Re:600k Images Removed from ImageNet After Art Project Expos...
by tsimionescu on Tuesday September 24, 2019 @07:16AM
(#21058662)
Well, it's especially in those situations that you need institutional controls to forbid the logically correct choice.
After all, you don't really need a law telling companies they aren't allowed to hire infants as senior officers - it's already not in the company's interest to do so.
However, when there is a logically correct but politically incorrect decision that the company could make, it is now that you need laws to prevent the company from taking that choice.
Of course, as the weight of an institution's decisions goes down, so does the need to police its actions. In particular, it is rarely necessary to prevent an individual person from acting on their biases.
Applying this to your example, if we had an AI that should suggest your best route home, and it avoided a short route through a bad neighborhood, that is likely ok. However, if a municipality used the same AI to decide where to prioritize changing street lights, that should be prohibited.
After all, you don't really need a law telling companies they aren't allowed to hire infants as senior officers - it's already not in the company's interest to do so.
However, when there is a logically correct but politically incorrect decision that the company could make, it is now that you need laws to prevent the company from taking that choice.
Of course, as the weight of an institution's decisions goes down, so does the need to police its actions. In particular, it is rarely necessary to prevent an individual person from acting on their biases.
Applying this to your example, if we had an AI that should suggest your best route home, and it avoided a short route through a bad neighborhood, that is likely ok. However, if a municipality used the same AI to decide where to prioritize changing street lights, that should be prohibited.