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THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST
Today's Topics:
1. Re: dangerous art and dangerous science (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 13:37:41 -0400
From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
Subject: Re: [Yasmin_discussions] dangerous art and dangerous science
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Hi Roger,
You raise fascinating questions about the ethics of AI science to go with the questions I raised about AI art. Accountability is a huge question for machine learning in general, since the inscrutability of evolved neural networks prevents us from auditing them for the machine equivalent of mental illness or bigotry. I?m curious if other legal scholars may have thought about the gnarly questions that emerge from AI-mediated evidence in courtrooms.
I suppose it?s possible that physicists will come up with new laws to govern new evolutionary paradigms, as you suggest in your previous email. Earlier this week Nobel-winning physicist Frank Wilczek reviewed three books on the "end of physics" in the Wall Street Journal [paywalled]:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/have-we-come-to-the-end-of-physics-11562334798
The Stuart Kauffman book you liked wasn't among them, but Wilczek cited Sabine Hossenfelder ("Lost in Math"), Richard Dawid ("String Theory and the Scientific Method") and John Horgan ("The End of Science"). Spoiler: Wilczek thinks physics is fine. He?s not worried that it has plateaued because physicists can use that foundation to make new instruments to look deeper--presumably including AI assistants.
For my part, I?m skeptical that new instruments or theories built upon them will clear up the remaining mysteries of the physical world. In the 1960s and 70s scientists like Kaufman already helped usher a sea-change in accounting for systems far from equilibrium?what we now call complexity science. Its insights are bewitching, especially for artists: we can emulate the sound of rain from random noise, or make realistic-looking scenery with fractals, or just get lost in the vertiginous Mandelbrot Set. Complexity science even helps us predict the weather?but only to a degree, and nothing like the precise clockwork of ballistics. And it seems to me that the technologies our mastery of physics have made possible, from algo trading to fracking to DDOS attacks, are making the world less predictable rather than more so.
Speaking of unpredictability, Bill Joel asked how today?s AI differs from John Cage?s use of the I Ching in his compositions. Bill is right that algorithmic art has a long history. Chance-based music goes back at least to Europe in the 1700s?including a game attributed to Mozart?and certainly embodies a similar inscrutability to today?s machine learning. (Not much point in cross-examining a pair of dice to find out why it rolled snake eyes.)
That said, the unpredictability of today?s machine learning derives not from a simple chance operation, nor from an expert system. It can be "trained" on many types of data and contexts, but that training is an organic process that results in a mess of spaghetti code that works but is difficult to tease apart.
I?ll defer to my colleague Sofian Audry to chart the various types of AI and how artists have employed them. Till then, as Roger suggests I?ll append a brief bio below and look forward to learning from others on this list!
jon
________________
Jon Ippolito is Professor of New Media and Director of the Digital Curation program at the University of Maine. His current projects--including the Variable Media Network, ThoughtMesh, and his co-authored books At the Edge of Art and Re-collection--aim to expand the art world beyond its traditional preoccupations.
> On Jul 10, 2019, at 5:00 AM, yasmin_discussions-request@ntlab.gr wrote:
>
> Send Yasmin_discussions mailing list submissions to
> yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://ntlab.gr/mailman/listinfo/yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> yasmin_discussions-request@ntlab.gr
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> yasmin_discussions-owner@ntlab.gr
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Yasmin_discussions digest..."
>
>
> THIS IS THE YASMIN-DISCUSSIONS DIGEST
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. dangerous art and dangerous science (YASMIN DISCUSSIONS)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2019 09:50:59 +0200
> From: YASMIN DISCUSSIONS <yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr>
> To: yasmin_discussions@ntlab.gr
> Subject: [Yasmin_discussions] dangerous art and dangerous science
> Message-ID:
> <mailman.8.1562745214.33654.yasmin_discussions_ntlab.gr@ntlab.gr>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> yasminers
>
> we have a few new members who have joined the yasmin art/sci/tech village
> let me encourage all new members to send in a short email introducing themselves
> and their interests. In a healthy village when you meet a new person
> on the street, you do this!
>
>
> Meanwhile - i hope other members will join in the discussion on ai and
> ethics/dangerous art
> I would like to add to the discussion soup that AI is indeed
> potentially dangerous but in terry irwin
> 's language we have not done deep transition design- and expected,
> predictable, negative aspects are being
> addressed too late- major instutions are only now setting up programs
> on AI and ethics (eg MIT), when this should have been started 25 years
> ago at least.
>
> As an astrophysist i am aware of the growing impact on the way that
> science is done, with the use of AI beings actually being the ones
> making the discovery and not the human being. In the 'normal' way of
> doing science one can talk to the scientist and ask probing questions
> about the methodology, validity of the verification, implicit biaises.
> Unfortunately scientists now admit that the discovery is made by the
> AI, but its impossible to interrogate the AI scientist rigorously. At
> what point does the AI scientist become an actual co author. And when
> the work done by the AI is found to be erroneous, then the AI
> scientist retracts the paper and the university dismisses the AI
> scientist for academic fraud ? I have been using this line of argument
> to push that we start transition redesigning of science so we can
> anticipate and mitigate the predictable 'dangerous science' that will
> result when we accept as fact scientific results and the humans cannot
> validate or confirm the result. How can you replicate a scientific
> experiment or analysis when the AI being is unable to explain what
> they did. Judge John Marshall of Dallas Texas, who worked on the early
> apollo program, has been trying to argue that the same problem is now
> arising frequently in legal cases where AI is being used to analyse
> the evidence and recommend a verdict, but it is impossible to
> cross-examine the witness as is normal in court. These are all
> anticipatable dangers.
>
> Similarly we now see videos of artificial beings that are
> indistinguishable on video from the real persons activity that has
> been edited using ai techniques. Such as the videos now circulating of
> famous people saying things they never said themselves , but the AI
> being, an animated X, is totally believable. These techniques were
> developed by members of the art and technology village. Dangerous art
> indeed.
>
> Maybe the yasmin villagers have some suggestions of how we go forward
> in the age of dangerous art and dangerous science.
>
>
> Roger is in Paris
>
>
>
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