Tag Archives: ethics

text | wondering, The field of AI

<< When Critical is not Critical >>

Leave a comment

“Traditions and ideas must be revisited and reworked, communicated and debated, entangled and disentangled. (Self)-critique can be carried out neither in narcissistic isolation nor in the silence of the ineffable. In the gap between acknowledging your echoing and refusing to echo, and the gap between one’s own pure voice and its simulacrum, critical educational theory of all persuasions struggles with words. Perhaps it is more critical when its loving words are addressed to others and when it harkens to their response, though in this case too, the teacher-pupil relation is one of articulation. For, to echo Derrida here, ‘a master who forbids himself the phrase would give nothing. He would have no disciples but only slaves’ (1995, p. 147).” —Papastephanou (2004)

Papastephanou, M. (2004). Educational Critique, Critical Thinking and the Critical Philosophical Traditions. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 38(3), 369–378. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0309-8249.2004.00391.x

The 2024 Tsinghua Higher Education Forum 清华高等教育论坛 . Institute of Education, Tsinghua University 清华大学教育研究院. The Beijing Convention Center 北京会议中心. 30th August 2024,14:25 – 14:50 Prof. Holmes, Wayne: “AI and Education: A critical Studies Approach”

Derrida, J. (1995) Violence and Metaphysics, in: Writing and Difference (London, Routledge).

Uncategorized

《 idealisms 》

We create jungles
we instill the wild
poison ivy, cactuses ‘n’ cacti.
Child!

we cut down trees
we mow the lawn
it’s a dawn of steel and wires
it’s position and image for hire

when sofas and desk chairs
as softness of comfort
compound on relax:
have you had a run since you turned thirty one?

hiding from claw and teeth’s life’s a breeze
where masteries bring minds of pretended peace
and luxurious anxieties
brittles the new ease

lightness, lightness, brightness
smile, teeth whiteness,
comfy conductors, prescriptions
conscription as scriptures of be

transparency and clarity
ease, simplicity, ease
keep it dumb or is it numb or is it under the thumb?
who’s to say, who’s to see!

smile for cameras, here and there, or don’t
fine-tune exposures and actions none-done
life looks like a magazine, factual and undone
There is chocolate melted on projections

life’s idealisms
are realisms for some
are stoic triggers

and conservatisms to come.

                  —-animasuri’24 
                  Belgium and EU elections
text | poetry, The field of AI

<< Flowers and Rocks >>

beaten drums
beaten competition
beaten child
out of future

beaten models
beaten builds
beaten students
down the street

beaten brainpower
beaten bees
beaten path
swept aside

“and be a simple
kinda man
be somethin’
you love n understand”

b’tween your beats
simply b’tween d’ drops
learn ‘bout somethin’ you
you don’t understand

b’tween your beats
simply b’tween d’ drops
repeat somethin’ you
you don’t understand

        —animasuri’24
text | poetry

<< le mouvement >>

je vous poste un merci
je post-merci
je le poste

lemerci lapoésie
la gratitude
toujours posterieure

et pourtant
une sincère gratitude
précède l’acte

de remercier
de relemercier
le remercieur

qui est
une connexion postpoétique
relationnelle tautologique

delapoésie
delepremercie
delapoposiedelepreprecie

                          —animasuri’24
text | wondering, thoughts of the wise old woman

<< Critic, Critique, Critical; not Critters >>

There is lament about a lack of Critical Thinkers. There’s also a lack of recognizing influencing vectors

Firstly, there is a lack of willingness toward recognition of diversity in who & what a Critical Thinker (CT) can be. There is a denying of what their unique, less obvious sets of merits are. There is inconsideration when they might be coming from places less sanctioned in CT-World

While societies & individuals might self-proclaim their openness, & supportive practices, at an interpersonal or at individual-to-institution levels toward CTs, quickly these too have been observed to show otherwise. Note, here, an individual in an assigned hierarchical position is an institution. If one is fixed to think within an unquestionable framework, one is not necessarily thinking critically, nor allowing critical thought

