Google's ex-boss tells the US it's time to take the gloves off on autonomous weapons
- Reference: 1615217411
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/08/in_brief_ai/
- Source link:
The independent group headed by ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt and funded by the Department of Defense has published its final report advising the White House on how best to advance AI and machine learning to stay ahead of its competitors.
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Stretching over 750 pages, the report covers a lot of areas, including retaining talent, the future of warfare, protecting IP, and US semiconductor supply chains.
The most controversial point raised by Schmidt and the other advisors was that America should not turn its back on autonomous AI weapons. The US government should actually be building its own systems to deter other countries from wreaking havoc, it argued. But the development should be carefully monitored to make sure it abides by ethical policies.
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The report also urged the White House to encourage international cooperation with countries like Russia and China to develop strict rules on how to build and test autonomous AI weapons. You can read the full report [3]here [PDF].
Read about the latest trends in the machine learning community in the AI Index
Here's another report to sink your teeth into. Scholars teamed up with Stanford University's Institute for Human-Centered AI to chart the most important tidbits of the technology's impact in academia, industry, and the economy.
The combined effort culminates in an annual AI Index report, which is now in its fourth year. Some of the most interesting takeaways include things like:
China, for the first time, has taken over the US in terms of how many times their academic papers have been cited by others and has been publishing more papers than the US since 2017.
Fake content generated by machine-learning algorithms is getting more and more convincing. That might be a good thing when it comes to computer graphics, but it's bad for us humans, who are having a hard time telling what's real and fake.
Natural language processing is experiencing a boom. Academics have pushed the field with things like transformers, the architecture powering some of the most powerful text-generation models.
The percentage of women getting PhDs (18 per cent) or tenure (16 per cent) in an AI-related area has stayed the same over the last decade.
Investment in using machine learning for discovering and designing new drugs has shot up during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
You can read the whole 2021 report [4]here .
Google has been dropped as a sponsor from the leading AI ethics conference
The organizers on the executive committee managing this year's [5]Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT) have decided to remove Google as a sponsor.
The academic community is still reeling at Google's controversial decision to fire its two ethical AI co-leads, [6]Timnit Gebru and [7]Margaret Mitchell , and [8]reshuffle the whole department . The drama centers around Google having strict control over what researchers can and can't publish. One complaint was that company lawyers tended to tone down negative language or remove references to Google's own tech's shortcomings.
Michael Ekstrand, an assistant professor at Boise State University and co-chair of FAccT, told The Register Google's sponsorship has been temporarily paused this year.
"We concluded it was in the best interests of the community to pause the sponsorship relationship with Google while we revisit our sponsorship policy for next year," he said. The conference is currently taking place virtually until 10 March.
Help convert skeletal chemical compounds squiggles to machine-readable chemical formula
Chemists have multiple ways of notating compounds. Sometimes a simple formula like CO 2 is fine, sometimes they draw the structure to show how the individual atoms are bonded, and sometimes it's just a series of squiggles like in the [9]skeletal formula .
The skeletal formula is more commonly applied in organic chemistry, where the lines represent carbon and hydrogen atoms. Although it looks fancy, machines can't really read and understand the sketches. It's difficult for researchers trying to trawl academic literature with AI algorithms to pull out the data they need when they want to do things like develop new drugs. Information represented in this way will be missed.
That's why Bristol-Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City, has teamed up with Kaggle to fund a [10]new competition that challenges data scientists to develop software that converts skeletal formulas into readable text.
Specifically, it wants the formulas to be written in [11]International Chemical Identifier (InChI) speak. InChl describes a way of naming chemical compounds that makes it easy to search for in databases based on a set of agreed upon principles.
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Winners will receive a cash prize of $25,000 (£18,080) second place will get $15,000 (£10,850), and third place should scoop $10,000 (£7,230). ®
Get our [13]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YEZYLeYuo01tOEAUK0K5rgAAAIk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[3] https://www.nscai.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Full-Report-Digital-1.pdf
[4] https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/
[5] https://facctconference.org/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/22/in_brief_ai/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/22/in_brief_ai/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/19/google_ai_reorganization/
[9] https://www.chemguide.co.uk/basicorg/conventions/draw.html
[10] https://www.kaggle.com/c/bms-molecular-translation
[11] https://iupac.org/who-we-are/divisions/divi%20ion-details/inchi/
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[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Autonomous weapons need to be internationally banned.
