In surveillance, yes. But that's not where China's productivity comes from. China does have some centrally directed resource allocation, but it's at a very coarse level. See "Made in China 2025".[1] That's industrial policy. Japan became an industrial power in the 1970s and the 1980s through good industrial policy, run by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. It's a help when you're developing a country, if done well. Most of the "Asian tigers" did that. Done badly, it's a disaster.
What seems to make China go now is a large number of medium-sized companies aggressively competing. Like the US up to the 1980s.
While it may appear that way, I wonder whether he might be speaking past many people involved in applying ML on human data.
As a starting point for establishing clarity, do you recognize/understand that one of the core ideas of his theme is human agency? And what he means by “humanity” (our sense of purpose/meaning tied closely with competence & judgement) and why he fears it might be overwhelmed by AI? Since human nature is “reflexive”, being infantilized or treated with certain biases by algorithms will push humans to become like that. The technical way to phrase this is that statistical modeling assumes static distributions, but the actual distribution of human behavior responds/adapts to these assumed models (“distribution shifts”). Pause and think about that for a moment.
Eg, the question he discusses in the talk you link to: if AI could (someday) do everything (some very broad range of things), then what is the point of human life?
If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question. He’s pointing out a perspective that is deeply at odds with the assumptions which drive today’s computing/ML related industry. Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions?
Yes, and I disagree with that framing of humanity. It is at best fundamentally nihilist and at worst reduces human value to its ability to do work and produce value (ironic given is Marxist interpretation of data annotators). AI is a threat in Jaron's framing because is displaces humans ability to do work and therefore devalues human life. Existence in of itself is meaningful and I believe we define meaning for ourselves. I find his framing of humanity deeply problematic.
>If your answers are going to emphasize convenience & improvements and opportunities for better consumption, then you are ignoring the fundamental premise of the question... Are you saying you’d prefer he stops asking inconvenient questions?
I don't see why having a pragmatic critique of his position misses his point. I have critical theory background and its been valuable for framing the world and being self-reflexive in my work as an AI researcher.
The problem with his framing is that there is no space for engagement in the present. He seems resigned that world will overtaken by AI (he's literally said that both in the talk above and elsewhere). I live the present and believe (perhaps naively) I have some agency to impact the future. I rather see critical conversations converge towards helping us create a better future (specifically have discussions on how to do AI research ethically).
I see Jaron Lanier’s position as exactly the opposite, in an interesting accounting of second order effects.
“We shape our tools, and then our tools shape us.”
You are imagining that AI is going to be fantastically impactful in reducing human drudgery, which might lead to a flowering of human potential. JL argues that since most AI applications today perceive human development as increasing consumption (and people’s interaction with the products/services they use is very passive) — which means that as AI gets better, the ambient environment discourages human development. Imagine you satisfied every whim of a child, making it so comfortable that it never has to “grow” — that’s how technology is infantilizing us (AI is just the latest and most impactful layer on top).
> I live the present and believe (perhaps naively) I have some agency to impact the future.
To give the lion’s share of the credit/benefits/power to AI/algorithms vests all the agency in the hands of those who can control/influence them, and condemns those who cannot to a life “below the API” (even if they might be crucial to generate training data) where their voices are drowned out.
As JL says multiple times, he is very excited about (the same) AI research when we perceive it as “just” code/models/linear-algebra, because then suddenly the questions we pose are from a position of much higher human agency (probing the system and how we might influence it), rather than a position of awestruck breathless learned helplessness to the machine.
> You are imagining that AI is going to be fantastically impactful in reducing human drudgery ... Nope I never said that nor do I imagine do humanity in a world where AI magically solves all problems. I call for more conversations about ethics because I do believe it has the potential for negative implications on society.
My definition of humanity lies outside of technology and is ontological. Here's a thought experiment where Jaron's definition of humanity fails. In a world where we have infinite resources and everything, what do you do. It's thought experiment I run often to ground my values and try to define myself as more than my work. I think of those around me, my time with my loved ones and friends. Humanity and meaning becomes for me the ability to enjoy and witness the lives of those around me, the relationships I cultivate and shared experience I have. If Jaron is preplexed by a kid asking what's the point of life if robots can do everything, his framing of humanity seems severely lacking.
