Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?

Re:Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? by F_J_H on Sunday February 26, 2017 @01:25PM (#13738744)

I think you've missed the point of the article. It's not completely about AI per se, but about the broader issue of technology in general bringing us to new territory with respect to the ability to control and/or manipulate society, which could have disastrous unintended consequences.

Therefore, we need to be proactive about policies that would protect against unfettered influence by those controlling the technology.

You've said the equivalent of "guns don't kill people. People kill people".

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Re:Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? by jkestelyn on Sunday February 26, 2017 @02:09PM (#13739089)

There are numerous historical examples of societal manipulation (of the most extreme kind) that had little to do with technology.

I don't disagree about the need for policies; I just think those policies need to be directed toward humans as the weak link in the chain, not machines. This is not like gun control where a single person with a weapon can do a lot of unchecked damage, and thus access to guns needs to be controlled. Very few have access/can do damage with an algorithm.

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Re:Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? by intended on Sunday February 26, 2017 @03:09PM (#13739512)

Which is the meat of the article.

This is definitely the point to make a "did you read the full article" check.

My reading of it was that people were clearly seriously concerned about the current state of the art. The article also considered Future possibilities.

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