1 00:00:00,607 --> 00:00:05,357 - Catch this video ad free and uncensored only on Nebula. 2 00:00:06,478 --> 00:00:09,228 Is it going to destroy the world? 3 00:00:10,623 --> 00:00:13,812 That's the question on a lot of people's lips. 4 00:00:13,812 --> 00:00:16,176 "AI is coming", they say. 5 00:00:16,176 --> 00:00:19,037 "It's inevitable", they say. 6 00:00:19,037 --> 00:00:23,370 We'd better teach it to be good and hope it listens. 7 00:00:24,377 --> 00:00:26,294 Can we make ethical AI? 8 00:00:28,808 --> 00:00:31,141 The future may depend on it. 9 00:00:32,199 --> 00:00:43,555 [intense music like NEEOOWW NEEEEOOOW electric guitars and explosions and stuff let's go it's Philosophy Tube time baybee] 10 00:00:43,555 --> 00:00:46,790 The AI people are most worried about 11 00:00:46,790 --> 00:00:50,290 is artificial general intelligence or AGI: 12 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:55,693 a digital consciousness that surpasses humanity 13 00:00:55,693 --> 00:00:58,891 and might decide to do away with us. 14 00:00:58,891 --> 00:01:02,891 A lot of money, effort, and anxiety is right now 15 00:01:04,111 --> 00:01:09,028 being poured into making sure AGI aligns with human values, 16 00:01:11,890 --> 00:01:14,466 but I'd like to put the alignment problem 17 00:01:14,466 --> 00:01:16,862 to one side for the moment. 18 00:01:16,862 --> 00:01:20,115 We will come back to it later. 19 00:01:20,115 --> 00:01:22,532 AGI does not currently exist. 20 00:01:23,639 --> 00:01:26,313 What we do have are a lot of very different tools 21 00:01:26,313 --> 00:01:28,230 that are all called AI. 22 00:01:29,127 --> 00:01:31,138 We have algorithms that judge people 23 00:01:31,138 --> 00:01:33,374 on their parole hearings, job applications, 24 00:01:33,374 --> 00:01:34,809 and credit scores. 25 00:01:34,809 --> 00:01:37,168 We have security systems that can recognise faces 26 00:01:37,168 --> 00:01:39,866 and voices, and we have text and image generators 27 00:01:39,866 --> 00:01:42,353 like Dall-E and ChatGPT. 28 00:01:42,353 --> 00:01:45,013 We are gonna be talking about all of that 29 00:01:45,013 --> 00:01:48,441 because before we get anywhere close to Skynet, 30 00:01:48,441 --> 00:01:52,217 there are ethical dilemmas that arise for regular AI. 31 00:01:52,217 --> 00:01:56,257 We know that AI can produce unethical outcomes. 32 00:01:56,257 --> 00:01:59,612 For example, in 2018 Amazon experimented with using it 33 00:01:59,612 --> 00:02:03,896 to review job applications and rate them from one to five. 34 00:02:03,896 --> 00:02:05,078 They had to scrap it 35 00:02:05,078 --> 00:02:08,283 when it started downgrading applications from women. 36 00:02:08,283 --> 00:02:11,155 So we know that things can go wrong, 37 00:02:11,155 --> 00:02:13,342 is there anything we can do about it? 38 00:02:13,342 --> 00:02:16,090 There are two broad approaches. 39 00:02:16,090 --> 00:02:18,978 The first is 'build it better.' 40 00:02:18,978 --> 00:02:20,728 Just build better AI. 41 00:02:21,901 --> 00:02:24,769 For example, data scientist Fabian Beigang says 42 00:02:24,769 --> 00:02:26,267 we need to recognise 43 00:02:26,267 --> 00:02:30,384 algorithmic decision making has two steps. 44 00:02:30,384 --> 00:02:34,891 In step one, the model makes a prediction, like 'This resume 45 00:02:34,891 --> 00:02:36,889 is a five out of five.' 46 00:02:36,889 --> 00:02:40,546 In step two, it allocates something on the basis of that, 47 00:02:40,546 --> 00:02:44,201 like 'Therefore you should give this person a job.' 48 00:02:44,201 --> 00:02:46,990 These are really two separate tasks and therefore 49 00:02:46,990 --> 00:02:50,297 there are two different ways things can go wrong. 50 00:02:50,297 --> 00:02:54,604 In step one prediction, the model might be inaccurate. 51 00:02:54,604 --> 00:02:56,408 Like Amazon's AI, 52 00:02:56,408 --> 00:02:59,166 it looked at all the resumes submitted to the company 53 00:02:59,166 --> 00:03:02,307 in the previous 10 years and learned the patterns, 54 00:03:02,307 --> 00:03:03,809 which might sound good, 55 00:03:03,809 --> 00:03:06,828 but tech is a very male dominated field. 56 00:03:06,828 --> 00:03:09,691 So the system concluded from its limited training data 57 00:03:09,691 --> 00:03:11,787 that men must be better applicants 58 00:03:11,787 --> 00:03:15,889 because they get offered more jobs, and that's not true. 59 00:03:15,889 --> 00:03:17,706 So if the problem is accuracy, 60 00:03:17,706 --> 00:03:21,979 then more data and more diverse data could help. 61 00:03:21,979 --> 00:03:25,758 In step two, allocation, the model might be unfair. 62 00:03:25,758 --> 00:03:28,708 Like Amazon's AI offered jobs mainly to men. 63 00:03:28,708 --> 00:03:31,014 So we just constrain what the model can do. 64 00:03:31,014 --> 00:03:33,543 For example, tell it that if 30% of applications 65 00:03:33,543 --> 00:03:34,376 come from women, 66 00:03:34,376 --> 00:03:37,038 30% of jobs need to be offered to women too. 67 00:03:37,038 --> 00:03:38,405 If the problem is fairness, 68 00:03:38,405 --> 00:03:43,279 just tell the computer to be fairer and... we've done it! 69 00:03:43,279 --> 00:03:46,639 We've made ethical AI! And all it took was one bit of code: 70 00:03:46,639 --> 00:03:48,306 'If evil, then don't.' 71 00:03:48,939 --> 00:03:55,896 [audience cheering, triumphant dubstep] 72 00:03:56,133 --> 00:03:58,550 But maybe it's not that easy. 73 00:03:59,748 --> 00:04:01,350 Here's an ethical dilemma. 74 00:04:01,350 --> 00:04:06,108 Suppose we are building an AI to help a university decide 75 00:04:06,108 --> 00:04:09,289 which students should be offered scholarships 76 00:04:09,289 --> 00:04:11,353 based on their resumes. 77 00:04:11,353 --> 00:04:15,484 The university wants to save money by accurately predicting 78 00:04:15,484 --> 00:04:19,125 which students will achieve a certain grade level 79 00:04:19,125 --> 00:04:21,252 that represents a good use of funds. 80 00:04:21,252 --> 00:04:23,319 And suppose at this particular university 81 00:04:23,319 --> 00:04:27,034 that students of colour drop out more than white students 82 00:04:27,034 --> 00:04:28,914 and are therefore more likely to represent 83 00:04:28,914 --> 00:04:31,171 a loss of scholarship money. 84 00:04:31,171 --> 00:04:34,799 The AI we build will learn that pattern. 85 00:04:34,799 --> 00:04:38,555 However, suppose that students of colour drop out more 86 00:04:38,555 --> 00:04:41,537 because there's problems with faculty racism, 87 00:04:41,537 --> 00:04:42,846 and lack of affordable housing, 88 00:04:42,846 --> 00:04:44,977 and harassment by campus police. 89 00:04:44,977 --> 00:04:47,489 They do drop out at higher rates and race 90 00:04:47,489 --> 00:04:51,894 is a predicting factor, but it's not their fault. 91 00:04:51,894 --> 00:04:55,561 So should we alter the model to ignore race? 92 00:04:57,625 --> 00:05:02,292 That seems fair, but it would make step one, prediction, 93 00:05:03,525 --> 00:05:06,160 less accurate and undermine the purpose 94 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:09,726 for which the university wants to use the AI. 95 00:05:09,726 --> 00:05:11,168 As for step two, allocation, 96 00:05:11,168 --> 00:05:13,709 we could tell the model that if 30% of applications 97 00:05:13,709 --> 00:05:14,908 come from students of colour, 98 00:05:14,908 --> 00:05:17,137 then 30% of offers need to go there too. 99 00:05:17,137 --> 00:05:19,256 'If racism, then don't.' 100 00:05:19,256 --> 00:05:21,874 But that would mean some scholarships get offered 101 00:05:21,874 --> 00:05:25,282 to students who really weren't the most likely to succeed, 102 00:05:25,282 --> 00:05:28,974 which again undermines the point of building it. 103 00:05:28,974 --> 00:05:30,176 And you might say, "Well that doesn't matter. 104 00:05:30,176 --> 00:05:31,619 It's fairer that way." 105 00:05:31,619 --> 00:05:33,618 And personally I'd agree with you, 106 00:05:33,618 --> 00:05:36,437 but now we're not talking about technology, 107 00:05:36,437 --> 00:05:38,634 we're talking about political philosophy. 108 00:05:38,634 --> 00:05:41,712 'Cause it turns out there's a trade off between accuracy 109 00:05:41,712 --> 00:05:45,133 and the kind of society we should live in. 110 00:05:45,133 --> 00:05:47,674 And the trouble with that is not everyone agrees 111 00:05:47,674 --> 00:05:50,511 what kind of society we should live in! 112 00:05:50,511 --> 00:05:52,859 This dilemma can come up a lot. 113 00:05:52,859 --> 00:05:55,513 Another example might be if you search Google images 114 00:05:55,513 --> 00:05:58,919 for 'CEO,' should it show you pictures 115 00:05:58,919 --> 00:06:01,759 that accurately reflect most CEOs, 116 00:06:01,759 --> 00:06:03,932 which is to say pictures of men 117 00:06:03,932 --> 00:06:07,923 and therefore risk reinforcing sexist biases? 118 00:06:07,923 --> 00:06:11,089 Or should it show you images of the kind of world we want 119 00:06:11,089 --> 00:06:14,258 to live in where CEOs of all genders 120 00:06:14,258 --> 00:06:16,055 are guillotined for their crimes? 121 00:06:16,055 --> 00:06:18,700 So okay, how to make ethical AI? 122 00:06:18,700 --> 00:06:21,920 We've got 'build it better' and there are some ideas there, 123 00:06:21,920 --> 00:06:24,066 but also some trade-offs. 124 00:06:24,066 --> 00:06:28,196 So maybe we also need 'police it better.' 125 00:06:28,196 --> 00:06:31,582 AI can never be perfect, so when it goes wrong 126 00:06:31,582 --> 00:06:34,478 we need to make sure that people have options. 127 00:06:34,478 --> 00:06:37,431 In the novel, "The Trial" by Franz Kafka, 128 00:06:37,431 --> 00:06:40,227 the protagonist Josef K is arrested 129 00:06:40,227 --> 00:06:42,922 and as he moves through the criminal justice system 130 00:06:42,922 --> 00:06:46,131 he's never told what crime he's accused of. 131 00:06:46,131 --> 00:06:48,321 The story is horrifying because Josef 132 00:06:48,321 --> 00:06:50,738 is rendered powerless by the bureaucracy. 133 00:06:50,738 --> 00:06:53,397 He can't take action and he can't even find out 134 00:06:53,397 --> 00:06:57,864 what action he could take until eventually he's executed 135 00:06:57,864 --> 00:06:59,975 and never told why. 136 00:06:59,975 --> 00:07:02,616 Philosopher Kate Vredenburg says that 137 00:07:02,616 --> 00:07:05,663 when AI goes wrong, it's like a Kafka novel! 138 00:07:05,663 --> 00:07:08,129 You get denied something and you don't know why 139 00:07:08,129 --> 00:07:10,553 and if you don't know, you can't improve. 