> To give the lion’s share of the credit/benefits/power to AI/algorithms vests all the agency in the hands of those who can control/influence them, and condemns those who cannot to a life “below the API” (even if they might be crucial to generate training data) where their voices are drowned out.
This is not unique to AI. The digital divide existed before AI. It's a collective action problem with opportunities for public policy solutions.
> As JL says multiple times, he is very excited about (the same) AI research when we perceive it as “just” code/models/linear-algebra ... Sure define AI research whatever way you want. That's not particularly helpful though to change the outcome he fears. It doesn't provide a way to predict unintended or intended consequences of fundamental research questions in context of societal impacts.
I thought the video you shared had a great 10-15 minute segment starting around ~50:00.
> Sure define AI research whatever way you want. That's not particularly helpful though to change the outcome he fears.
JL’s point is that it makes a huge sociological difference, because it (the contemporary mythology/theology of “AI”) massively changes how much we’re willing to question the status quo, rather than accepting it as “AI”.
> In a world where we have infinite resources and everything, what do you do [...] I think of those around me, my time with my loved ones and friends. Humanity and meaning becomes for me the ability to enjoy and witness the lives of those around me, the relationships I cultivate and shared experience I have.
There’s a subtle but crucial difference between infinite resources (not biasing us towards certain modes of being) versus a landscape promoting infinite (ever-increasing) consumption. Eg: imagine Google having every video on earth, but you have to search/ask, rather than having auto-recommendations.
> This is not unique to AI. The digital divide existed before AI.
Yes, but the aura of “AI” gives it a new legitimacy and authority in our ambient narrative.
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PS: if you wish to continue this discussion, feel free to hit me up via email :-)
Is the latter ("we define meaning for ourselves") not a fundamentally nihilist stance?
I agree. Like Slavoj but without the Zizek.
> He gave a rambling answer about we need to pay all the human involved in producing that model (even those that are consumed as opensource models) and that AI is fundamentally anti-human.
I do think this raises a very valid point in terms of intellectual property. If I train an AI to paint in the style of an artist whose art I scraped, does that artist have any claim as to its licensing? If not, should they not?
(Obviously, it's a moot point for AlphaZero which was trained solely via self-play, and kind of puts a spanner in the works for Jaron Lanier's views particularly if unsupervised machine learning displaces supervised machine learning as the dominant tool)
Does Disney have a right to any cartoon that looks like a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but doesn't actually depict Mickey Mouse, regardless of its source?
I'm not sure. But I feel that comparing AI to humans here is disingenuous or naive.
Derivative works are allowed under copyright law. Though the interpretation is steadily being constrained especially on site like Youtube.
His claim is more extreme. Essentially any individual involved in producing the data (annotators, aggregators, that grad student, etc) should be compensated for any downstream profit produced by any model that consumed that data. It's an interesting interpretation of Marxist critiques that workers are separated from the products they produce and alienated from the value produced by the fruits of their labor. A car factory workers don't get any more compensated for the sale, resale, and any other subsequent profit made the use of a vehicles they helped produce.
While it sounds great in theory I have no idea how you'd even begin to implement that. Ironically the best means we have available to developing that solution is the technology that he critiques as anti-human.
Say you pay image labelers $100k a year. Unfortunately, as soon as they produce a finished model, that algorithm replaces them, permanently.
If a model is profitable to create, it produces structural unemployment. If it's not profitable, then those jobs continue to exist. The only way his proposal functions is if it's a stealth ban on AI. There's no sustainable way for an image labeler to have anything like a middle class income for more than a few months.
And his proposal has to apply... globally? How much does Tencent pay its image labelers? I can't image the PRC version of mturk is any kinder and gentler.
Here's the talk I attended:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qpB9v-OrAU
I do agree with the underlying claim that modern AI research erases the human effort (everything from Mturkers to exploited labor) in producing the annotations that most AI system rely on. It's also fair the critique the proliferation of surveillance states and authoritarian governments that build upon and fund current AI research.
There is isn't good ethical guidance and frameworks to help researchers navigate doing research and in understanding the implications of their works. I'd prefer critiques of AI help guide some sort ethical framework for understanding, developing, and deploying these technologies responsibly. I don't think we can just stick our heads in the sand and pretend the problem goes away or abandoning AI in liberal democracies somehow stops authoritarian regimes from building even worse things.