Banning it should stop everyone doing it. While we are at it we should really look into an international agreement to ban recreational drugs too, we have enough ways to kill ourselves with bad health without taking chemicals for fun!
Re: Autonomous weapons need to be internationally banned.
> we have enough ways to kill ourselves with bad health without taking chemicals for fun!
I can see no possible downside of a ban on the evil CH3CH2OH
Is this for real?
The level of perceptive attention in this report is summed up by its title "Final Report National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence" and file name "Full-Report-Digital-1.pdf", which could refer to almost anything. The problem is confirmed by 750 pages (more than a quarter of a million words) to say "if our potential adversaries use autonomous weaponry, we should consider doing so too". Duh!
Why build those, too? We do need a way to effectively kill them...
There is currently no plausible scenario where large groups of autonomous robots are marching against each other on a field or so.
Would investing in anti-autonomous waepon technology not be the wiser move?
Develop sensor-decieving technology making humans desappear from sensors, make locating autonomous waepons easier, deploy personal EMPs and other weapons that selectively kill automated gear.
Not quite as cool as a fighting robot, but probably way more effective in battle ...
Re: Why build those, too? We do need a way to effectively kill them...
It's easier to use low tech high explosives to make an enemy soldier disappear than is is to use hypothetical sensor-deceiving weapons to make one of your own soldiers disappear. James Bonds invisible car can't really hide the car from multiple eyepoints.
How to survive a Terminator attack
Just write [1]friendly on your clothing.
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/05/openai_writing_attack/
Question....
How do you have an ethical approach to killing people?
Re: How do you have an ethical approach to killing people?
Ethical, argument goes like this, modified to fit current lingo: they're EVIL, MURDEROUS BASTARDS so they need to be 'eliminated', while we're protecting PEACE, DEMOCRACY, PROSPERITY, OUR WAY OF LIFE, so it's ethical to eliminate them.
building its own systems to deter other countries from wreaking havoc
I think I've heard this argument before. We must purchase that 'machine' gun, and then, it will deter other countries from wreaking havoc! And bonus: WE will be able to wreak havoc upon those silly arabs in those silly -stans, cause won't be able to fire back! Oh now, they already have those drones, many drones! Too late, too late - we need to get more drones, faster drones, smarter drones!!! Now, pay me, gaspadin Putin, I've done my bit for today!
p.s. but honestly, all this talk about banning was pointless (well-meant, but still pointless) when the issue was first floated, several years ago, and it's even more embarrassing, frankly, in 2021, given what happens already on the battlefields (and in more - or less - makeshift labs away from the battlefield).
CaspianReport has just done a well put together video on this very subject. https://youtu.be/iC1ygtfAKZE
Too Little, Too Late .... Prepare for Manic and Maniacal Hostilities ....
...... and Changes You Never Dreamed Possible and therefore Probable.
American should not turn its back on autonomous AI weapons. But the development should be carefully monitored to make sure it abides by ethical policies.
Now it is probably most wise to realise, that would be far too little, far too late .... for the absolute truth is the most one can do is to try and carefully monitor/spy on developments, for autonomous AI weapons, as the moniker attests, have a mind of their own and one certainly can never ever be at all sure they will abide by any man made rules or ethical policies, especially whenever AI/IT/they discover and uncover the fact that what is to be protected by them is long ago corrupted and perverted to server an Abomination of a Global Operating System/Earthly Executive Office Administration which cares not a jot about steadily improving the lives of the many on Earth in favour of just excessively rewarding a few with the fruits of labours of everybody else, just because they can and they be thinking they are never ever gonna be found out, and targeted for special remedial attention.
Was that clearly mentioned anywhere in the over 750 pages of the report? And if not, why not, for it not something you would be wanting to ignore, given what such weapons can so easily do? Don't you know any of that?
Well, now you do. Take care out there with whatever you dare share to win win and never fail with, with an almighty failsafe Global Operating Device.
Autonomous weapons need to be internationally banned.
Whether it be land mines or independent AI controlled weapons. We already have more than enough ways to kill others for fun and profit.