From: Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Date: Tue Jun 01 1999 - 16:54:45 MDT
Re: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/19940.html
"Thinking Like a Serial Killer"
> The Washington state attorney general's office is
> currently testing neural network software designed to
> comb through thousands of crime reports to track down
> serial killers and rapists. Neural networks are computer
> systems designed to find patterns in data by mimicking
> human thought processes.
Do these guys have any idea how easy it is to fool an AI? Even a
human-equivalent mind wouldn't have any of the defenses humans evolved
over the generations, and a neural network is deterministically
misleadable. While I strongly support the development of AI, I
categorically oppose the use of any AI in social structures; it's just
too easy to abuse or outright crack. Opaque AI like neural networks is
even worse.
Imagine the following scene in your local courtroom:
Prosecutor: You're accused of killing eight nuns with an icepick.
Defendant: What's the evidence?
Prosecutor: Our neural network says you did it.
Defendant: Why does it say that?
Prosecutor: Um, nobody knows.
Defendant: That's it? That's your evidence?
Prosecutor [to jury]: Hey, look at all these cool blinking lights!
Technology! Whoo-ah! It's never wrong!
Jury: Guilty.
Judge: I sentence you to death.
But that would require government stupidity, right? So I'm sure it will
never happen.
--
sentience@pobox.com Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
http://pobox.com/~sentience/tmol-faq/meaningoflife.html
Running on BeOS Typing in Dvorak Programming with Patterns
Voting for Libertarians Heading for Singularity There Is A Better Way
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