These unseen CTs could be outside the realm of the attributes of merit as defined by the other. E.g., humor, play, surrealism, to name but a few mechanisms, are not often accepted in realms of official, formal, “serious,” or “strong” CTs. The latter set might seem more macho, while the former, on its surface, might seem more swirly. Yet, both can be equally (un)critical or be (lacking) serious(ness). Either can radiate a narrative of hero-sized strength, while actually packaging insecurities & superficial yes-person frivolities. A yes-woman or yes-man can be highly weaponized as well. These are not strong, nor are they CTs. They can be devastating & (proverbially) deadly. Though acts of violence or power-exertion aren’t equatable to CT

Then there is an acceptance of certain types of a CT’s thinking while (silently) denying other types. Some will assign CT’s thinking only within quantitative realms & attributes of Computational Thinking or formal logic. This while excluding socio-cultural CTs (which might be more qualitative & interpretive). This is also an issue in reverse

Herein too lies an insidiousness of the veiled “expert” (aka they from an in-group) & the unwillingness to assign some of its attributes to others (aka they from an out-group)

If one were to allow oneself to identify these & other veiled features, & that beyond the veneer of the formalities, of Public Relations, the egos, the rhetoric of one-liners, beyond the 280-character long evaporating statements, one might unwittingly become increasingly critical

Hence, CTs might seem lacking since they’re not recognized, acknowledged or allowed to enter into dialog. This brings us to silenced features in CTs: dialog & relation. These are critical. While they might be asynchronous across spacetime, these are crucial to the diversity of CTs. The CT is not a state nor a constant. CTs are the relationships, the dialogs, the debates, the in-betweens & liminalities

CTs might be lacking while this can be softened if CTs were as such recognized operating outside my sanctioned cognitive, formal or institutional models

🦗

The field of AI

<< Creating Malware: Technology as Alchemy? >>

Engineering —in a naive, idealized sense— is different from science in that it creates (in)tangible artifacts, as imposed & new realities, while answering a need

It does so by claiming a solution to a (perceived) problem that was expressed by some (hopefully socially-supportive) stakeholders. Ideally (& naively), the stakeholders equal all (life), if not a large section, of humanity

Who’s need does ChatGPT answer when it aids to create malware?

Yes, historically the stakeholders of engineering projects were less concerned with social welfare or well-being. At times (too often), an engineered deliverable created (more) problems, besides offering the intended, actual or claimed solution.

What does ChatGPT solve?

Does it create a “solution” for a problem that is not an urgency, not important and not requested? Does its “solution” outweigh its (risky / dangerous) issues sufficiently for it to be let loose into the wild?

Idealized scientific methodology –that is, through a post-positivist lens– claims that scientific experiments can be falsified (by third parties). Is this to any extent enabled in the realm of Machine Learning and LLMs; without some of its creators seen blaming shortcomings on those who engage in falsification (i.e., trying to proverbially “break” the system)? Should such testing not have been engaged into (in dialog with critical third parties), prior to releasing the artifact into the world?

Idealized (positivist) scientific methodology claims to unveil Reality (Yes, that capitalized R-reality that has been and continues to be vehemently debated and that continues to evade capture). The debates aside, do ChatGPT, or LLMs in general, create more gateways to falsity or tools towards falsehood, rather than toward this idealized scientific aim? Is this science, engineering or rather a renaissance of alchemy?

Falsity is not to be confused with (post-positivist) falsification nor with offering interpretations, the latter which Diffusion Models (i.e., text2pic) might be argued to be offering (note: this too is and must remain debatable and debated). However, visualization AI technology did open up yet other serious concerns, such as in the realm of attribution, (data) alienation and property. Does ChatGPT offer applicable synthesis, enriching interpretation, or rather, negative fabrication?

Scientific experiment is preferably conducted in controlled environments (e.g., a lab) before letting its engineered deliverables out into the world. Realtors managing ChatGPT or recent LLMs do not seem to function within the walls of this constructed and contained realm. How come?

Business, state incentives, rat races, and financial investments motivate and do influence science and surely engineering. Though is the “democratization” of output from the field of AI then with “demos” in mind, or rather yet again with ulterior demons in mind?

