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AI Still Useless at Catching Hate Speech, Research Finds (theregister.co.uk)
New research has shown just how bad AI is at dealing with online trolls. From a report: Such systems struggle to automatically flag nudity and violence, don't understand text well enough to shoot down fake news and aren't effective at detecting abusive comments from trolls hiding behind their keyboards. A group of researchers from Aalto University and the University of Padua found this out when they tested seven state-of-the-art models used to detect hate speech. All of them failed to recognize foul language when subtle changes were made, according to a paper [PDF] on arXiv. Adversarial examples can be created automatically by using algorithms to misspell certain words, swap characters for numbers or add random spaces between words or attach innocuous words such as 'love' in sentences.
How do you catch something that doesn't exist?
That's because all of the learning/reasoning software that we proudly call AI is not AI at all. It's just a series of pattern recognition and reasoning operations which are only as good as the programmers behind it. Some systems are okay. Most, however, terrible. Even if we got anywhere close to true AI, it would have to be more sophisticated than our intelligence to outsmart human deception. It would need to know about not only our language but also psychology and in fact everything we've ever created to have the full context of each end every conversation.
In other words, hate speech filters are not likely to start working any time soon.
I've somehow managed to get by for many years without any algorithms to "protect" me from speech. So here's my message to the inventors of this algorithm: I'd love it if you would fuck right off, OK? Thanks and have a great day!
aka the "Scunthorpe problem".
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." So long as the Constitution Stands, the notion of hate speech is nonsense. to quote an American President: "You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.” That's freedom. The moment you silence someone, labeling their words or ideas as "hate" is the moment every single person whose died for the Constitution, has died a meaningless death - ending in the death of the promise and the idea of Freedom itself.
Human language is evolutionary, and humans have a need to express their feelings with others, which can occur through various outlets, but mostly by talking about them.
If someone feels what you call hatred, and you just don't like that, and you feel they shouldn't be able to express that, so you
try banning a word or phrase, then what do you think happens?
Either (A) They find a different mode of expression, and for "Hate speech" that may be bad, since their channel may be taking negative actions in the real world to express their feelings instead of talking about it in a more passive setting. You need to allow so called speakers of "Hate Speech" to be able to express their views in order to be able to successfully have a conversation with those people and possibly reason them to a different position, or at least understand the motivating factors.
Or (B) People find a different word or phrase or image or euphamism to express the same thing.
Because language is evolutionary --- existing words will be co-opted, or new words or phrases will be created to express what they wish to express.
These people who would write "hate speech"; will simply use different words or phrases to express their exact feelings, whatever they can find which
will avoid flagging the detection system -- because language is evolutionary, in time others will begin to get feelings like the new phrases or words they co-opted
may now qualify as hate speech, and thus the algorithms fall out of date.
The real fix is not to try and "block" offensive words or "hate speech", BUT instead to modify the social conventions around the language,
so that there is no such thing as a verboten word, phrase, or sentence.
I hate Nazis. I really really hate Nazis. People willing to round up innocent men, women, and children, and kill them are demonic.
I hate the KKK. I grew up in a predominately Catholic community and I'd hear stories from my dad and grandparents about the KKK holding rallies. They were outnumbered, and they knew this, so they'd play nice without the masks. They'd be a lot of bark with no bite but in other areas of the USA they'd kill Catholics. Not many people are aware of this but the KKK likely strung up as many Catholics in trees as they did blacks. So, I really hate the KKK. I remember David Duke doing some national tour and ending up in the area to do some speech. A lot of people showed up to hear the idiot talk. I guess he thought he'd get some support in a place that was 99% white, but failed the most basic of demographic testing and seems to have not realized that the crowd was 80%+ Catholic.
I hate these people and they deserve to burn in hell. What I hate more is restrictions on one's ability to express themselves as they wish. Should David Duke have come around here to speak? Not really, but that's just a failure to recognize his audience. He spoke and he had every right to speak. He got on the local evening news and I got to see all the stunned faces at what he was saying. The guy is an idiot and I'm not going to stop him from exposing his idiocy.
You "Anti-Fa" people out there need to learn a bit from the quiet resistance that David Duke met 25 or so years ago. As I recall no one raised a sign. Certainly no one raised a fist. Everyone I saw listened to the nonsense and then ignored the bastard. That's what I see a lot on the left/right political spectrum, the left want to shut people up and the right wants them to keep talking. If "hate speech" is such a terrible idea then why fear it being spoken?
So, there's my hate speech rant. I hate the Nazis, I hate the KKK, and I hate people that want to stop "hate speech". This isn't about "hate speech", this is about stopping the political competition from speaking and that should never be tolerated.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.