BBC again. Just to prove the point. This mug actually believes it's real.Originally Posted by Letters
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-64697300
This seemed like the fairly inevitable outcome, sadly
BBC again. Just to prove the point. This mug actually believes it's real.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-64697300
This seemed like the fairly inevitable outcome, sadly
Für eure Sicherheit
Sydney is here and it represents the greatest leap backwards in human knowledge since human knowledge was a thing. Imagine. If there's only one "correct" answer", just how little knowledge are you going to have access to?
Für eure Sicherheit
Oh look what’s come out of its crypt again
First off coming from you this concern comes across as hypocritical given you’ve said about what you say being objective fact .
Second as concerning as it may or may not be, there are of course some questions which do only have one answer. I’d be far more concerned about authoritarianism in a state where it’s decided 2+2 has multiple answers because there is no objective truth to cling to.
In terms of more philosophical questions, if you asked an AI currently whether God exists it will come out with a lot of spiel about what different cultures believe, it won’t say yes or no and in the affirmative give you its email address.
AI should always remain a concern, especially when we delegate decision making to a machine but for the moment we are at the stage where it’s little more than a curiousity
What isn’t real? The body has now been confirmed as that of the missing lady
It didn’t happen, she’s a crisis actor who is also very good at snorkelling in foul river water
What isn’t real? The body has now been confirmed as that of the missing lady
One has to admire her commitment to the part
William Hague and Tony Blair: Science is the single issue all our dreams depend on
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/9...0f2f0618e80460
This is a report about securing our future as we face the challenges and opportunities of a digital future as we stand at the precipice of a technology revolution that will dwarf that of the Industrial Revolution.
Lots of great things about improving how we invest in STEM to unleash its potential to improve public services and by extension the lives of everyone regardless of socio-economic background.
Sitting in the middle of this is, “We advocate reorganising the centre of Whitehall to drive the use of data and AI across government, including digital ID for every citizen, a national health infrastructure that uses data to improve care and keep costs down, and sovereign AI systems backed by supercomputing capabilities”.
I genuinely don’t believe that the objective here is as altruistic as it is stated. What they say there and the march to complete digitisation of finance, including financial transactions, no matter how small is pretty much complete state control over every aspect of our lives. This is what can be achieved now, at a time when technology is at its most primitive state between now and the end of time.
This does not feel as if we are moving to a new state of utopia.
It doesn't have to be a move towards a state of dystopia either though. Certain people see any measure like this as a lurch towards authoratarianism.
But those same people are the ones who saw that in the Covid measures too - multiple people on here claimed the lockdowns were here to stay, and NQ predicted all kinds of increasing restrictions. That didn't happen, it was never going to happen. Because, ultimately, we don't have an oppressive regime here. And that doesn't mean they're bending over backwards working tirelessly to help us either, there's a huge middle ground between those two extremes.
Obviously the danger of these things is we might have an oppressive regime here one day. That is a is a legitimate concern. But we never have had one in our modern history and I find it vanishingly unlikely that we ever will.
I guess it's like nuclear weapons. They exist. They could wipe us all out. So the probability of that happening is greater than 0. But it's never happened. Well, not since since WW2 - but those bombs, while powerful, were nowhere near as powerful as the ones which exist now. The ones now are so powerful that the prospect of MAD exists, which has meant (so far) that no-one has been crazy enough to press "the button". Could it happen? Well it could. In the same way we could have an authoritarian regime installed which would use these technologies to control and oppress us in the way people like NQ fear. Is it likely? Not in my estimation. Is there anything we can do about it? Probably not.
These things generally add convenience and of course it means they can gather increasing amounts of data about us, which means they can market to us more effectively. The bottom line is generally money, but I don't think it's a desire for oppression and control. The pandemic was a perfect excuse for that land grab and they didn't take it. But hey, maybe I'm naive. But I would ask the people who think we are sliding into authoritarianism what actual freedoms they had when they were younger that they don't have today. What practical differences had all this data and tracking made to their lives.
I get what you're saying, but I think there are many practical issued raised by an increasingly digital future.
The average person may not currently notice the effects of harvesting data and this being incorporated into every aspect of their daily lives, but this doesn't mean that it is harmless. We are already in an era of covert social control - mostly by social media. This might not be the traditional idea of authoritarianism, which is top down control by a state or dictator - in fact at present it is often the inverse of this. More and more we are being prevented from thinking freely - or at least expressing or debating our opinions. For example 'wokeness' (for want of a better word) is fast becoming a bottom up, liberal authoritarianism in which you are cancelled (and can suffer the loss of a job; social standing or even be placed in physical harm) simply for not following the majority view. This majority view is itself is informed by the fact that social media deliberately polarises and self-justifies beliefs because algorithms direct users to content that agrees with their own. You may say that it has always been this way - but the press, for example, has never had the penetrative; pervasive and manipulative effect that constant exposure to digital media produces. The digital revolution is moving ever more rapidly towards an extreme form of social control - and the fact that it may be peer to peer, or that we are voluntarily participating in it makes it no less (in fact it makes it much more) insidious.
And we are not just talking about bottom up authoritarianism. The Cambridge Analytica data scandal showed us how data harvesting can have a direct effect on our so-called democratic processes, but was really only the first time most people had been made aware of psychological targeting that has been and continues to be used by those seeking to influence the way we think and behave. The concerns about elections being influenced by malign factions are for me justified by just how possible it is to do so virtually undetected in today's technological landscape. This potential is only going to get worse as the pace of technology advances - exacerbated by the fact that only relatively few people - and certainly not most of those ostensibly in power and charged with acting in society's best interests - understand.
In the world of finance, the dangers of finetec include loss of privacy; compromised data security; rising risks of fraud and scams; unfair and discriminatory uses of data and data analytics; uses of data that are non-transparent to both consumers and regulators; harmful manipulation of consumer behaviour; and risks that tech firms entering the financial or financial regulatory space will lack adequate knowledge, operational effectiveness, and stability. You can argue that none of this directly affects our daily lives, but it does in a very real sense. Most people know someone who has been the victim of financial fraud. If you work in the service industry you are obliged to spend increasing amounts of time dealing with regulations intended to prevent fraud or money laundering. If you are a consumer, these additional costs are passed onto you in prices and charges, the need to pay for insurance, or being excluded from access to certain products and services.
Increasing automisation also affects all of our lives in a very real sense. Machine technology is neither moral nor involves any element of discretion. There are many people who will have been rejected for a bank loan or mortgage; been unable to obtain insurance or denied services as the result of gatekeeper algorithms before human judgment has even come into play. This already creates “winners” who are classed as less risky by the more sophisticated algorithm and “losers” who are not. What’s more these often mirror social and financial divides – so technology widens the gap between rich and poor and is therefore an obvious impediment to social mobility.
My final example is in the field of healthcare. For me we are marching towards an inevitable situation where genetic engineering (albeit unlikely to be described as such) will be available to those able to afford to pay for it, and healthcare (or at least health insurance) will be denied to those with pre-existing genetic defects. If that is too much for you, then certainly lifestyles will be influenced by the availability or otherwise of health care. There are many who may support this, but data harvesting is likely to have a direct effect on personal freedoms – whether individuals value this or not.
Putting the laughter back into manslaughter
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