The Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)

I can't wait for this book. Alex Hanna, Ph.D. and Emily M. Bender have such a great way of speaking about AI and the people who build it (See AI Mystery Hype: https://lnkd.in/dDqp-hZX). I am looking forward to the rigorous analyses about as much as the punchy humour, which kinda leaves one between a cry and a laugh.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to sit in on Alex Hanna, Ph.D. 's virtual talk on her upcoming book, The AI Con. This is a must-read and builds off the work she and Emily M. Bender share on their brilliant podcast, Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000. If you're not already familiar with it, you can check that out here: https://lnkd.in/eUY-rgmx Consider preordering the book - you'll definitely want to read it. https://thecon.ai/

Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 Episode 52: The Anti-Bookclub Takes On ‘Superagency’ in which Alex Hanna, Ph.D. and I attempt to repair the psychic damage we took in reading the book: https://lnkd.in/gFzHKtvt Thx to Christie Taylor for production! Also available as video on PeerTube: https://lnkd.in/gYEgzJem Alt text for video: Audiogram with Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 logo, title “The Anti-Bookclub Takes On ‘Superagency’” and subhead “LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s agonizing book is awash with magical thinking about the best uses of LLMs” Subtitles: ALEX HANNA: The kind of imagination for good things is really absurd. One of them is: "Think, for example, of an AI system that learns how to interpret and translate animal vocalizations, enabling humans to understand the needs of endangered species in ways never before possible and thus leading to more effective interventions to protect biodiversity." I was in my garage at this point and I just screamed, what the fuck. We don't need that! EMILY M. BENDER: (laughter) Exactly. Exactly. We know what's harming endangered species. It's habitat loss, it's climate change, it's loss of what they're going to eat. If we could get the whales to say, "Where's the salmon?" But also this idea that somehow you just put the whale song into the AI system and the AI system will tell you what--like, that's not how that works. You have to have some other signal as to what this could mean. You can't just map it from the sound.

The real questions here are: 1. Why did anyone think this wouldn't be dangerous? 2. How do we hold the people selling that lie accountable?

"Alex Hanna, Ph.D.,...currently the director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, says that regardless of the actual AI system used, large language models that fuel many AI systems have historically been biased against minorities. These biases are exacerbated when asking language models to work in a language like Arabic, an especially difficult language for AI because of its various forms."

"Alex Hanna, Ph.D.,...currently the director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute, says that regardless of the actual AI system used, large language models that fuel many AI systems have historically been biased against minorities. These biases are exacerbated when asking language models to work in a language like Arabic, an especially difficult language for AI because of its various forms."

In my latest article for Compiler, I explore the State Department's initiative to use artificial intelligence to monitor visa holders' social media for "pro-Hamas" sentiments. This policy raises significant concerns about free speech and technological biases. Understanding these implications is crucial for safeguarding civil liberties in the digital age. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/ey6wubns

“‘My door is always open’ but we’ve been told we can’t go to the floor you work on?” wrote one employee, according to Google Meet chat logs for the event obtained by WIRED. Employees used their real names to ask questions, but WIRED has chosen not to include those names to protect the privacy of the staffers. “We don’t want an AI demo, we want answers to what is going on with [reductions in force],” wrote another, as over 100 GSA staffers added a “thumbs up” emoji to the post. But an AI demo is what they got. During the meeting, Ehikian and other high-ranking members of the GSA team showed off GSAi, a chatbot tool built by employees at the Technology Transformation Services." ""We are very busy after losing people and this is not [an] efficient use of time,” one employee wrote. “Literally who cares about this,” wrote another."

Tapping this sign again. By Emily M. Bender https://lnkd.in/eVw3hzrf "As OpenAI and Meta introduce LLM-driven searchbots, I'd like to once again remind people that neither LLMs nor chatbots are good technology for information access." "If someone uses an LLM as a replacement for search, and the output they get is correct, this is just by chance. Furthermore, a system that is right 95% of the time is arguably more dangerous tthan one that is right 50% of the time. People will be more likely to trust the output, and likely less able to fact check the 5%." "But even if the chatbots on offer were built around something other than LLMs, something that could reliably get the right answer, they'd still be a terrible technology for information access." "Setting things up so that you get "the answer" to your question cuts off the user's ability to do the sense-making that is critical to information literacy. That sense-making includes refining the question, understanding how different sources speak to the question, and locating each source within the information landscape."

What are your favorite ways to have compute clusters that aren't Amazon/Google/Microsoft etc, whether it is building your own or other organizations you've used?