and in fact comes directly from European liberalism as promoted in american schools for the last 50 years. It also, naturally opposes any organized religion. Trump is in many ways more liberal then the left, just not on the issues that get him what he wants.