Two key tech execs quit Truth Social after troubled app launch | Hacker News Reader

Two key tech execs quit Truth Social after troubled app launch

reuters.com

2 pointsawb6 comments

How will we grapple with the fact that our community created web and mobile technology with the goal of providing more transparent, more available factual information but instead we watch it get co-opted as the world's most-powerful propaganda machine?

The road to hell was paved with good intentions and that applies to free software, which is Mastodon used in Truth Social.

> instead we watch it get co-opted as the world's most-powerful propaganda machine

You mean Facebook?

Any tool can be turned into a weapon.

I guess that means we should absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it?

How do we apply that idea to our involvement in building future tools? Should we go ahead and build "sentient" autonomous weapons because "any tool can be turned into a weapon" anyway?

> I guess that means we should absolve ourselves of any responsibility for it?

I don't think so, I just think it's a complicated topic without many easy answers.

> How do we apply that idea to our involvement in building future tools?

If we pick a less sensitive topic like power tools, they have some basic safety features. I know some folks get annoyed by those, but most folks find them helpful and can still accomplish their goals with the tools. But the safety features still don't 100% prevent misuse.

> Should we go ahead and build "sentient" autonomous weapons because "any tool can be turned into a weapon" anyway?

Most production AI applications have a "human in the loop", especially when accuracy is essential. The AI will alert a human and provide info & context, but a human still makes the decision. This is because even our best AI isn't smarter, safer or more ethical than a skilled human (at this point). At the point where a "human in the loop" starts generating more errors than autonomous AI, then it might make sense to have autonomous AI, with a kill-switch of course. I don't know what the advantage would be in making AI "sentient" though.

This is why I think we should require ethics courses for Computer Science or Software Engineering degrees. It _is_ a complicated topic without many easy answers. I think that far too many software engineers don't even ask the questions to begin with. Most are complicit in a system (like Facebook) under the assumption that the ethics of the work is someone else's responsibility.

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