140 00:07:10,553 --> 00:07:13,319 If your resume gets rejected by the recruitment AI 141 00:07:13,319 --> 00:07:14,555 that doesn't give you any feedback, 142 00:07:14,555 --> 00:07:17,128 you can't write a better resume next time. 143 00:07:17,128 --> 00:07:19,052 Not only does that make you powerless, 144 00:07:19,052 --> 00:07:22,042 she says, it'll probably undermine people's trust 145 00:07:22,042 --> 00:07:23,791 in institutions that use AI, 146 00:07:23,791 --> 00:07:25,184 which could be a big problem if we're talking 147 00:07:25,184 --> 00:07:27,107 about say a court. 148 00:07:27,107 --> 00:07:30,774 So she proposes 'the right to an explanation.' 149 00:07:32,715 --> 00:07:35,487 If an AI makes a decision that affects your life, 150 00:07:35,487 --> 00:07:39,311 you should be entitled to know why it did that. 151 00:07:39,311 --> 00:07:40,809 In some places like the EU, 152 00:07:40,809 --> 00:07:42,655 this is already a real legal right! 153 00:07:42,655 --> 00:07:44,905 But here's another dilemma. 154 00:07:45,906 --> 00:07:48,706 If I own the recruitment software 155 00:07:48,706 --> 00:07:53,048 that rejects your resume and you say, "Explain this", 156 00:07:53,048 --> 00:07:57,048 what kind of explanation do you want me to give? 157 00:07:58,235 --> 00:08:02,139 Do you want me to tell you how the model works, generally? 158 00:08:02,139 --> 00:08:04,619 Like do you want me to show you the code? 159 00:08:04,619 --> 00:08:08,771 Or tell you what it did specifically in your case? 160 00:08:08,771 --> 00:08:11,313 There might be some practical trade-offs to be made here. 161 00:08:11,313 --> 00:08:14,190 If I'm a big company, then I might not have the time 162 00:08:14,190 --> 00:08:16,194 to give you individual feedback. 163 00:08:16,194 --> 00:08:18,822 The most helpful kind of explanation would probably be 164 00:08:18,822 --> 00:08:21,895 what's called a counterfactual one. 165 00:08:21,895 --> 00:08:25,131 That's where we say, "If you had done this differently, 166 00:08:25,131 --> 00:08:27,143 the AI would've given you what you want." 167 00:08:27,143 --> 00:08:30,588 Like, "If you hadn't spelled the company name wrong 168 00:08:30,588 --> 00:08:33,588 on your application, it would've given you the job." 169 00:08:33,588 --> 00:08:35,370 That kind of explanation is useful 170 00:08:35,370 --> 00:08:37,331 because you can do better next time. 171 00:08:37,331 --> 00:08:38,383 Obviously though, if we're 172 00:08:38,383 --> 00:08:41,813 giving counterfactual explanations of algorithmic decisions 173 00:08:41,813 --> 00:08:44,656 those counterfactuals need to be true! 174 00:08:44,656 --> 00:08:46,985 It needs to be true that if you had spelled 175 00:08:46,985 --> 00:08:49,185 the company name right, the AI would've given you the job. 176 00:08:49,185 --> 00:08:52,495 Otherwise that's not actually a useful explanation 177 00:08:52,495 --> 00:08:55,505 and that can present a problem because a lot of AIs 178 00:08:55,505 --> 00:08:58,486 are what's called black box models. 179 00:08:58,486 --> 00:09:01,144 They use multiple layers of non-linear programming 180 00:09:01,144 --> 00:09:03,488 and they're so complicated that their outputs 181 00:09:03,488 --> 00:09:06,452 are a mystery even to their creators. 182 00:09:06,452 --> 00:09:08,974 We could guess that if you spelled the name right, 183 00:09:08,974 --> 00:09:13,085 it'd give you the job, but how can we prove that to you? 184 00:09:13,085 --> 00:09:15,943 One solution to this is quite fun. 185 00:09:15,943 --> 00:09:17,427 Have you ever heard the nursery rhyme 186 00:09:17,427 --> 00:09:18,992 about the old lady who swallowed a fly 187 00:09:18,992 --> 00:09:21,410 so she swallowed a spider to catch the fly? 188 00:09:21,410 --> 00:09:23,880 It turns out you can kind of do that with AI! 189 00:09:23,880 --> 00:09:25,810 If we have a black box model whose behaviour 190 00:09:25,810 --> 00:09:26,891 we want to explain 191 00:09:26,891 --> 00:09:31,196 we can build a second "surrogate model" to approximate 192 00:09:31,196 --> 00:09:33,374 a simpler version of what the first one did 193 00:09:33,374 --> 00:09:36,908 and get counterfactual explanations from that. 194 00:09:36,908 --> 00:09:39,030 It's kindof like when police hire actors 195 00:09:39,030 --> 00:09:40,565 to do crime scene reenactments 196 00:09:40,565 --> 00:09:44,202 and show what probably happened, like it's not bulletproof, 197 00:09:44,202 --> 00:09:46,069 but it is an option. 198 00:09:46,069 --> 00:09:49,355 However, here's another dilemma! 199 00:09:49,355 --> 00:09:53,731 Suppose we build an AI whose outputs we know are unfair, 200 00:09:53,731 --> 00:09:56,692 like we deliberately build the Racism Machine 201 00:09:56,692 --> 00:09:59,882 and we put it in charge of our company's recruitment. 202 00:09:59,882 --> 00:10:01,052 It's a black box model, 203 00:10:01,052 --> 00:10:02,822 so when a candidate of colour gets rejected 204 00:10:02,822 --> 00:10:04,911 and requests their right to an explanation, 205 00:10:04,911 --> 00:10:08,994 we turn to our surrogate model, which tells lies. 206 00:10:11,460 --> 00:10:13,529 We build the Racism Machine 207 00:10:13,529 --> 00:10:17,060 and then we build the Uncle Tom machine to tell everybody 208 00:10:17,060 --> 00:10:20,933 that the Racism Machine just has some legitimate concerns 209 00:10:20,933 --> 00:10:22,389 and by calling it the Racism Machine 210 00:10:22,389 --> 00:10:24,187 you're actually silencing artificial voices, 211 00:10:24,187 --> 00:10:27,182 which is not very tolerant of you. 212 00:10:27,182 --> 00:10:29,341 So you use your right to an explanation, 213 00:10:29,341 --> 00:10:33,110 but the explanation you get is bullsh*t! And you probably 214 00:10:33,110 --> 00:10:37,289 don't have the time or expertise to prove it. 215 00:10:37,289 --> 00:10:40,122 This process is called 'fairwashing' 216 00:10:41,037 --> 00:10:43,280 and it was first proposed by a group of scientists 217 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:46,058 in a paper published in 2019. 218 00:10:46,058 --> 00:10:50,753 Not content with establishing the theoretical possibility, 219 00:10:50,753 --> 00:10:51,753 they did it! 220 00:10:52,946 --> 00:10:56,188 They built an AI they knew was biased, 221 00:10:56,188 --> 00:10:58,069 they deliberately built the Racism Machine, 222 00:10:58,069 --> 00:11:00,129 and then they built a second surrogate model 223 00:11:00,129 --> 00:11:04,351 that they called Laundry M.L. to launder the outputs 224 00:11:04,351 --> 00:11:05,305 of the first one. 225 00:11:05,305 --> 00:11:09,347 Turns out you can make the results seem fair 226 00:11:09,347 --> 00:11:11,930 even when you know they're not. 227 00:11:13,510 --> 00:11:15,420 Weirdly, after that paper was published, 228 00:11:15,420 --> 00:11:17,953 Laundry M.L. got a job writing for the telegraph. 229 00:11:17,953 --> 00:11:22,557 [fancy British music] 230 00:11:22,557 --> 00:11:24,913 Okay, how to make ethical AI? 231 00:11:24,913 --> 00:11:27,537 We've tried 'build it better' and 'police it better' 232 00:11:27,537 --> 00:11:31,356 and there are options there, but also limitations. 233 00:11:31,356 --> 00:11:33,932 Technical limitations, yes, 234 00:11:33,932 --> 00:11:37,599 but also there seems to be a deeper problem... 235 00:11:41,584 --> 00:11:45,890 I'd like to talk about the penis detection machine! 236 00:11:45,890 --> 00:11:50,344 [poppy girly music like whoa we just pivoted tone HARD here!] 237 00:11:50,344 --> 00:11:53,677 Fairwashing isn't just a technical snag. 238 00:11:54,663 --> 00:11:57,761 The reason it's an issue is ordinary people 239 00:11:57,761 --> 00:12:01,021 wouldn't have the ability to challenge institutions 240 00:12:01,021 --> 00:12:04,104 who misuse AI, so not a tech problem, 241 00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:07,865 a problem of unequal power. 242 00:12:07,865 --> 00:12:10,889 And indeed a whole suite of problems present themselves 243 00:12:10,889 --> 00:12:14,808 when we remember that AI (and all technology) 244 00:12:14,808 --> 00:12:18,141 is used in an already imperfect society. 245 00:12:19,276 --> 00:12:21,363 A fantastic illustration of this 246 00:12:21,363 --> 00:12:23,543 is the penis detection machine. 247 00:12:23,543 --> 00:12:25,461 If you've flown on a plane in the last few years 248 00:12:25,461 --> 00:12:26,861 then you've probably seen one: 249 00:12:26,861 --> 00:12:29,751 it's the thing that you step into at airport security 250 00:12:29,751 --> 00:12:33,130 and you put your hands up and it goes VVVVVVVVVVFT. 251 00:12:33,130 --> 00:12:35,351 Its proper name is the full body scanner, 252 00:12:35,351 --> 00:12:37,885 but we in the transfem community know it 253 00:12:37,885 --> 00:12:41,653 as the dick detector, the cock spotter, the wang RADAR, 254 00:12:41,653 --> 00:12:43,810 or the penis detection machine. 255 00:12:43,810 --> 00:12:47,644 If you are cisgender, which is to say not transgender, 256 00:12:47,644 --> 00:12:49,072 then you might not know this, 257 00:12:49,072 --> 00:12:51,258 but just before you step into that scanner 258 00:12:51,258 --> 00:12:53,827 someone on the other side looks at you 259 00:12:53,827 --> 00:12:57,994 and then presses one of two buttons, blue or pink. 260 00:12:59,464 --> 00:13:02,036 The scanner looks for lumps that might indicate 261 00:13:02,036 --> 00:13:04,279 something hidden under your clothing, 262 00:13:04,279 --> 00:13:07,545 which if you are a transgender woman with a penis 263 00:13:07,545 --> 00:13:10,862 and breasts presents a dilemma. 264 00:13:10,862 --> 00:13:15,589 If they press the blue button for boys, then the machine thinks that your tiddies are the bomb. 265 00:13:15,589 --> 00:13:21,427 If they press the pink button for girls, then it's "unexpected item in shagging area." 266 00:13:21,427 --> 00:13:23,806 You might have to answer some humiliating questions, 267 00:13:23,806 --> 00:13:26,811 possibly out yourself as trans and maybe get groped 268 00:13:26,811 --> 00:13:28,849 by airport security. 269 00:13:28,849 --> 00:13:30,085 And we do laugh about it, 270 00:13:30,085 --> 00:13:32,868 but going through that in front of my parents 271 00:13:32,868 --> 00:13:36,044 was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. 272 00:13:36,044 --> 00:13:38,706 The penis detection machine sees the presence 273 00:13:38,706 --> 00:13:41,456 of a penis on a woman as strange. 274 00:13:42,756 --> 00:13:46,756 It does that because it was built by cis people. 275 00:13:47,643 --> 00:13:49,325 If I'd built it, I'd make it so 276 00:13:49,325 --> 00:13:51,112 that it called every woman strange 277 00:13:51,112 --> 00:13:52,909 if she didn't have a penis, 278 00:13:52,909 --> 00:13:56,443 which would be extremely funny and also makes the point 279 00:13:56,443 --> 00:13:59,693 that technology encodes ways of seeing. 280 00:14:01,959 --> 00:14:05,616 The real world is not simple and black and white 281 00:14:05,616 --> 00:14:08,896 and doesn't always correspond to binary gender, 282 00:14:08,896 --> 00:14:11,712 but the machine expects that. 283 00:14:11,712 --> 00:14:15,055 Moreover, by being part of a system of surveillance 284 00:14:15,055 --> 00:14:17,709 (and occasionally humiliation and assault) 285 00:14:17,709 --> 00:14:20,292 it helps enforce binary gender. 286 00:14:21,261 --> 00:14:23,063 When all you have is a hammer, 287 00:14:23,063 --> 00:14:25,295 all your problems look like nails. 288 00:14:25,295 --> 00:14:27,453 We often assume that machines 289 00:14:27,453 --> 00:14:31,380 like that detect information that's already there, 290 00:14:31,380 --> 00:14:33,852 but they also do the opposite: 291 00:14:33,852 --> 00:14:36,836 project information onto the body 292 00:14:36,836 --> 00:14:38,936 in a process that scholar Simone Browne 293 00:14:38,936 --> 00:14:41,519 calls digital epidermalization. 294 00:14:43,084 --> 00:14:46,070 The machine tells you what certain features 295 00:14:46,070 --> 00:14:49,570 of your body signify, like "That's strange!" 296 00:14:50,901 --> 00:14:55,312 You, the person whose body it is might be like, 297 00:14:55,312 --> 00:14:59,667 "This isn't strange? For me this is normal and I like it." 298 00:14:59,667 --> 00:15:03,399 But people assume that machines are neutral so they listen 299 00:15:03,399 --> 00:15:05,825 to the machine more than they listen to you 300 00:15:05,825 --> 00:15:08,548 and that can land you in trouble. 301 00:15:08,548 --> 00:15:10,617 The term 'epidermalization' comes 302 00:15:10,617 --> 00:15:12,591 from philosopher Frantz Fanon 303 00:15:12,591 --> 00:15:15,042 who spent some time in France in the forties and fifties 304 00:15:15,042 --> 00:15:17,579 and found that people called him strange, 305 00:15:17,579 --> 00:15:21,835 unwelcome, and dangerous because he was black. 306 00:15:21,835 --> 00:15:25,018 They weren't just detecting the colour of his skin, 307 00:15:25,018 --> 00:15:27,881 they were projecting meaning onto it, 308 00:15:27,881 --> 00:15:32,170 and this could happen anywhere, on the bus, at work 309 00:15:32,170 --> 00:15:35,251 he was never secure 'cause at any moment he could have 310 00:15:35,251 --> 00:15:39,668 the meaning of his being assigned to him by a white person. 311 00:15:39,668 --> 00:15:41,256 And he said that's part of what it means 312 00:15:41,256 --> 00:15:42,886 to be in a racial minority. 313 00:15:42,886 --> 00:15:45,147 You don't get to stand up and say, "This is me, 314 00:15:45,147 --> 00:15:46,369 this is my deal." 315 00:15:46,369 --> 00:15:49,821 White people tell you what your deal is. 316 00:15:49,821 --> 00:15:51,862 [Voice of Sophie from Mars] "Digital epidermalization is the exercise 317 00:15:51,862 --> 00:15:54,052 of power cast by the disembodied gaze 318 00:15:54,052 --> 00:15:55,647 of certain surveillance technologies. 319 00:15:55,647 --> 00:15:56,852 For example, identity card 320 00:15:56,852 --> 00:15:59,589 and e-passport verification machines that can be employed 321 00:15:59,589 --> 00:16:02,035 to do the work of alienating the subject by producing 322 00:16:02,035 --> 00:16:05,407 a truth about the body and one's identity 323 00:16:05,407 --> 00:16:08,643 or identities despite the subject's claims." 324 00:16:08,643 --> 00:16:10,645 - What does this have to do with AI? 325 00:16:10,645 --> 00:16:15,241 Well consider something like facial recognition AI, 326 00:16:15,241 --> 00:16:19,680 and in particular automatic gender recognition. 327 00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:21,844 In theory, that's a useful piece of tech: 328 00:16:21,844 --> 00:16:23,687 if we're looking for someone in a crowd 329 00:16:23,687 --> 00:16:24,872 using facial recognition 330 00:16:24,872 --> 00:16:27,049 and we know that we're looking for a man 331 00:16:27,049 --> 00:16:29,768 then by detecting gender we could immediately rule out 332 00:16:29,768 --> 00:16:31,814 all the women and get a result faster. 333 00:16:31,814 --> 00:16:35,523 However, you can't always tell someone's gender just 334 00:16:35,523 --> 00:16:37,895 by looking at their face. 335 00:16:37,895 --> 00:16:41,005 Automatic gender recognition might work well enough 336 00:16:41,005 --> 00:16:42,702 most of the time, 337 00:16:42,702 --> 00:16:45,669 which is to say the meanings it assigns 338 00:16:45,669 --> 00:16:48,626 might be useful most of the time, 339 00:16:48,626 --> 00:16:50,386 but like the penis detection machine 340 00:16:50,386 --> 00:16:53,794 it encodes a particular way of seeing 341 00:16:53,794 --> 00:16:55,417 and it's always gonna make mistakes, 342 00:16:55,417 --> 00:16:57,179 particularly with trans people. 343 00:16:57,179 --> 00:16:59,742 Like the penis detection machine, that could result 344 00:16:59,742 --> 00:17:02,515 in us being humiliated or even hurt. 345 00:17:02,515 --> 00:17:04,834 And you might say, "Well, that's unfortunate, 346 00:17:04,834 --> 00:17:08,067 but trans people are a very small minority." 347 00:17:08,067 --> 00:17:11,812 Two things. Firstly, a mistake that keeps happening 348 00:17:11,812 --> 00:17:15,081 to a specific group of people isn't just a mistake. 349 00:17:15,081 --> 00:17:17,269 That's systemic discrimination. 350 00:17:17,269 --> 00:17:21,186 Secondly, who told you we're a small minority? 351 00:17:23,849 --> 00:17:27,352 Being left-handed used to be thought rare, 352 00:17:27,352 --> 00:17:29,661 but then we stopped punishing children for being left-handed 353 00:17:29,661 --> 00:17:30,978 and we found out there's actually a lot more 354 00:17:30,978 --> 00:17:33,444 of them than anyone thought! 355 00:17:33,444 --> 00:17:36,878 Aren't we right-handers lucky that left-handed people 356 00:17:36,878 --> 00:17:38,561 never sought what would surely 357 00:17:38,561 --> 00:17:41,300 have been their justified revenge?! 358 00:17:41,300 --> 00:17:42,472 [adorkable snort laugh] 359 00:17:42,472 --> 00:17:47,103 So how to make ethical AI? Not just facial recognition, 360 00:17:47,103 --> 00:17:49,715 but any AI that categorizes people, 361 00:17:49,715 --> 00:17:52,263 recruitment software, university applications, anything? 362 00:17:52,263 --> 00:17:56,024 Wwe could try 'build it better' 363 00:17:56,024 --> 00:17:58,799 - more data, more diverse data, 364 00:17:58,799 --> 00:18:01,458 more buttons on the penis detection machine - 365 00:18:01,458 --> 00:18:04,621 and we could try 'police it better' - give people options 366 00:18:04,621 --> 00:18:09,454 if they are miscategorised - but that still might not be enough. 367 00:18:10,711 --> 00:18:14,982 Tech researcher Os Keyes says gender recognition AI, 368 00:18:14,982 --> 00:18:17,773 no matter how inclusive we try to make it, 369 00:18:17,773 --> 00:18:20,087 is always premised on the idea 370 00:18:20,087 --> 00:18:22,733 that someone else can look at you 371 00:18:22,733 --> 00:18:25,316 and tell you what your deal is. 372 00:18:26,647 --> 00:18:28,926 And that's always gonna be fundamentally incorrect 373 00:18:28,926 --> 00:18:31,655 because one of the fun and beautiful things 374 00:18:31,655 --> 00:18:36,155 about human gender is deciding your deal for yourself. 375 00:18:37,656 --> 00:18:39,368 [Voice of Sophie from Mars] "Automated gender recognition purports 376 00:18:39,368 --> 00:18:42,155 to recognize gender - but my analysis of the way in 377 00:18:42,155 --> 00:18:43,026 which it operates shows 378 00:18:43,026 --> 00:18:44,926 that this is only true if one denies the role 379 00:18:44,926 --> 00:18:47,135 that self-knowledge plays in gender 380 00:18:47,135 --> 00:18:50,674 and consequently denies the existence of trans people. 381 00:18:50,674 --> 00:18:52,060 Using a more inclusive view of gender, 382 00:18:52,060 --> 00:18:54,726 one that recognizes the primacy of the self, 383 00:18:54,726 --> 00:18:58,084 we can see that the systems are not recognizing gender, 384 00:18:58,084 --> 00:19:01,374 which would be impossible to reliably do by inference, 385 00:19:01,374 --> 00:19:04,446 but instead imposing their own views of gender 386 00:19:04,446 --> 00:19:07,232 on unwitting users and research subjects. 387 00:19:07,232 --> 00:19:09,865 30 years of research has not produced a single system 388 00:19:09,865 --> 00:19:12,664 that can genuinely recognise gender, 389 00:19:12,664 --> 00:19:16,441 it has only produced systems that try to assign it." 390 00:19:16,441 --> 00:19:21,212 - To summarize, AI is used in an already imperfect society 391 00:19:21,212 --> 00:19:24,201 and might exacerbate existing inequality. 392 00:19:24,201 --> 00:19:27,322 The solutions may not always be technological. 393 00:19:27,322 --> 00:19:31,084 So when building it, we need to pay careful attention 394 00:19:31,084 --> 00:19:34,329 and broaden the scope of our inquiries 395 00:19:34,329 --> 00:19:37,912 and critically interrogate our assumptions. 396 00:19:39,861 --> 00:19:41,609 I've read a lot of papers about this issue 397 00:19:41,609 --> 00:19:43,991 and in the final paragraph they always pull back 398 00:19:43,991 --> 00:19:46,324 and use a vague sentence like that 399 00:19:46,324 --> 00:19:47,635 because academic philosophers 400 00:19:47,635 --> 00:19:49,926 don't like telling people what to do. 401 00:19:49,926 --> 00:19:52,593 Their go-to solution is usually 402 00:19:52,805 --> 00:19:56,586 "Uhhhhh let's try doing some more philosophy?" 403 00:19:56,586 --> 00:20:00,145 Practical steps! Tech companies can hire sociologists 404 00:20:00,145 --> 00:20:03,711 and philosophers to work on every step of AI development 405 00:20:03,711 --> 00:20:05,412 and pay particular attention to the ways 406 00:20:05,412 --> 00:20:09,360 in which the AI might exacerbate existing inequalities. 407 00:20:09,360 --> 00:20:12,675 When in doubt, hire someone with a humanities degree! 408 00:20:12,675 --> 00:20:15,247 Woo, we have covered a lot of ground! 