Re: Meh
Cookies? The ICO would like a word with you.
32782 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"Six stories about Sam Altman on the Register in the last week! Who is paying for them? Is he issuing his own press releases?"
Alternately:
Six stories about the OpenAI on the Register in the last week! Who is paying for them? Are they issuing their own press releases?
Which is the better fit? A useful guide to working that out might be to identify the prime mover(s).
It doesn't need to be species-ending to be harmful. What we're seeing is individual victims suffering penalties at the hands of the state or big business with inadequate or no redress. Disentangling such cases is made worse because there is no audit trail to show how the problems occurred.
The big attraction is that with any form of algorithmic decision making there's nobody to blame so that nobody can be charged with misfeasance in public office, fired or even given a bad annual report.
This needs to change. Individuals need to be held responsible for lack of due diligence, lack of supervision or whatever it is that leads to bad outcomes. There also needs to be an emphasis on sorting out consequences ASAP.
Horizon is a prime example: once the misuse of a faulty system had been exposed it should have been assumed that all convictions that involved Horizon data were unsafe, including those where the accused had been persuaded to plead guilty and/or made "restitutions". Not only should convictions have been quashed in bulk, there should have been urgent measures to compensate the victims and investigations into perjury, etc. started. As it is many convictions still stand, compensation is still being argued, nobody has been brought to court for their parts and we have a long running enquiry to establish what's by now largely public knowledge.
"but why would anyone need a middle-man to actually send the data for them?"
Because manglement have, in their wisdom complete lack of understanding how their businesses work and/or gullibility in the face of salesdroids, hollowed out their organisations to the point where they don't have anyone of their own capable of doing it.
"it is quite interesting to see just how many problems can be cracked open by a really good pattern matching engine"
I saw that sort of thing back in the 80s. What we have now, at least as far as powering search engines is concerned, are really poor pattern matching engines constructed on the basis that as many hits as possible are a good thing and an empty results list is an anathema, even when there are no hits that match the search terms.
"Except that the OpenAI board thought they'd sling Altman under the bus, and be left holding all the cards, and laughing all the way to the bank...I can't see the board of OA having a future with that company"
If they really didn't give thought to the possible downside would they have a future at board level at any other company?
Even so, it's abysmal coding around an "Are you sure" prompt.
I remember a similar condition applied to an X-ray detector in an electron microscope - the detector liquid notrogne supply shouldn't be allowed to boil dry. The thought occurred that if exposure to room temperature would destroy it did that mean it had ben manufactured under cryogenic conditions?
Definitely not. He was a well-regarded defence lawyer with a self-deprecating sense of humour. I certainly regarded him well after he eventually objected to the prosecution leader cross-examining* his own witness, namely me.
* No way was I going to put any great weight on hair comparison as he wanted me to do. I could never understand why the FBI lab seemed to make a big thing about hair comparisons; years after I read an article proving that their evidence was unreliable.
Slight problem with that being that after nearly 40 years I can't remember the names - in fact I'm not sure I even knew all of them by name.
The names that stick in the mind were the really bright ones such as the one who managed to shuffle the order of his witnesses so as to ensure a key witness was called the next day. He knew the defence leader had to appear in another case and reckoned the junior was one of those who wouldn't be up to asking questions. Possibly the junior in question was the previous owner of the house of one of my colleagues who kept getting debt-chasing letters addressed to him.
"you had to take a 1 hour training session from the office manager"
Somehow that reminded me of the time when you had to pass the chief technician's test to drive the departmental mini. He was a bit deaf and had obviously been used to driving cars with bigger, slower revving engines. He didn't know the engine was really labouring when he drive it and he complained about people changing up too late.
Good idea. I can always use my old address in Lisburn - Oh, I forgot. I don't need to. My only bit of kit which dual boots int0 Windows* won't go beyond 10 anyway.
* I keep it mostly to remind myself of what I'm missing and reassure myself I made the right decision years ago. Tomorrow I'll maybe run this month's patches and marvel at how long it takes and how many times it reboots.