Does anyone know of any attempts out there of building more ethical AI models for things like text LLM, image or audio processing?
To clarify, I am talking about an AI model which is trained on a dataset of public domain, creative commons, licensed, or more intentionally fair use sampling methods.
Personally, I believe that the way the modern AI industry has built their giant models is incredibly exploitative, unethical, toxic to society and culture, and arguably not even consistent with the letter or spirit of the existing rules by which we have all been asked to play.
As a tool, machine learning may not be fundamentally bad, but who, if anyone, is out there trying to do it in better, more legitimate way?
That this post is 1/3 disliked really just shows how this crowd feels about this tectonic shift in technology. You even ask a simple question like, “more ethical attempts?” and if you dare add the two characters A and I, some folks are just immediately mad. So silly that people are discouraged from any sort of nuance on the topic.
You know, that’s an interesting point and I’m not totally sure how to read into people’s dislikes…
I’m probably amongst the most vocally anti-AI people I know. I fully understand that basically all of the biggest AI models today have been built on the exploitation of other people’s (be it writers, artists, musicians, programmers, etc.) stolen intellectual labor. And that’s not just my gut feeling either, it’s been well documented at this point by higher ups at the tech companies themselves. I can’t stand the AI industry, and I would argue it’s pretty much morally indefensible as things are right now. The AI bubble and the way the technology is being used, I think, is truly terrible for society and culture.
But it’s that exact understanding–that the AI industry has been built on a foundation of theft–that makes me wonder if anyone out there is trying to do this in a less brazenly unethical way. I can’t help but be curious what all of this stuff might look like if people took a more fair approach to building datasets and training models from them. Is it even possible?
To me, part of criticizing the way things are is considering the alternatives so that we can make an informed decision on the way things should be. I’d love to know if someone out there is doing AI “the right way” and leading by example when it comes to ethical datasets.
I agree completely. What happened since backpropagation, especially with transformers, is amazing. But I have no trouble coupling that with the view that mega corporations pushing it so hard is a continuation of the wealthy exploiting the poor, harmful to the environment, and built on a throne of lies.
Not only that, but the train has left the station. I would love to find the best path forward whatever that is. Part of me feels like that is with some criminal accountability for all the theft at least, certainly heavy regulation, but maybe also completely nationalizing the technology so it can make some decisions based on public good rather than strictly profit.
nah, fuck AI
EDIT - I didn’t want to add any context but here we are. tech moguls have made it clear that the goal of AI is to eliminate workers. they’re saying the quiet part out loud that there really isn’t any upside for your average person on the street. you’ll lose your job and that’s good. no, of course no UBI you lazy lout, just stop being poor.
second, the science has shown that it’s making people stupider, as their critical thinking skills and even simple abilities like reading dwindle the more they use it.
I say “fuck AI” with full awareness of the nuance. I’m forced to use it daily for work and I hate it. an ethically trained model does not fix all of these other problems. its primary purpose is a tool of oppression.
Should use LLM instead of the marketing term
In lieu of what term? LLM is a subset of Transformers which itself is a subset of ML models. So you should really only use that term if you mean that narrow subset. That would leave off diffusion models which itself has maybe the lion’s share of ethical concerns regarding stolen art.
Instead of AI, because its definitely not intelligence as you yourself just explained
But that would be imprecise in this context, since the poster is referring to at least both LLM’s and diffusion models. AI doesn’t have intelligence; that’s what the “A” means. And it is a suitable term for the broad set of technologies that you and I both know it means and has been in use for decades predating the LLM craze.
yeah its kinda funny because I hope to see local llm ethically trained get wrapped into os distros to provide a more star trek like computer experience. I certainly see problems with ai/llm but I recognize it can have uses as well. I really don’t get the extremes on this tech. I will say though that like early on there were folks that did not like guis and to be fair the guis were really crappy initially.