Is it then too farfetched to wonder whether the (ideological) attitudes surrounding, and the (market-driven) release of, such constructs is as if a ware with hints, undertones, or overtones, of maliciousness? If not too outlandish an analogy, it might be a good idea to not look, in isolation, at the example of a technology alone.

text | poetry, text | wondering, thoughts of the wise old woman

<< Non-transparency >>


Some of us (I included) request transparency while various attributes & processes are narrated in our lives in a manner to allow comfort in a lack of transparency

As humans some of us are open, & to some extent enabled, to allow both simultaneously. Some can accept adaptation & change, depending on various influencing vectors

Collectively we built entire institutions around lack of transparency. We created these because they allow us a substitute for difficult to understand or difficult to accept results of the process of transparency. Or to control that what “must” be understood by others

Over the hundreds of thousands of years, our species created work-arounds & “pervertedly” took note of (understandably) avoided transparency via narration. Here “pervertedly” means “having altered the direction away from its initial course, meaning or state;” one can think of change, fluidity, dynamics, innovation, transformation or myth

This previous (ie the human, shared & individual histories), & the suggested “perversions,” quickly (in astronomical scales) started to be convoluted with control, & this via any narration which has been collectively embraced. Some of our transparency-hiding narratives are not falsifiable. This creates tensions & harmonies. Request or imposition for corroboration is, at times, systemically opposed, unless the imposer is relentless

We delegate transparency into a blackbox by a different name, while shining bright & sparkling lights upon it, & while collectively dancing around the bonfire lit in its name

Santa is real; the proverbial one & the one living on the North Pole. Arthur C. Clark said it eloquently. I will remain opaque as to which of his 3 laws I am alluding. & yet, Arthur, Santa & I have one thing in common: the joy for aesthetics, poetics & compassion toward the other; at least to bring them moments of uplifting escapism or support

The human choreography is one where we consider the balancing act of when to stimulate transparency & when to obfuscate. If all needs to be simple, clear & straight, we are equally doomed as when we tell blissful stories irrespective of the potentially disastrous or undesirable outcomes to oneself & the relations of oneself with any other; human & non-human

#Transparency & #understandability are interlinked. With these, so are #auditability & #explainability. Eg: by allowing us physical, emotional, intellectual, imaginative, relational & spiritual access to augmenting our senses with a highly powerful microscope or telescope of any engineered types; be these scientific &/or poetic. These nuanced balancing processes can be found in relations with technologies, spouse, students, citizens, communities, markets, policies & larger ecologies. Alternatively these relations can be shattered, brushed under the carpet, crudely abused or unwarranted guarded for the sake of guarding & no longer for the sake of #compassion for life as evolving in complex, paradoxical, diverse relations

text | wondering, The field of AI, Uncategorized

<< My Data’s Data Culture >>


Far more eloquently described, more then 15 years ago, by Lawrence Lessig, I too sense an open or free culture, and design there within, might be constrained or conditioned by technology , policy, community and market vectors.

I perceived Lessig’s work then to have been focused on who controls your cultural artifacts. These artifacts, I sense, could arguably be understood as types of (in)tangible data sets given meaningful or semiotic form as co-creative learning artifacts (by you and/or others).

I imagine, for instance, “Mickey Mouse” as a data set (perhaps extended, as a cognitive net, well beyond the character?). Mickey, or any other artifact of your choosing, aids one to learn about one’s cultural narratives and, as extended cognition, in positive feedback loops, about one self in communicative co-creation with the other (who is engaged in similar interactions with this and other datasets). However, engaging with a Mickey meant / means risking persecution under IPR (I wrote on this through an artistic lens here ).

Today, such data sets for one’s artificial learning (ie learning through a human made artifact) are (also) we ourselves. We are data. Provocatively: we are (made) artificial by the artificial. Tomorrow’s new psychoanalyst-teacher could very well be your friendly neighborhood autonomous data visualizer; or so I imagine.

Mapping Lessig, with the article below, and with many of the sources one could find (e.g.: Jason Silva, Kevin Kelly, Mark Sprevak, Stuart Russell, Kurzweil, Yuval Noah Harari, Kaśka Porayska-Pomsta ) I am enabled to ponder:

Who do the visualizations serve? Who’s privacy and preferences do they interfere with? Who’s data is alienated beyond the context within which its use was intended? Who owns (or has the IPR) on the data learned from the data I create during my co-creative cultural learning (e.g: online social networking, self-exhibition as well as more formal online learning contexts); allowing third parties to learn more about me then I am given access to learn about myself?