409 00:20:15,247 --> 00:20:18,647 We've got technical problems and societal problems, 410 00:20:18,647 --> 00:20:21,085 but I'm sure that if we host some diversity, equality, 411 00:20:21,085 --> 00:20:22,902 and inclusion seminars, we can solve most of that. 412 00:20:22,902 --> 00:20:25,819 So we are ready to make ethical AI! 413 00:20:29,507 --> 00:20:34,007 Right? I mean, we must have covered everything by now. 414 00:20:34,889 --> 00:20:38,597 It's not like there's an even bigger 415 00:20:38,597 --> 00:20:42,980 and even more fundamental probl - 416 00:20:42,980 --> 00:20:48,543 A while ago, someone used AI to make non-consensual pornography of me. 417 00:20:48,543 --> 00:20:52,054 [dramatic sting like OOOOOHHHH we are GOING THERE] 418 00:20:52,054 --> 00:20:53,810 - This person took screenshots 419 00:20:53,810 --> 00:20:56,095 from a previous episode of Philosophy Tube. 420 00:20:56,095 --> 00:20:58,101 Do you remember the one we did about effective altruism 421 00:20:58,101 --> 00:21:00,664 when I was dressed as the latex nun? 422 00:21:00,664 --> 00:21:04,146 And they fed those images to an AI image generator, 423 00:21:04,146 --> 00:21:06,980 which produced a series of pictures of me, 424 00:21:06,980 --> 00:21:10,242 all of which were quite bad, in similar costumes, 425 00:21:10,242 --> 00:21:13,454 and also some where I was partially nude. 426 00:21:13,454 --> 00:21:17,037 And then they posted those images publicly. 427 00:21:19,138 --> 00:21:22,907 Okay, I'd like to tell you a little bit about how 428 00:21:22,907 --> 00:21:25,433 that look came together. 429 00:21:25,433 --> 00:21:28,741 In the show notes I called it the Techno Nun. 430 00:21:28,741 --> 00:21:32,022 I came up with the idea after researching effective altruism 431 00:21:32,022 --> 00:21:36,933 for a long time, I wrote about 53,000 words worth of notes 432 00:21:36,933 --> 00:21:40,059 for that episode. And I wanted a look that combined 433 00:21:40,059 --> 00:21:44,175 the idea of altruism, helping other people, with science, 434 00:21:44,175 --> 00:21:46,732 hence 'techno' and 'nun.' 435 00:21:46,732 --> 00:21:48,664 And when I had a design I was happy with 436 00:21:48,664 --> 00:21:50,064 I worked with Brian, 437 00:21:50,064 --> 00:21:53,449 who is the Philosophy Tube stylist, to refine it, 438 00:21:53,449 --> 00:21:56,115 and then we went to a lovely lady named Nange 439 00:21:56,115 --> 00:21:58,943 who runs a latex company called Dead Lotus Couture, 440 00:21:58,943 --> 00:22:01,987 and we worked a little bit more with her and then her 441 00:22:01,987 --> 00:22:05,190 and her assistants made that outfit. 442 00:22:05,190 --> 00:22:09,614 Fun fact, Lady Gaga gets her latex from the same place as me! 443 00:22:09,614 --> 00:22:12,204 Stef, you're such a Philosophy Tube rip-off! 444 00:22:12,204 --> 00:22:16,658 [laughing] I'm kidding, I'm sorry! I loved House of Gucci! 445 00:22:16,658 --> 00:22:18,327 [laughing] 446 00:22:18,327 --> 00:22:24,019 We filmed that episode in a studio in North London, which I hired. Brian was my dresser on the day, 447 00:22:24,019 --> 00:22:26,616 and Nicki, the Philosophy Tube makeup artist, 448 00:22:26,616 --> 00:22:28,426 did all of the hair and the makeup. 449 00:22:28,426 --> 00:22:30,823 Nicki works so hard on this show, 450 00:22:30,823 --> 00:22:33,416 like she often comes up with these little ideas 451 00:22:33,416 --> 00:22:36,032 at the last minute, which just like elevate things. 452 00:22:36,032 --> 00:22:36,970 Like on the previous episode we did 453 00:22:36,970 --> 00:22:39,819 when I was the demon lawyer, using victory rolls 454 00:22:39,819 --> 00:22:43,335 in my hair to look like horns, was Nicki's idea! 455 00:22:43,335 --> 00:22:46,588 And then Mr. X, who is the Philosophy Tube camera operator 456 00:22:46,588 --> 00:22:48,754 who prefers to remain anonymous, 457 00:22:48,754 --> 00:22:52,011 set up the camera and the lights and operated the camera 458 00:22:52,011 --> 00:22:54,173 and colour graded all of the footage 459 00:22:54,173 --> 00:22:55,943 and then I edited the footage. 460 00:22:55,943 --> 00:22:58,289 I do all the editing on Philosophy Tube myself. 461 00:22:58,289 --> 00:23:01,229 It usually takes me about a week of 12 hour days. 462 00:23:01,229 --> 00:23:03,543 And then I uploaded the final video to YouTube 463 00:23:03,543 --> 00:23:05,180 and to Nebula. 464 00:23:05,180 --> 00:23:07,702 I did the thumbnails, the titles, 465 00:23:07,702 --> 00:23:09,896 the subtitles, the metadata, 466 00:23:09,896 --> 00:23:11,830 and all the stuff that takes a video file 467 00:23:11,830 --> 00:23:15,065 and turns it into an episode of Philosophy Tube. 468 00:23:15,065 --> 00:23:17,202 I could go on, I haven't even mentioned the people 469 00:23:17,202 --> 00:23:18,583 who built the cameras 470 00:23:18,583 --> 00:23:21,653 and drove us to set and made the coffee. 471 00:23:21,653 --> 00:23:26,236 If you added up all the time and money and work it took 472 00:23:27,102 --> 00:23:31,539 to produce those screenshots, it would be staggering. 473 00:23:31,539 --> 00:23:34,561 There's a reason that Philosophy Tube has a Patreon page 474 00:23:34,561 --> 00:23:37,466 where people who like the show chip in what they can, 475 00:23:37,466 --> 00:23:42,466 and it's because the people who make it work f*****g hard! 476 00:23:43,527 --> 00:23:46,979 And this person took those screenshots 477 00:23:46,979 --> 00:23:50,229 and flattened all of that work in order 478 00:23:51,532 --> 00:23:55,949 to produce some shoddy images of me with my tits out. 479 00:23:58,392 --> 00:24:01,646 They evidently didn't consider the ethics of doing that. 480 00:24:01,646 --> 00:24:04,472 They appropriated all that labor from all those people 481 00:24:04,472 --> 00:24:06,992 without permission and presented it as their own, 482 00:24:06,992 --> 00:24:11,492 and I don't think they realised how insulting that is. 483 00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:17,478 They assumed that what we had labored to make was just data, 484 00:24:17,478 --> 00:24:20,182 just something they could take for themselves. 485 00:24:20,182 --> 00:24:23,432 And I personally don't see it that way. 486 00:24:24,898 --> 00:24:28,283 The fact that the end result was non-consensual pornography 487 00:24:28,283 --> 00:24:31,533 was kind of just the icing on the turd. 488 00:24:32,686 --> 00:24:34,948 Interestingly, a few months prior to that, 489 00:24:34,948 --> 00:24:39,352 somebody made hand-drawn non-consensual porn of me 490 00:24:39,352 --> 00:24:43,490 and that felt more violating, weirdly, than the AI stuff! 491 00:24:43,490 --> 00:24:46,693 I think because the intent was quite different. 492 00:24:46,693 --> 00:24:48,910 The person who made the AI porn of me, 493 00:24:48,910 --> 00:24:50,824 I think genuinely didn't know 494 00:24:50,824 --> 00:24:53,239 that the AI was gonna do that and they didn't look closely 495 00:24:53,239 --> 00:24:55,454 and they posted it in a spirit of excitement. 496 00:24:55,454 --> 00:24:57,316 And as soon as I said, "Oh my God, 497 00:24:57,316 --> 00:24:58,848 that's disgusting, please don't", 498 00:24:58,848 --> 00:25:00,932 they apologised and deleted it. 499 00:25:00,932 --> 00:25:05,710 Whereas the person who made the hand-drawn version obviously 500 00:25:05,710 --> 00:25:08,455 had spent a long time thinking about me 501 00:25:08,455 --> 00:25:11,455 in a very obsessive and lustful way 502 00:25:12,377 --> 00:25:13,693 and by posting it publicly, 503 00:25:13,693 --> 00:25:14,646 they were deliberately trying 504 00:25:14,646 --> 00:25:16,410 to make me feel sexually violated. 505 00:25:18,910 --> 00:25:21,646 Which... yeah, I mean that sucks 506 00:25:21,646 --> 00:25:23,563 if I'm honest with you! 507 00:25:24,922 --> 00:25:27,478 It's hard to deal with that first thing in the morning 508 00:25:27,478 --> 00:25:29,561 and then just go to work. 509 00:25:30,927 --> 00:25:31,823 I was insulted. 510 00:25:31,823 --> 00:25:34,142 My real naked body looks way better than that! 511 00:25:34,142 --> 00:25:35,961 I tell you this story to introduce 512 00:25:35,961 --> 00:25:38,294 the data flattening problem. 513 00:25:39,298 --> 00:25:42,975 That process is how AI's like ChatGPT and Dall-E Mini work: 514 00:25:42,975 --> 00:25:45,149 they scrape the internet for data. 515 00:25:45,149 --> 00:25:48,304 No consent is taken, no care or thought is given, 516 00:25:48,304 --> 00:25:50,294 the people who make these models assume 517 00:25:50,294 --> 00:25:53,452 that they can do that, because it's just data, 518 00:25:53,452 --> 00:25:58,168 just abstract and immaterial and that's not true. 519 00:25:58,168 --> 00:26:01,585 Training data is made by and from people. 520 00:26:03,525 --> 00:26:05,343 You might be aware that in the United States, 521 00:26:05,343 --> 00:26:07,411 the Writer's Guild and the Screen Actor's Guild 522 00:26:07,411 --> 00:26:11,222 have been on strike? ( At time of recording the WGA might 523 00:26:11,222 --> 00:26:12,504 have reached a provisional agreement 524 00:26:12,504 --> 00:26:14,594 with the studios in the last like three hours 525 00:26:14,594 --> 00:26:16,419 but we dunno the content of it yet.) 526 00:26:16,419 --> 00:26:20,039 Part of what they're striking about is AI 527 00:26:20,039 --> 00:26:22,289 because text and image generators obviously 528 00:26:22,289 --> 00:26:24,498 pose a threat to artists' livelihoods. 529 00:26:24,498 --> 00:26:28,156 Studios love the idea of AI because you can use it 530 00:26:28,156 --> 00:26:31,340 to create a lot of content cheap and fast. 531 00:26:31,340 --> 00:26:32,655 And yeah, most of it's gonna be crap 532 00:26:32,655 --> 00:26:35,161 but you only have to generate House of the Dragon once 533 00:26:35,161 --> 00:26:37,477 and you've got the biggest show in the world. 534 00:26:37,477 --> 00:26:41,293 Actors and writers don't want our work to train AI 535 00:26:41,293 --> 00:26:44,011 and we don't wanna work on stuff generated by AI, 536 00:26:44,011 --> 00:26:46,784 and part of the reason is that a bot 537 00:26:46,784 --> 00:26:51,012 would scrape a thousand scripts or performances 538 00:26:51,012 --> 00:26:53,679 crafted by a person and spit out 539 00:26:55,924 --> 00:26:57,849 a soulless ripoff. 540 00:26:57,849 --> 00:27:00,865 It's an insulting misunderstanding 541 00:27:00,865 --> 00:27:03,448 of what we do when we make art. 542 00:27:04,428 --> 00:27:06,928 So how can we make ethical AI? 543 00:27:07,975 --> 00:27:12,435 Is there a way to use data that prioritises the consent 544 00:27:12,435 --> 00:27:16,007 and the labour of the people who work to produce it? 545 00:27:16,007 --> 00:27:19,638 Right now, the main suggestion is to regulate tech companies 546 00:27:19,638 --> 00:27:21,517 through things like privacy laws, 547 00:27:21,517 --> 00:27:24,506 antitrust laws, copyright laws. 548 00:27:24,506 --> 00:27:27,155 Beyond that, there's a slightly stronger set of proposals 549 00:27:27,155 --> 00:27:29,697 called Data-Owning Democracy. 550 00:27:29,697 --> 00:27:32,091 The idea is that all the data you produce, 551 00:27:32,091 --> 00:27:35,697 like your location data and your purchase histories 552 00:27:35,697 --> 00:27:38,792 and your browser data, you'd get a copy of all of that 553 00:27:38,792 --> 00:27:40,165 and then you could decide what to do with it, 554 00:27:40,165 --> 00:27:42,888 like sell it or donate it maybe. 555 00:27:42,888 --> 00:27:45,257 Beyond that, there's an even stronger set of proposals 556 00:27:45,257 --> 00:27:48,113 called Digital Socialism where tech companies 557 00:27:48,113 --> 00:27:50,237 would be democratically controlled by their workers 558 00:27:50,237 --> 00:27:51,807 and the infrastructure they use 559 00:27:51,807 --> 00:27:55,140 would be owned by society. So, socialism! 560 00:27:56,127 --> 00:27:58,037 Those last two sets of proposals, 561 00:27:58,037 --> 00:28:01,388 Data-Owning Democracy and Digital Socialism, recommend 562 00:28:01,388 --> 00:28:03,777 redistributing property a little bit 563 00:28:03,777 --> 00:28:07,320 to increase the economic power of citizens. 564 00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:10,820 And they do that because AI kind of messes 565 00:28:11,718 --> 00:28:15,438 with our concept of private property. 566 00:28:15,438 --> 00:28:17,995 The English philosopher John Locke said 567 00:28:17,995 --> 00:28:22,445 you own your body and yourself, your person, 568 00:28:22,445 --> 00:28:26,577 and that includes your ability to work. 569 00:28:26,577 --> 00:28:29,809 And if you take the raw materials that nature provides 570 00:28:29,809 --> 00:28:33,081 and apply your ability to work, you can transform them. 571 00:28:33,081 --> 00:28:36,905 Like you take a tree and you carve it into a table. 572 00:28:36,905 --> 00:28:40,293 The things that you make are like an extension of you. 573 00:28:40,293 --> 00:28:43,586 You put yourself, your labour power, into them, 574 00:28:43,586 --> 00:28:47,194 and so just as you own yourself, you now own those things. 575 00:28:47,194 --> 00:28:50,129 They are your property. And if you want to 576 00:28:50,129 --> 00:28:51,661 you can take the things that you own 577 00:28:51,661 --> 00:28:53,751 and you can swap them for money 578 00:28:53,751 --> 00:28:55,498 and you can take the money and you can swap it 579 00:28:55,498 --> 00:28:59,079 for... body stockings and bondage gear, 580 00:28:59,079 --> 00:29:01,132 and then you own those things too! 581 00:29:01,132 --> 00:29:03,469 I think a lot of people's idea of private property 582 00:29:03,469 --> 00:29:06,935 is something like that, kindof? 583 00:29:06,935 --> 00:29:08,690 Like if we stopped to really think about it? 584 00:29:08,690 --> 00:29:10,416 Which let's face it, we often don't 585 00:29:10,416 --> 00:29:12,713 because it's such a fundamental part of our society 586 00:29:12,713 --> 00:29:15,012 that it often goes unquestioned. 587 00:29:15,012 --> 00:29:16,730 The economist Friedrich Hayek actually said that 588 00:29:16,730 --> 00:29:19,761 private property is the cornerstone of civilisation: 589 00:29:19,761 --> 00:29:21,657 once you start breaking those rules, wahey! 590 00:29:21,657 --> 00:29:23,433 The whole thing's gonna come down! 591 00:29:23,433 --> 00:29:27,989 Trouble is, AI does kindof break those rules. 592 00:29:27,989 --> 00:29:32,006 If a black box AI scrapes 10,000 movie scripts 593 00:29:32,006 --> 00:29:35,268 and spits out a new one, how can we ever tell 594 00:29:35,268 --> 00:29:37,588 whose labour went into the final product 595 00:29:37,588 --> 00:29:38,679 and in what proportions, 596 00:29:38,679 --> 00:29:42,346 and therefore how much they should be paid? 597 00:29:42,346 --> 00:29:43,757 Probably we can't. 598 00:29:43,757 --> 00:29:45,507 And if we try using a surrogate model, 599 00:29:45,507 --> 00:29:47,629 we're going to encounter the fairwashing problem 600 00:29:47,629 --> 00:29:50,409 from earlier, which means the people who produced 601 00:29:50,409 --> 00:29:52,701 that training data are almost certainly 602 00:29:52,701 --> 00:29:54,372 gonna get ripped off. 603 00:29:54,372 --> 00:29:57,535 In this scenario the AI basically steals 604 00:29:57,535 --> 00:29:59,160 the property from writers 605 00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,252 and slaps a new label on it, so they can't do anything, 606 00:30:02,252 --> 00:30:06,391 which is another reason why screenwriters don't like it! 607 00:30:06,391 --> 00:30:09,714 Annoyingly, it's so easy that just 608 00:30:09,714 --> 00:30:12,995 because it breaks the rules doesn't mean corporations 609 00:30:12,995 --> 00:30:14,213 won't use it. 610 00:30:14,213 --> 00:30:18,296 And so some corporations think we need new rules. 611 00:30:20,518 --> 00:30:25,351 Introducing Sam Altman, CEO of Open AI, makers of ChatGPT. 612 00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:30,531 Sam thinks AI is about to revolutionise the economy. 613 00:30:30,531 --> 00:30:33,477 It's gonna generate a lot of content quickly and cheaply, 614 00:30:33,477 --> 00:30:36,066 which means it's gonna generate a lot of wealth. 615 00:30:36,066 --> 00:30:39,023 But because it's also gonna put a lot of people like writers 616 00:30:39,023 --> 00:30:40,708 out of a job, most of that wealth 617 00:30:40,708 --> 00:30:43,090 is gonna go to private corporations. 618 00:30:43,090 --> 00:30:45,327 Governments will struggle to raise income taxes 619 00:30:45,327 --> 00:30:48,754 since most people won't have income anymore, 620 00:30:48,754 --> 00:30:51,212 so if we're not careful, this could be 621 00:30:51,212 --> 00:30:53,045 the AI jobs-pocalypse. 622 00:30:53,909 --> 00:30:56,624 Altman compares himself to Robert Oppenheimer 623 00:30:56,624 --> 00:30:58,728 and he takes himself very, very seriously. 624 00:30:58,728 --> 00:31:01,757 So something fun that I like to do is every time 625 00:31:01,757 --> 00:31:04,294 he mentions computer models, 626 00:31:04,294 --> 00:31:07,051 pretend he's talking about fashion models! 627 00:31:07,051 --> 00:31:08,569 [Voice of Dan Olson] "Regulatory intervention by governments 628 00:31:08,569 --> 00:31:10,125 will be critical to mitigate the risks 629 00:31:10,125 --> 00:31:12,988 of increasingly powerful models. 630 00:31:12,988 --> 00:31:14,506 I think we're at the end of the era 631 00:31:14,506 --> 00:31:18,582 where it's gonna be these like giant models. 632 00:31:18,582 --> 00:31:20,246 The model will confidently state things 633 00:31:20,246 --> 00:31:23,852 as if they were facts that are entirely made up." 634 00:31:23,852 --> 00:31:26,486 - Altman thinks he has a solution 635 00:31:26,486 --> 00:31:28,728 to this jobs-pocalypse problem. 636 00:31:28,728 --> 00:31:30,860 He's a Georgist, a philosophy 637 00:31:30,860 --> 00:31:34,594 named after 19th century economist Henry George. 638 00:31:34,594 --> 00:31:38,214 Georgists believe that all taxes should be eliminated 639 00:31:38,214 --> 00:31:41,066 and replaced with a tax on land 640 00:31:41,066 --> 00:31:44,471 because land only gets its value from the work 641 00:31:44,471 --> 00:31:46,790 that other people do around it. 642 00:31:46,790 --> 00:31:51,192 For example, property in central London is really expensive 643 00:31:51,192 --> 00:31:53,409 because you're close to all the theatres and restaurants 644 00:31:53,409 --> 00:31:56,404 and tourist attractions that people want to go to, 645 00:31:56,404 --> 00:32:00,947 but landlords didn't make those things, society did. 646 00:32:00,947 --> 00:32:04,142 So the idea is they should share the value of their land 647 00:32:04,142 --> 00:32:06,658 with society through a tax. 648 00:32:06,658 --> 00:32:10,197 Georgists believe that capitalism would work great 649 00:32:10,197 --> 00:32:12,914 if landlords just got out of the way 650 00:32:12,914 --> 00:32:15,728 and let the free market be free. 651 00:32:15,728 --> 00:32:18,925 It used to be a fairly popular idea, 652 00:32:18,925 --> 00:32:21,453 partly because it sounds radical, 653 00:32:21,453 --> 00:32:23,478 but you don't actually have to redistribute 654 00:32:23,478 --> 00:32:26,852 anybody's property - just tax it a little bit differently. 655 00:32:26,852 --> 00:32:30,036 And partly I think it taps into that relatable feeling you 656 00:32:30,036 --> 00:32:31,234 get when you pay your rent. 657 00:32:31,234 --> 00:32:35,062 Like, "Oh my God, I am getting ripped off!" 658 00:32:35,062 --> 00:32:38,825 Altman says the USA should pass a constitutional amendment 659 00:32:38,825 --> 00:32:43,825 to eliminate all taxes except land tax and corporation tax. 660 00:32:43,958 --> 00:32:46,798 This tax money should then be used to buy share 661 00:32:46,798 --> 00:32:49,251 in companies which get given to citizens 662 00:32:49,251 --> 00:32:51,775 as universal basic income. 663 00:32:51,775 --> 00:32:53,001 So they don't need jobs 664 00:32:53,001 --> 00:32:55,867 and they have a stake in the economy doing well. 665 00:32:55,867 --> 00:32:57,596 So it's like capitalism, 666 00:32:57,596 --> 00:33:00,322 but we've made it work for everybody! 667 00:33:00,322 --> 00:33:03,405 Hang on a minute, did you catch that? 668 00:33:06,018 --> 00:33:09,627 The AI billionaire is saying, "Don't regulate me, 669 00:33:09,627 --> 00:33:12,359 don't redistribute property to empower citizens 670 00:33:12,359 --> 00:33:14,109 and don't tax me now, 671 00:33:15,647 --> 00:33:20,647 tax me later when my company has made trillions of dollars, 672 00:33:20,705 --> 00:33:22,778 which it definitely will 673 00:33:22,778 --> 00:33:25,135 because AI is definitely not a bubble, 674 00:33:25,135 --> 00:33:27,405 even though it costs my company a huge amount 675 00:33:27,405 --> 00:33:30,464 and our main product seems to be hype. 676 00:33:30,464 --> 00:33:34,127 Tax me later when I've got all that money 677 00:33:34,127 --> 00:33:37,555 and do it by passing a piece of legislation 678 00:33:37,555 --> 00:33:40,283 that's very, very difficult to pass. 679 00:33:40,283 --> 00:33:44,354 And in the meantime, don't change any of the data flattening 680 00:33:44,354 --> 00:33:46,271 that lets me get rich." 681 00:33:49,028 --> 00:33:53,792 Cool. Cool, man. Smart! 682 00:33:53,792 --> 00:33:55,375 Cards on the table, 683 00:33:55,375 --> 00:33:58,975 I don't think Altman and people like him are facing 684 00:33:58,975 --> 00:34:02,702 the real challenges posed by AI at all. 685 00:34:02,702 --> 00:34:06,833 I think they might be doing something else. 686 00:34:06,833 --> 00:34:10,090 Altman owns a company called Worldcoin. 687 00:34:10,090 --> 00:34:12,228 They scan people's irises and pay them 688 00:34:12,228 --> 00:34:14,262 for that data in cryptocurrency. 689 00:34:14,262 --> 00:34:16,905 I've seen it advertised on TikTok! And that might sound 690 00:34:16,905 --> 00:34:18,173 like data owning democracy 691 00:34:18,173 --> 00:34:20,199 'cause like we're paying people for that data, right? 692 00:34:20,199 --> 00:34:22,792 But then you think about it for more than five minutes 693 00:34:22,792 --> 00:34:27,252 and you realize, okay, so Altman thinks that AI 694 00:34:27,252 --> 00:34:28,825 is gonna wipe out people's jobs 695 00:34:28,825 --> 00:34:31,223 so people need universal basic income. 696 00:34:31,223 --> 00:34:34,973 And his plan for that is to give them crypto? 697 00:34:37,197 --> 00:34:39,805 So can you actually spend 698 00:34:39,805 --> 00:34:44,331 that on anything like rent or groceries? No... 699 00:34:44,331 --> 00:34:50,818 In fact, I know from a lot of my friends that crypto is often used to pay OnlyFans girls 700 00:34:50,818 --> 00:34:54,772 so the men using it don't get found out by their wives! 701 00:34:54,772 --> 00:34:58,118 If you're married to a crypto bro, check his browser history! 702 00:34:58,118 --> 00:35:00,117 But other than paying for porn, 703 00:35:00,117 --> 00:35:02,876 how is this actually helping? 704 00:35:02,876 --> 00:35:05,357 Turning Worldcoin into global universal basic income 705 00:35:05,357 --> 00:35:07,938 would take a huge amount of legislation and infrastructure 706 00:35:07,938 --> 00:35:10,790 that Altman has no plan, no authority, 707 00:35:10,790 --> 00:35:12,542 and no ability to deliver, 708 00:35:12,542 --> 00:35:15,434 which might explain why within a month of its launch, 709 00:35:15,434 --> 00:35:18,661 Worldcoin fell by 44% and its offices 710 00:35:18,661 --> 00:35:20,494 were raided by police. 711 00:35:21,726 --> 00:35:23,530 Nice job, dude. 712 00:35:23,530 --> 00:35:27,396 It seems like Altman's real plan is to tell 713 00:35:27,396 --> 00:35:29,953 a scary story about AI, 714 00:35:29,953 --> 00:35:33,819 dazzle some investors, harvest people's data, 715 00:35:33,819 --> 00:35:36,819 and pump the value of a crypto scam. 716 00:35:38,171 --> 00:35:40,225 This isn't making ethical AI. 717 00:35:40,225 --> 00:35:42,784 This isn't engaging with any of the real questions 718 00:35:42,784 --> 00:35:45,752 it throws up about private property or anything else. 719 00:35:45,752 --> 00:35:49,170 And a lot of AI chat is like this. 720 00:35:49,170 --> 00:35:53,800 It's not ethics; it's marketing! 721 00:35:54,773 --> 00:35:59,327 Hi! I'm Kelly Slaughter, founder and CEO of Allie, 722 00:35:59,327 --> 00:36:02,275 the world's first feminine AI company! 723 00:36:02,275 --> 00:36:04,787 AI is transforming our world, 724 00:36:04,787 --> 00:36:07,922 unlocking quadrillions of dollars of value, 725 00:36:07,922 --> 00:36:10,929 but we need to share the benefits with everybody. 726 00:36:10,929 --> 00:36:14,317 That's why I'm proud to introduce Allie, 727 00:36:14,317 --> 00:36:17,884 artificial intelligence by women for women! 728 00:36:17,884 --> 00:36:20,334 Our story begins a few years ago when I was 729 00:36:20,334 --> 00:36:22,390 at a business conference in Switzerland 730 00:36:22,390 --> 00:36:24,898 about lethal autonomous weapons. 731 00:36:24,898 --> 00:36:28,520 Everybody was talking about the military applications of AI, 732 00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,207 how it could enhance our battlefield capabilities 733 00:36:31,207 --> 00:36:34,355 and increase our power to inflict violence. 734 00:36:34,355 --> 00:36:37,383 And I looked around the room and I realized, 735 00:36:37,383 --> 00:36:38,300 "Oh my god, 736 00:36:40,351 --> 00:36:43,192 I'm the only woman here." 737 00:36:43,192 --> 00:36:45,858 Women are so underrepresented in STEM. 738 00:36:45,858 --> 00:36:48,449 I had to work so much harder than my male colleagues 739 00:36:48,449 --> 00:36:49,801 to become a founder. 740 00:36:49,801 --> 00:36:53,509 When I left Harvard, I had nothing but a dream 741 00:36:53,509 --> 00:36:55,822 and my dad's software company. 742 00:36:55,822 --> 00:37:02,286 I sacrificed so much; family, health, sleep, friendships, 743 00:37:02,934 --> 00:37:05,681 ... my marriage. 744 00:37:07,394 --> 00:37:09,236 And it's all been worth i! 745 00:37:09,236 --> 00:37:12,225 Because I followed that dream and now I'm here! 746 00:37:12,225 --> 00:37:16,549 I believe every woman should have the opportunity to follow her dream 747 00:37:16,549 --> 00:37:18,058 by working for me. 748 00:37:18,058 --> 00:37:20,286 And that's when I have the idea for Allie! 749 00:37:20,286 --> 00:37:24,961 Just like the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, 750 00:37:24,961 --> 00:37:28,206 the most sophisticated artificial minds are assembled 751 00:37:28,206 --> 00:37:32,252 from millions of tiny computer-based tasks! 752 00:37:32,252 --> 00:37:34,438 We're giving women in refugee camps 753 00:37:34,438 --> 00:37:37,386 and prisons the chance at a global family 754 00:37:37,386 --> 00:37:41,007 by empowering them to become micro-entrepreneurs. 755 00:37:41,007 --> 00:37:45,392 Teaching our algorithms to recognize, text, faces, 756 00:37:45,392 --> 00:37:47,809 and more one click at a time. 757 00:37:48,816 --> 00:37:52,762 The tasks are flexible, easy - and fun! 758 00:37:52,762 --> 00:37:54,807 Every one of our micro-entrepreneurs 759 00:37:54,807 --> 00:37:59,561 are guaranteed 100% female and they get on the job childcare 760 00:37:59,561 --> 00:38:02,993 when they bring their daughters to work alongside them. 761 00:38:02,993 --> 00:38:06,338 The data they provide go toward building Allie, 762 00:38:06,338 --> 00:38:07,987 our artificially intelligent 763 00:38:07,987 --> 00:38:11,166 but genuinely feminine AI system. 764 00:38:11,166 --> 00:38:13,901 Maybe she'll be part of a self-driving vehicle, 765 00:38:13,901 --> 00:38:17,677 facial recognition software, a security system. 766 00:38:17,677 --> 00:38:19,961 The possibilities are endless. 767 00:38:19,961 --> 00:38:24,234 We need smart business to win the AI war with China 768 00:38:24,234 --> 00:38:27,982 and I believe diversity is a strategic priority! 769 00:38:27,982 --> 00:38:35,688 When we make the next generation of lethal autonomous weapons, half those weapons should be made by women! 770 00:38:35,688 --> 00:38:39,103 The technology we're building at Allie has the potential 771 00:38:39,103 --> 00:38:41,507 to reshape the world. 772 00:38:41,507 --> 00:38:45,840 It's not intelligence, it's artificial intelligence! 773 00:38:51,519 --> 00:39:01,431 [intense music like OOOOOHHHHH HERE WE GO BAYBEEEEE DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM] 774 00:39:01,431 --> 00:39:04,835 At the risk of sounding very obvious, 775 00:39:04,835 --> 00:39:09,835 if you wanna make AI, you need electricity! Cables, 776 00:39:09,839 --> 00:39:12,187 power plants... lithium! 777 00:39:12,187 --> 00:39:14,569 Lithium is used in rechargeable batteries. 778 00:39:14,569 --> 00:39:18,370 It's in laptops and cameras and electric cars. 779 00:39:18,370 --> 00:39:26,158 I own a small battery powered device, which almost never leaves my hand, which needs lithium to function. 780 00:39:26,158 --> 00:39:28,958 And as well as my vibrator, I also own a smartphone. 781 00:39:28,958 --> 00:39:31,089 Lithium has to be mined out of the ground 782 00:39:31,089 --> 00:39:34,222 and then taken to a refinery on trucks and ships. 783 00:39:34,222 --> 00:39:35,980 It has to be turned into components. 784 00:39:35,980 --> 00:39:38,004 Those also have to be transported. 785 00:39:38,004 --> 00:39:42,869 Every step uses up non-renewable resources and emits CO2. 786 00:39:42,869 --> 00:39:47,452 This is all to say that AI is not a free-floating mind. 787 00:39:48,644 --> 00:39:51,394 It is a physical, material thing. 788 00:39:52,261 --> 00:39:55,153 Not just material, but dirty. 789 00:39:55,153 --> 00:39:58,966 Mining in particular causes a lot of damage to people 790 00:39:58,966 --> 00:40:00,090 and the environment. 791 00:40:00,090 --> 00:40:02,979 Damage that can be expressed in terms of financial costs, 792 00:40:02,979 --> 00:40:05,737 like 'X billion dollars worth of damage.' 793 00:40:05,737 --> 00:40:08,063 The cost of digging stuff out of the ground 794 00:40:08,063 --> 00:40:12,768 is almost always more than the value of what you dig. 795 00:40:12,768 --> 00:40:16,320 The only way mining works as a business is 796 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,047 because mining corporations don't pay that cost. 797 00:40:20,047 --> 00:40:23,667 The cost to the miners' health is borne by the miners. 798 00:40:23,667 --> 00:40:27,361 The cost to the environment is borne by everyone. 799 00:40:27,361 --> 00:40:29,632 It's worth remembering that because the idea 800 00:40:29,632 --> 00:40:31,221 that the tech sector including, 801 00:40:31,221 --> 00:40:38,300 but not limited to AI, is "clean," is a very profitable lie. 802 00:40:38,897 --> 00:40:40,434 [Voice of Jordan Harrod] "The term artificial intelligence 803 00:40:40,434 --> 00:40:43,251 may invoke ideas of algorithms, data, 804 00:40:43,251 --> 00:40:45,249 and computer architectures, 805 00:40:45,249 --> 00:40:48,615 but none of that can function without the minerals 806 00:40:48,615 --> 00:40:52,425 and resources that build computing's core components. 807 00:40:52,425 --> 00:40:55,372 Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are essential 808 00:40:55,372 --> 00:40:58,558 for mobile devices and laptops in-home digital assistance 809 00:40:58,558 --> 00:41:00,839 and data center backup power. 810 00:41:00,839 --> 00:41:03,144 They undergird the internet and every commerce platform 811 00:41:03,144 --> 00:41:05,408 that runs on it, from banking to retail 812 00:41:05,408 --> 00:41:07,686 to stock market trades. 813 00:41:07,686 --> 00:41:09,685 The cloud is the backbone 814 00:41:09,685 --> 00:41:12,155 of the artificial intelligence industry 815 00:41:12,155 --> 00:41:16,894 and it's made of rocks and lithium, brine and crude oil." 816 00:41:16,894 --> 00:41:20,064 - The other thing you need to make AI is people. 817 00:41:20,064 --> 00:41:22,168 Somebody has to go down the lithium mine and dig it up. 818 00:41:22,168 --> 00:41:23,456 Somebody has to work in the refinery, 819 00:41:23,456 --> 00:41:25,010 drive the trucks and the ships. 820 00:41:25,010 --> 00:41:27,497 Like we said before, somebody has to produce all 821 00:41:27,497 --> 00:41:28,624 that training data. 822 00:41:28,624 --> 00:41:33,624 Someone also has to label that data: to tell the algorithm 823 00:41:33,979 --> 00:41:36,215 'that's a human face; that's an object,' 824 00:41:36,215 --> 00:41:38,047 'that's hate speech; that's free speech,' 825 00:41:38,047 --> 00:41:39,945 'that's a car; that's a bollard.' 826 00:41:39,945 --> 00:41:42,829 It actually takes a lot of people to do that job. 827 00:41:42,829 --> 00:41:44,744 If you added up everyone who does it 828 00:41:44,744 --> 00:41:48,852 they would make up one of the largest workforces on Earth. 829 00:41:48,852 --> 00:41:50,044 In the global south, 830 00:41:50,044 --> 00:41:51,285 that job is done by people in countries 831 00:41:51,285 --> 00:41:53,444 like the Philippines, India, and Uganda. 832 00:41:53,444 --> 00:41:55,115 Sometimes people in refugee camps, 833 00:41:55,115 --> 00:41:57,006 like in Kenya and Lebanon. 834 00:41:57,006 --> 00:41:59,920 In the global north, it's done by prisoners, 835 00:41:59,920 --> 00:42:02,539 old people who can't afford to retire, 836 00:42:02,539 --> 00:42:04,084 and people who can't get other jobs 837 00:42:04,084 --> 00:42:06,809 because for example, they have a disability. 838 00:42:06,809 --> 00:42:08,104 [Voice of F.D. Signifier] "Behind the search engines, 839 00:42:08,104 --> 00:42:10,688 apps and smart devices stand workers, 840 00:42:10,688 --> 00:42:14,072 often those banished to the margins of our global system, 841 00:42:14,072 --> 00:42:16,066 who for lack of other options, 842 00:42:16,066 --> 00:42:19,228 are forced to clean data and oversee algorithms 843 00:42:19,228 --> 00:42:21,380 for little more than a few cents. 844 00:42:21,380 --> 00:42:24,077 The feeds of Facebook and Twitter may seem 845 00:42:24,077 --> 00:42:27,808 to wipe away violent content with automated precision, 846 00:42:27,808 --> 00:42:30,882 but decisions about what constitutes pornography 847 00:42:30,882 --> 00:42:33,857 or hate speech are not made by algorithms. 848 00:42:33,857 --> 00:42:36,769 A facial recognition camera seems of its own volition 849 00:42:36,769 --> 00:42:38,636 to spot a face in the crowd, 850 00:42:38,636 --> 00:42:41,887 an autonomous truck to drive without human involvement. 851 00:42:41,887 --> 00:42:44,827 But in reality, the magic of machine learning 852 00:42:44,827 --> 00:42:47,173 is the grind of data labeling." 853 00:42:47,173 --> 00:42:51,439 - And as jobs go, data labelling is pretty sh*t. 854 00:42:51,439 --> 00:42:54,680 One of the reasons I love being an actress is that my boss, 855 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,894 the director, is always a person. 856 00:42:56,894 --> 00:42:59,166 If I wanna try something different, I can ask. 857 00:42:59,166 --> 00:43:01,848 If they want me to try something different, they just ask. 858 00:43:01,848 --> 00:43:03,518 I don't get like an alert on my phone saying, 859 00:43:03,518 --> 00:43:04,911 "You were 4% less melancholy 860 00:43:04,911 --> 00:43:07,929 in the previous take, please adjust performance." 861 00:43:07,929 --> 00:43:10,985 Hiring decisions are made by casting directors, 862 00:43:10,985 --> 00:43:12,819 not by computers. 863 00:43:12,819 --> 00:43:14,845 That's also why I like working on Nebula. 864 00:43:14,845 --> 00:43:18,173 On YouTube, there are content moderation algorithms 865 00:43:18,173 --> 00:43:19,006 and advertiser guidelines 866 00:43:19,006 --> 00:43:20,598 that are all enforced by computers. 867 00:43:20,598 --> 00:43:22,189 But on Nebula, there's none of that. 868 00:43:22,189 --> 00:43:23,051 If I have a problem, 869 00:43:23,051 --> 00:43:26,633 I text Dave the CEO and he replies straightaway. 870 00:43:26,633 --> 00:43:31,076 As a worker, I am more free when I work for humans. 871 00:43:31,076 --> 00:43:33,659 Data labelling is not like that. 872 00:43:35,201 --> 00:43:37,235 It's called 'microwork' 873 00:43:37,235 --> 00:43:40,268 because you get a tiny task like 'label these pictures' 874 00:43:40,268 --> 00:43:43,210 and a fraction of a dollar for every task that you complete. 875 00:43:43,210 --> 00:43:46,206 You might do tasks for 20 different companies in a day, 876 00:43:46,206 --> 00:43:48,224 all coordinated through an online platform 877 00:43:48,224 --> 00:43:50,260 like Amazon's Mechanical Turk. 878 00:43:50,260 --> 00:43:53,530 It's very poorly paid, has almost no workers' rights, 879 00:43:53,530 --> 00:43:58,836 you're overseen and assessed by algorithms so if something goes wrong and the software fires you 880 00:43:58,836 --> 00:44:00,412 for no reason and you're locked out 881 00:44:00,412 --> 00:44:02,468 there's no one you can complain to. 882 00:44:02,468 --> 00:44:04,681 And because it's spread all over the world, 883 00:44:04,681 --> 00:44:07,009 it's very difficult to unionise. 884 00:44:07,009 --> 00:44:09,167 In his book "Work Without the Worker", 885 00:44:09,167 --> 00:44:10,470 Scholar Phil Jones says 886 00:44:10,470 --> 00:44:13,630 the real AI jobs-pocalypse is this. 887 00:44:13,630 --> 00:44:17,130 Not jobs getting taken away but becoming de-skilled, 888 00:44:17,130 --> 00:44:20,299 atomized, more surveillance, less worker power, 889 00:44:20,299 --> 00:44:22,833 and generally sh*t. 890 00:44:22,833 --> 00:44:25,313 These jobs pay so little and are so precarious 891 00:44:25,313 --> 00:44:26,720 that the main difference between them 892 00:44:26,720 --> 00:44:28,963 and unemployment is that when you're unemployed, 893 00:44:28,963 --> 00:44:31,450 you at least have more control over your time! 894 00:44:31,450 --> 00:44:33,633 So Jones coins a new term 895 00:44:33,633 --> 00:44:36,216 to describe them - 'subemployment.' 896 00:44:37,118 --> 00:44:38,677 [Voice of F.D. Signifier] "Subemployment describes work 897 00:44:38,677 --> 00:44:41,788 that is highly temporary, casual, and contingent, 898 00:44:41,788 --> 00:44:44,849 work that involves large amounts of unpaid labor, 899 00:44:44,849 --> 00:44:47,482 significant underemployment or high levels 900 00:44:47,482 --> 00:44:51,363 of in-work poverty, or work that more often than not, 901 00:44:51,363 --> 00:44:54,040 no longer guarantees a life any better than 902 00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:56,720 the most abject forms of unemployment. 903 00:44:56,720 --> 00:44:58,867 Workers do a few hours here and there, 904 00:44:58,867 --> 00:45:01,457 not enough to qualify them for employment rights, 905 00:45:01,457 --> 00:45:04,001 but enough to prevent them from claiming benefits 906 00:45:04,001 --> 00:45:06,460 and appearing in unemployment statistics, 907 00:45:06,460 --> 00:45:10,367 a situation so uncertain that workers are compelled 908 00:45:10,367 --> 00:45:12,803 to accept hours whenever offered." 909 00:45:12,803 --> 00:45:15,348 - In the global north, a lot of the jobs created 910 00:45:15,348 --> 00:45:19,421 since the 2008 financial crash are subemployment. 911 00:45:19,421 --> 00:45:22,202 That shift was achieved through mass incarceration 912 00:45:22,202 --> 00:45:24,203 and gutting welfare. 913 00:45:24,203 --> 00:45:25,923 So people were moved from benefits 914 00:45:25,923 --> 00:45:29,009 to either jail, or working poverty. 915 00:45:29,009 --> 00:45:31,549 In the global south, slums and refugee camps 916 00:45:31,549 --> 00:45:34,136 are kept full by wars and border policies 917 00:45:34,136 --> 00:45:36,728 that northern countries often have a hand in. 918 00:45:36,728 --> 00:45:41,228 Just like mining, AI only works as a business 919 00:45:41,228 --> 00:45:43,006 because the true costs are borne 920 00:45:43,006 --> 00:45:46,166 by people who are presumed because of their race 921 00:45:46,166 --> 00:45:47,603 or their national origin or their age 922 00:45:47,603 --> 00:45:50,353 or whatever to simply not matter. 923 00:45:52,445 --> 00:45:55,864 You see, it's all well and good to say that private property 924 00:45:55,864 --> 00:45:58,225 is the cornerstone of civilisation, 925 00:45:58,225 --> 00:46:00,050 but some people's private property 926 00:46:00,050 --> 00:46:02,852 has always been a bit more cornerstone than others! 927 00:46:02,852 --> 00:46:07,036 When we remember things like slavery, colonialism, 928 00:46:07,036 --> 00:46:10,466 the subjugation of women as unpaid labourers in the home, 929 00:46:10,466 --> 00:46:13,765 it starts to look like for the last few centuries at least 930 00:46:13,765 --> 00:46:15,647 the real cornerstone of civilisation 931 00:46:15,647 --> 00:46:19,296 has been private property for some people, yes, 932 00:46:19,296 --> 00:46:24,243 propped up by theft and exploitation of marginalised people. 933 00:46:24,243 --> 00:46:28,744 For example, John Locke said that when you put your labor power into natural resources, 934 00:46:28,744 --> 00:46:30,542 you make them your property? 935 00:46:30,542 --> 00:46:32,750 Well, he also said that if you're not doing 936 00:46:32,750 --> 00:46:35,474 stationary agriculture on a piece of land, 937 00:46:35,474 --> 00:46:37,042 you're not really labouring on it 938 00:46:37,042 --> 00:46:39,287 and therefore it's not really your property. 939 00:46:39,287 --> 00:46:40,827 And that argument was then used 940 00:46:40,827 --> 00:46:44,498 as the explicit legal justification for stealing land 941 00:46:44,498 --> 00:46:47,200 from nomadic indigenous people in the United States, 942 00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:52,447 a theft that John Locke himself directly oversaw and profited from! 943 00:46:53,978 --> 00:46:57,619 This is a trend that we in the 21st Century 944 00:46:57,619 --> 00:47:00,993 are starting to recognise now and hopefully address, 945 00:47:00,993 --> 00:47:02,671 because if we really believe 946 00:47:02,671 --> 00:47:04,964 that all human beings are equal, 947 00:47:04,964 --> 00:47:08,613 then we cannot also do all of that stuff. 948 00:47:08,613 --> 00:47:12,863 But AI doesn't disrupt that trend, it continues it. 949 00:47:15,397 --> 00:47:16,230 At the start of the video, 950 00:47:16,230 --> 00:47:19,299 we noted how 'AI' is quite a promiscuous term, 951 00:47:19,299 --> 00:47:21,814 it's used to describe all different kinds of systems. 952 00:47:21,814 --> 00:47:25,428 So in her book, "Atlas of AI" researcher Kate Crawford 953 00:47:25,428 --> 00:47:29,178 uses a different term, 'Large-Scale Computing.' 954 00:47:31,100 --> 00:47:35,099 And I think that really brings home how these technologies 955 00:47:35,099 --> 00:47:36,881 aren't a new type of thing. 956 00:47:36,881 --> 00:47:39,416 We've had tools like this for ages. 957 00:47:39,416 --> 00:47:41,236 These ones are just bigger and more powerful, 958 00:47:41,236 --> 00:47:43,908 which means they use up more resources, 959 00:47:43,908 --> 00:47:47,867 emit more CO2, and exploit more people. 960 00:47:47,867 --> 00:47:51,914 And yet, even though these systems are very large 961 00:47:51,914 --> 00:47:55,040 and powerful, they're also vulnerable. 962 00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:58,905 For one thing, they're very vulnerable to climate change. 963 00:47:58,905 --> 00:48:02,849 If there's, for example, a drought in Central America 964 00:48:02,849 --> 00:48:05,536 and ships can't get through the Panama Canal anymore, 965 00:48:05,536 --> 00:48:06,630 then the flow of components 966 00:48:06,630 --> 00:48:10,211 that Large-Scale Computing needs can slow down. 967 00:48:10,211 --> 00:48:11,506 The more CO2 these systems emit, 968 00:48:11,506 --> 00:48:14,664 the more that's gonna happen until eventually it will stop. 969 00:48:14,664 --> 00:48:18,667 These systems are also vulnerable to workers. 970 00:48:18,667 --> 00:48:20,954 If the people working in mining or shipping 971 00:48:20,954 --> 00:48:23,232 or data labelling are suddenly unable 972 00:48:23,232 --> 00:48:26,150 (or unwilling!) to do their job, 973 00:48:26,150 --> 00:48:27,861 then the system can stop. 974 00:48:27,861 --> 00:48:31,290 Again, climate change is really gonna accelerate this. 975 00:48:31,290 --> 00:48:32,660 Do you really think people in the Philippines 976 00:48:32,660 --> 00:48:34,394 are still gonna be working for Silicon Valley 977 00:48:34,394 --> 00:48:36,960 when half their country's underwater? 978 00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:37,793 They're gonna be like, 979 00:48:37,793 --> 00:48:40,039 "Abigail, I don't care that your vibrator isn't charging. 980 00:48:40,039 --> 00:48:41,602 I've got bigger problems!" 981 00:48:41,602 --> 00:48:45,665 Deliberate action by workers can jam the system too. 982 00:48:45,665 --> 00:48:47,622 When Google employees found out their company 983 00:48:47,622 --> 00:48:49,475 was working with the US Department of Defense, 984 00:48:49,475 --> 00:48:50,660 they kicked up such a fuss 985 00:48:50,660 --> 00:48:52,461 that Google cancelled the contract. 986 00:48:52,461 --> 00:48:54,588 Amazon employees staged walkouts 987 00:48:54,588 --> 00:48:56,559 over the company's carbon footprint. 988 00:48:56,559 --> 00:48:58,932 When actors and writers discovered that studios 989 00:48:58,932 --> 00:49:03,749 wanted to replace us with computers, we went on strike. 990 00:49:03,749 --> 00:49:07,535 The more physical and spread out these systems are, 991 00:49:07,535 --> 00:49:12,535 the more opportunity there is to take a hammer to them. 992 00:49:12,660 --> 00:49:16,417 That's why striking is such a powerful tool 993 00:49:16,417 --> 00:49:17,789 and why governments who act on behalf 994 00:49:17,789 --> 00:49:20,137 of fossil fuel companies are so keen 995 00:49:20,137 --> 00:49:22,331 to suppress worker power. 996 00:49:22,331 --> 00:49:24,498 So can we make ethical AI? 997 00:49:27,458 --> 00:49:28,291 Well, 998 00:49:31,961 --> 00:49:35,211 who's we? 999 00:49:35,211 --> 00:49:40,549 [synth drone music like ooooooOOOOOoooo damn!] 1000 00:49:40,549 --> 00:49:44,132 Now we can return to the alignment problem. 1001 00:49:46,512 --> 00:49:50,845 Suppose that a hostile AGI came into being tomorrow. 1002 00:49:52,036 --> 00:49:56,864 We understand now that large scale computing needs resources 1003 00:49:56,864 --> 00:49:59,996 and labour, and if our AGI had an army of terminators 1004 00:49:59,996 --> 00:50:01,614 it could probably get those things on its own, 1005 00:50:01,614 --> 00:50:03,967 but it's gonna have to build those terminators first 1006 00:50:03,967 --> 00:50:06,205 and the factories that build them. 1007 00:50:06,205 --> 00:50:09,929 So more likely it would need people, 1008 00:50:09,929 --> 00:50:14,166 recruiting them through trickery, force, or persuasion. 1009 00:50:14,166 --> 00:50:18,916 Which means the power of a hostile AGI would still depend 1010 00:50:19,933 --> 00:50:22,930 on its relation to our existing political 1011 00:50:22,930 --> 00:50:24,908 and social systems. 1012 00:50:24,908 --> 00:50:28,257 It is a mistake to think that a disembodied mind 1013 00:50:28,257 --> 00:50:31,035 could destroy the world from inside the cloud. 1014 00:50:31,035 --> 00:50:33,626 Even if we built badly aligned AGI, 1015 00:50:33,626 --> 00:50:36,701 its power would come not from technology, 1016 00:50:36,701 --> 00:50:39,321 but from the human systems in which 1017 00:50:39,321 --> 00:50:42,307 that technology is embedded. 1018 00:50:42,307 --> 00:50:45,938 So when people talk about ethical AI, 1019 00:50:45,938 --> 00:50:48,960 maybe we shouldn't think about Skynet. 1020 00:50:48,960 --> 00:50:52,006 Maybe we should think instead about working conditions, 1021 00:50:52,006 --> 00:50:56,011 climate change, and how to make the economy serve humans 1022 00:50:56,011 --> 00:50:58,289 rather than the other way around. 1023 00:50:58,289 --> 00:51:01,214 We shouldn't assume that AGI is inevitable and try 1024 00:51:01,214 --> 00:51:03,833 and patch ethics on as an afterthought, 1025 00:51:03,833 --> 00:51:07,453 but rather ask how we can make justice and sustainability 1026 00:51:07,453 --> 00:51:11,608 and fairness the goal of every piece of tech we build. 1027 00:51:11,608 --> 00:51:14,630 If we really want to make ethical AI, 1028 00:51:14,630 --> 00:51:18,630 then we might like to consider this perspective. 1029 00:51:20,134 --> 00:51:25,966 There is no ethical computation under capitalism! 1030 00:51:28,795 --> 00:51:30,954 It feels a bit weird to do the Nebula ad 1031 00:51:30,954 --> 00:51:33,578 after that emotional ending, but like I said, 1032 00:51:33,578 --> 00:51:37,195 the people who make this show work really hard, 1033 00:51:37,195 --> 00:51:39,826 and if you wanna help us then you can! 1034 00:51:39,826 --> 00:51:43,505 Nebula is a streaming service that's partially owned 1035 00:51:43,505 --> 00:51:46,234 by the creators on it, including me. 1036 00:51:46,234 --> 00:51:49,309 So we're trying not to be uber-capitalist. 1037 00:51:49,309 --> 00:51:53,209 A while ago, the Philosophy Tube crew made a documentary 1038 00:51:53,209 --> 00:51:55,126 about how we make this show - 1039 00:51:55,126 --> 00:51:57,550 it goes into my research and writing process - 1040 00:51:57,550 --> 00:51:59,812 and if you'd like to see it, click the link 1041 00:51:59,812 --> 00:52:03,907 in the description, Go.Nebula.TV/philosophytube. 1042 00:52:03,907 --> 00:52:05,795 If you use that link specifically 1043 00:52:05,795 --> 00:52:07,516 then I get a little bit of your signup fee, 1044 00:52:07,516 --> 00:52:12,297 which helps us, and you get a 40% discount on an annual plan. 1045 00:52:12,297 --> 00:52:16,915 So it works out at $2.50 a month. Pretty good! 1046 00:52:16,915 --> 00:52:19,219 Every episode of Philosophy Tube is released early 1047 00:52:19,219 --> 00:52:21,212 and uncensored on Nebula. 1048 00:52:21,212 --> 00:52:23,788 Other creators like F.D. Signifier and Lindsay Ellis 1049 00:52:23,788 --> 00:52:25,683 make exclusive content on there. 1050 00:52:25,683 --> 00:52:28,044 Nebula are also stepping up their production 1051 00:52:28,044 --> 00:52:29,604 of original content. 1052 00:52:29,604 --> 00:52:31,673 You might remember last year I wrote 1053 00:52:31,673 --> 00:52:34,591 an award-winning stage play called "The Prince"? 1054 00:52:34,591 --> 00:52:36,527 A lot of you came to see it in London 1055 00:52:36,527 --> 00:52:39,118 and the recording is available on Nebula. 1056 00:52:39,118 --> 00:52:43,951 If you enjoyed that, then you might be interested to know... 1057 00:52:44,342 --> 00:52:47,129 I'm writing something new! 1058 00:52:48,891 --> 00:52:50,999 See you on Nebula! 1059 00:52:50,999 --> 00:53:08,147 [sick-ass electronic music courtesy of Nina Richards] 1060 00:53:08,147 --> 00:53:19,600 [What do you reckon? I think this one turned out great!] 1061 00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:37,213 [I pushed the boat out a bit. The last one we did was the biggest hit we've ever had - a million views in under a week - so I wanted to push the boat out this time.] 1062 00:53:37,213 --> 00:53:53,470 [We filmed this over two days in two separate venues, whereas normally we film in one day! Two days' filming means double the cost but, yeah like I said - wanted to push the boat out a bit! Put the patrons' money on the screen, y'know?] 1063 00:53:53,470 --> 00:54:13,175 [I ended up making a really dumb mistake with it though. You know the Nebula signup link in the description? It wasn't clickable for the first 3 days of the video being out and we only just noticed!] 1064 00:54:13,175 --> 00:54:29,471 [So basically, half as many people signed up to Nebula for the first three days as they normally do. Since Nebula pays me according to how many people sign up, it basically means that on the NEXT episode I'll take a 50% pay cut. Such a dumb, dumb, mistake and it's gonna cost me bigtime.] 1065 00:54:29,471 --> 00:54:44,915 [I'll be fine, I have enough to cover the gap, I'm just kicking myself cause it's a big chunk of money to just set fire to over a tiny error. Won't make that mistake again!] 1066 00:54:44,915 --> 00:55:02,800 [Bad timing too. The Patreon took a hit cause student loan repayments started up again, and this video also cost 2x as much to make cause I pushed the boat out and filmed it over two days. I am absolutely kicking myself!] 1067 00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:27,285 [Anyway - uhhhh, sign up to Nebula if you can lol, and do use the link in the description. It's working now.] 1068 00:55:27,285 --> 00:55:47,586 [Ugh, I'm so mad at myself.] 1069 00:55:47,586 --> 00:56:04,192 [I hate letting people down, that's like my biggest fear. And Nebula put a lot of trust in me generally - and this time I blew it. It costs them and it costs me. Amateur mistake.] 1070 00:56:04,192 --> 00:56:19,674 [Anyway. We live and learn. I am writing a new thing that'll hopefully be going on Nebula - fingers crossed this won't affect my ability to pitch them stuff.] 1071 00:56:19,674 --> 00:56:32,334 [I hope we get to make it: I want it to be my next big creative project. We shall see!] 1072 00:56:32,334 --> 00:56:34,786 [Voice of Dan Olson] "If you look at the progress from model to model, 1073 00:56:34,786 --> 00:56:37,702 even some of our biggest critics are like, wow!"