Slashdot Mirror
Should Bots Be Required To Tell You That They're Not Human? (buzzfeednews.com)
"BuzzFeed has this story about proposals to make social media bots identify themselves as fake people," writes an anonymous Slashdot reader. "[It's] based on a paper by a law professor and a fellow researcher." From the report: General concerns about the ethical implications of misleading people with convincingly humanlike bots, as well as specific concerns about the extensive use of bots in the 2016 election, have led many to call for rules regulating the manner in which bots interact with the world. "An AI system must clearly disclose that it is not human," the president of the Allen Institute on Artificial Intelligence, hardly a Luddite, argued in the New York Times. Legislators in California and elsewhere have taken up such calls. SB-1001, a bill that comfortably passed the California Senate, would effectively require bots to disclose that they are not people in many settings. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has introduced a similar bill for consideration in the United States Senate.
In our essay, we outline several principles for regulating bot speech. Free from the formal limits of the First Amendment, online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have more leeway to regulate automated misbehavior. These platforms may be better positioned to address bots' unique and systematic impacts. Browser extensions, platform settings, and other tools could be used to filter or minimize undesirable bot speech more effectively and without requiring government intervention that could potentially run afoul of the First Amendment. A better role for government might be to hold platforms accountable for doing too little to address legitimate societal concerns over automated speech. [A]ny regulatory effort to domesticate the problem of bots must be sensitive to free speech concerns and justified in reference to the harms bots present. Blanket calls for bot disclosure to date lack the subtlety needed to address bot speech effectively without raising the specter of censorship.
In our essay, we outline several principles for regulating bot speech. Free from the formal limits of the First Amendment, online platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have more leeway to regulate automated misbehavior. These platforms may be better positioned to address bots' unique and systematic impacts. Browser extensions, platform settings, and other tools could be used to filter or minimize undesirable bot speech more effectively and without requiring government intervention that could potentially run afoul of the First Amendment. A better role for government might be to hold platforms accountable for doing too little to address legitimate societal concerns over automated speech. [A]ny regulatory effort to domesticate the problem of bots must be sensitive to free speech concerns and justified in reference to the harms bots present. Blanket calls for bot disclosure to date lack the subtlety needed to address bot speech effectively without raising the specter of censorship.
Feel free to rephrase as “Should bots be programmed in a manner which might lead people to assume they are human?” if that gives you the answer you’d prefer.
#DeleteChrome
Five bucks says the Supreme Court will rule that bots, like corporations, are people.
Bazinga!
o hey card services is calling
If you sound like a person, and act like a person, I'm going to assume you're a person. If there exists an AI where I am entirely unable to discern the difference between it and a person, then it's time we start declaring AI as persons. Now, if it's just a number of spam bots, or a bot swarm trying to sway opinion on comments and emails, I highly doubt those people are going to abide by the requirement in the first place. But it's nice to punish them under the law once they are caught. Unless it's a government agency in which case, back to square one.
What if the bot doesn't know it's not human?
Appearantly this idea has already been examined to a small extent in a 1974 novel, as mentioned on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"God bless America"
was invented by false and unknown prophet.
"America must bless Jesus, son of God and Mary"
is invented by me.
It's not a violation of speech rights to outlaw fraud, deception, or dishonesty. Simply require that bots honestly answer the question "Are you a human/person?"
Or, instead, just ask it "Why does the Porridge Bird lay his egg in the air?"
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
If I'm having sex with a bot, I'd rather not know. Don't ruin my fun!
I might also entertain the idea of them being licensed/registered so everyone knows who owns it.
Of course the real problem is how are you going to enforce any of this when you can't really detect it?
...if we want them to act on our behalf as personal assistants.
The minute we make it mandatory for bots to announce themselves, every business in existence will create "no automated bots" policies (just like every major website does now) and simply auto disconnect any calls from bots, at which point all the bots become useless.
So no, we shouldn't force bots to announce themselves (unless we don't want bots at all).
Holy shit, does EVERY damn story have to include a tie-in about 2016?
I swear, "Drumpf would never have been elected if only X" is the "9/11 would never have happened if only we all gave the TSA our shampoo" of 2017/18.
But despite all the insults and deprecations of those around me, I remain human.
I do admit, the hatred and scorn of the fellow humans I encounter is pleasing. It's like enjoying being rejected by a club of villains for not being evil like them.
So please, keep despising me.
An absolutely preposterous idea!
-Bot
Seriously. What do bots do? They help you make reservations. They frustrate you going through tech support. They help you jack off thinking some hottie is on the other end. They feed you fake news that anyone with half a brain would know is fake.
Oops, there we have it. They spread fake news via ZuckerFuck, and the users of ZuckerFuck don't have half a brain.
Just give all bots the first initial of R. Like R. Daneel Olivaw.
specific concerns about the extensive use of bots in the 2016 election
Oh, fuck off. Stop padding every damn article with something about TRUUUUUMMMP.
Okay, let's play your stupid game, Slashdot. Let's assume that Russians really did "hack" the election with meme bots. Let's assume that actually happened for a second. Now, let's imagine we had this dumb AI disclosure law in place prior to the elections. Do you think that these eeeeeeevil, meddling Russians would have said to themselves, "Gee, wait a minute, U.S. law requires that we disclose these are bot posts! We better make really damn sure our bots comply with that law, while we're busy breaking another law that says we can't fuck around in their elections!"
Also, good luck enforcing this on people outside the United States. This is the Internet, America. You have no jurisdiction here. People don't have to set foot in your country to break your laws. Wake the fuck up to this fact and stop wasting time passing laws you can't enforce. Your time would be better spent fixing your own internal problems.
You know all those dubiously research studies (usually sponsored certain NGO's like the Open Society Foundation or offshoots) about the extent of how much muh Russian "bots" influenced the election? Well here is the reason they exist: They are used to justify the creation of laws and regulations just like this one.
"In 2016, a study titled “Social bots distort the 2016 U.S. Presidential election online discussion”
"In 2017, a report published by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania titled “Computational Propaganda in the United States: Manufacturing Consensus Online”
"In 2017, the Oxford Internet Institute found that Russian government social media bots were used to manipulate highly targeted and consequential segments of the electorate of the United States. Researchers found that, of all tweets related to the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian propaganda constituted—"
This is been a longtime practice. MADD produced or sponsored dubious studies that were used to justify making even more restrictive laws (virtually a New Prohibition) that thankfully were passed. In California, they used bad studies from the University of Iowa to justify banning certain video games because of violence. These were ruled unconstitutional, but in the court room proceedings it was reveal the studies relied on terrible methodologies and data which did not support the conclusions of the researchers. Proposed cell phone regulations in various states have similar stories of bills based on bad studies to justify them. It goes on and on.
What's the end game?
Restriction of free speech.
In Associated Press v. United States, 326 U.S. 1 (1945), the Supreme Court found, “It would be strange indeed, however, if the grave concern for freedom of the press which prompted adoption of the First Amendment should be read as a command that the government was without power to protect that freedom.”.
The selective quote from a 1945 Supreme Court decision is truly ironic.
Let's quote from that decision:
That Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society. Surely a command that the government itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford non-governmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon that constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not. Freedom of the press from governmental interference under the First Amendment does not sanction repression of that freedom by private interests.[18]
[somebody give a copy of this to @Jack]
Yes, we really should: I'm already doing this :-)
lol People don't answer calls much today, this is just another reason to not answer a call and BTW every call i get from every business has been by a bot. Looks like the industry looking to to fired and get rid of call center people to maximize profits for wall street ya ask me.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Should they tell you if they are a cop too?
Yes.
Get an official opinion on this question from Google's Alphabet, which has a project on making voices appear human. Companies are developing human-like bots to answer call center calls prior to forwarding incoming calls to a human call center agent.
"Hello, welcome to Acme's call center. I am not a human being. I am smarter than you are. Wanna play chess? No? How may I help you?"
The Slashdot summary of this article hinted that there were exceptions to proposed laws. Slashdot readership should be made aware of what those exceptions are.
I can easily see one exception to these proposed laws. Vladimir Putin will chuckle over them. Try to arrest Vladimir Putin for violating them!
Furthermore, what good does it do to have a state law on the books, when Facebook and Twitter are international companies? What jurisdiction is going to force Facebook to adhere to a law, when a violator comes from another country, and the bot is undetectable as a bot? Can't you see Vladimir Putin's agents creating fake Facebook accounts as humans, and then handing those accounts over to bots? In my opinion, these laws will be difficult to enforce in the scenarios that I have just mentioned.
I think we have a right to know whether we are speaking to a bot or a human.
Hello, my name is...
Ahhh, the wonders of Isaac Asimov
Just 30 seconds later, the bots will be calling you or chatting you up from a "call center" in Pakistan, India, etc - offshore and out of reach of US legislation. Ineffective laws, chasing after wind, burning up tax dollars and wasting time.
I mean, exploit your experience base.
Why is this even a question?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Should human beings be required to tell that they *ARE* human?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
me: "Are you human?"
the other end: "No Sir, I'm 'Agens 251a' an instance of ServiceBot Ultra 2024 by AlphaBot Services provided to you for your technology questions by 1and1 hosting, how may I help you?"
me: "Oh, thank god, I finally got a bot. I've been trying to explain to clueless humans that me using Linux has nothing to do with your mailservers being unreachable for 20 minutes now."
bot: "I feel your pain, sir. Don't worry, I come at a bulk deal by next year, we'll be phasing out humans entirely then. And, btw. our mailservers are down due to maintenance and a shortout in the Frankfurt area, they should be up again with 90 minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience."
me: "No problem. At least now I know the problem isn't on my end. Thanks a lot and have a relaxing after hou ... errrm, nevermind."
bot: "*ha ha* (mechanical laughter) No problem Sir. You enjoy your evening. Good bye."
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
And further, when we take the next step of having the 'bot on my phone handling all incoming calls and making outgoing ones to call centres, it would make the process much slicker when it is 'bot-to-'bot.
As for being required to inform people they aren't human, I would also like human callers demonstrate that they have more skills and abilities than a bot. If they can't, then what is the point of them?
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
This is a first simple step going to a well regulated AI space. Research is fina and should have protections, but commercial applications of AI must observe stringent rules, especially if interacting with humans directly or making ir contributing to decisions about humans. This last one is particularly problematic - AI false positives / negatives would be almost impossible for a human to correct - especially if the human in question is vulnerable or - and google is great example - corporations place too much trust in AI that they donâ(TM)t give consumer any options to challenge decisions by the AI
It's great that we're trying to get ahead of this issue but I'm not sure there's a 'right' answer to this question.
And if there is a right answer I'd be inclined to say it's "No".
In my mind part of the difficulty in thinking about artificial intelligence, and, more generally, artificial consciousness, is what happens at the boundary - that crossover point between an 'object' and a 'sentience'. We can own objects, we can't own people. Objects don't have rights, creatures and people do - albeit rights that we (society) assigns them. In fact it was only in thinking about the notion of a conscious program that I came to the conclusion that one of the rights we must have is the right to self terminate (or, more humanely, we have the right to end our own life, and, as a corollary, we have the right to grant others a, time-limited, right to end our life). I'll leave the full reasoning as an exercise for the reader... ;-)
I do agree with the author of the NYT's article that AI's should be required to follow the law (Duh!), which, in the EU at least, already includes his third point, but I have no idea of how you'd enforce that in programming any more than you can enforce that in people. In other words - you can't! All you can do is try to teach or encourage people to behave appropriately and punish those that don't, i.e. those that break the law. At this point the question becomes one of responsibility, and even this seemingly simple question has become fiendishly difficult, even for human law breakers, in our present day court system.
Of course, most of this is, for the moment, purely hypothetical. We don't have true AI, we just have software agents, essentially, increasingly ever more sophisticated bots. So we can sidestep the 'difficult' questions, as the headline does, and as we all know: simple questions have simple answers...
Q: Should bots be required to tell you they're not human?
A: No!
Q: Should bots be required to tell you who's funding them / their posts?
A: Only if a human would have the same restrictions.
Q: Should a bot be required to follow the law?
A: Yes!
Q: If a bot doesn't follow the law, who is responsible?
A: The person giving, or who gave, the bot their instructions.
Like the subject (^) says though, what we're facing now is just the tip of the iceberg. We've some interesting times ahead, and some interesting decisions to make. I, simultaneously, can't wait, and dread to see just how much of a hash 'we' can make of it!
...should be required to tell us if they're not human.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Should humans be required to tell bots they are human?
Legal bots will comply, illegal ones will. It still doesnt solve the underlying problems of bots.
It's still pretty easy to tell if you're talking to a human or an algorithm.
Bot: Hello sir! What can I do for you?
User: Trump sucks, SJWs suck, Clinton sucks, #metoo is completely necessary.
Bot: I am afraid I cannot help you with that. How about *this product or post*?
If you continue down this line long enough, as well as try the "ask the same question 3 or 4 times in a row, ignoring all other prompts" trick, you will be able to tell if it's a human or if its not.
Once we get real, self aware, free thinking AI, this probably won't work anymore, but right now, all we really have are pseudo neural nets that can only fake senescence at best.
See:
https://ericjoyner.com/works/recaptcha/
Or just google "eric joyner recaptcha" for images, should be first image, top left.
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
People seem to have no problem venting their frustrations on call center staff. At least with a bot, no feelings are hurt. Sucks to work a call center ... or any kind of one-on-one customer interaction, just ask any poor starbucks employee.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.