Moreover, differently from they who own Mickey, who of us can sue the users of our data, or the artifacts appropriated therefrom, as if it were (and actually is) our own IPR?

Given the spirit of artificial intelligence in education (AIED), I felt that the following article, published these past days on such data use that is algorithmically processed in questionable ethical or open manners, could resonate with others as well. (ethics , aiethics )

Epilogue — A quote:

“The FTC has required companies to disgorge ill-gotten monetary gains obtained through deceptive practices, forcing them to delete algorithmic systems built with ill-gotten data could become a more routine approach, one that modernizes FTC enforcement to directly affect how companies do business.”

References

https://www-protocol-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.protocol.com/amp/ftc-algorithm-destroy-data-privacy-2656932186

Lessig’s last speech on free culture: here

Lessig’s Free Culture book: here

text | wondering, The field of AI, thoughts of the wise old woman

<< Demons and Demos >>


The New Yorker and NSO in some glorious spy-novel context here

…and further, as a cherry on this cake, one might quickly conjure up Cambridge Analytica , or singularly, Facebook with its clandestine 50000+ or so datapoints per milked data-cow (aka what I also lovingly refer to as humans as datacyborgs) which the company’s systems are said to distill through data collection . Yes, arguably the singularity is already here.

Then, more recently, one can enjoy the application by a facial recognition service, Clearview AI, that uses its data mining to identify (or read: “spy on”) dead individuals; a service which might seem very commendable (even for individuals with no personal social media accounts, one simply has to appear in someone else’s visual material); and yet the tech has been applied for more.

The contextualization might aid one to have the narrative amount to:

“Alienation” and that, if one were to wish, could be extended with the idea of the “uncanny” hinted at with my datacyborg poetics. “Alienation” here is somewhat as meant as it is in the social sciences: the act of lifting the intended use of one’s data, outside of that intended use, by a third party. The questionable act of “alienation” is very much ignored or quietly accepted (since some confuse “public posting” with a “free for all”). 

What personally disturbs me is that the above manner of writing makes me feel like a neurotic conspiratorial excuse of a person… one might then self-censor a bit more, just to not upset the balance with any demonizing push-back (after all, what is one’s sound, educated and rational “demos” anyway?). This one might do while others, in the shadows of our silently-extracted data, throw any censorship, in support of the hidden self (of the other), out of the proverbial window.

This contextualised further; related to memory, one might also wish to consider the right to be forgotten besides the right to privacy. These above-mentioned actors among a dozen others, rip this autonomous decision-making out of our hands. If then one were to consider ethics mapped with the lack of autonomy one could be shiveringly delighted not to have to buy a ticket to a horror-spy movie since we can all enjoy such narratives for “free” and in “real” life. 

Thank you Dr. WSA for the trigger


Epilogue:

“Traditionally, technology development has typically revolved around the functionality, usability, efficiency and reliability of technologies. However, AI technology needs a broader discussion on its societal acceptability. It impacts on moral (and political) considerations. It shapes individuals, societies and their environments in a way that has ethical implications.”

https://ethics-of-ai.mooc.fi/chapter-1/4-a-framework-for-ai-ethics

…is ethics perhaps becoming / still as soothing bread for the demos in the games by the gazing all-seeing not-too-proverbial eye?

In extension to my above post (for those who enjoy interpretative poetics):

One might consider that the confusion of a “public posting” being equated with “free for all” (and hence falsely being perceived as forfeiting autonomy, integrity, and the likes), is somewhat analogous with abuses of any “public” commons.

Expanding this critically, and to some perhaps provokingly further, one might also see this confusion with thinking that someone else’s body is touch- or grope-for-all simply because it is “available”.

Now let’s be truly “meta” about it all: One might consider that the human body is digital now. (Ie my datacyborg as the uber-avatar. Moving this then into the extreme: if I were a datacyborg then someone else’s extraction beyond my public flaneuring here, in my chosen setting, could poetically be labeled as “datarape”)

As one might question the ethics of alienatingly ripping the biological cells from Henrietta Lacks beyond the extraction of her cancer into labs around the world, one might wonder about the ethics of data being ripped and alienated into labs for market experimentation and the infinite panopticon of data-prying someone’s (unwanted) data immortality

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks