Ask HN: As an AI expert, where to work to help humanity? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As an AI expert, where to work to help humanity?

5 pointsdoubtfuluser17 comments

I’m currently wondering which opportunities/companies are out there for doing truly humanitarian work as an AI expert. I don’t believe in the kool-aid that “connecting people” on some (current) platforms is helping humanity, as well as serving ads or by having a speaker talk to you asking whether you would like to know more about todays Pokémon. I’m thinking more about things like WHO, UNHCR, UNICEF, etc. I checked the homepages but didn’t find anything about them Searching for people with AI background or investment in this area. Any ideas where to start?

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I don't know.

But - I'd like to encourage you for asking. That's a really good question. If more tech-minded folk asked questions like this, we'd be doing a whole lot better as a species.

My personal hot-take is that understanding how people get manipulated and coerced into acting against their own interests is essential to our survival. Think big tobacco tactics, big oil climate denial, manufacture of consent, kayfabe politics.

I don't know how - or even if - AI can help us create systems that offer protection against such manipulation. My hunch is that it's worth thinking about.

Some examples: Maybe AI can analyze vast amounts of data to manage pollution - soil, air, water, etc - in such a way that manipulation of the results is impossible. However, the institutions which manage this stuff seem quite thoroughly broken (Superfund sites, for example, or Deepwater Horizon, or pesticide buildup).

Maybe AI can analyze currency transactions to identify bribes, sinks in the money system where value flows out. However, we've seen many examples of this stuff coming out into the open without major consequence (Paradise, Panama, bank bailouts, CDS, etc etc).

Maybe AI could help identify those most susceptible to manipulation in order to help & protect them, rather than to sway their vote, turn them into 'useful idiots', and sell them stuff. That would be "bad" for the economy (and fantastic for society).

Maybe AI could help overhaul education - I think this is both essential, and terrifying. I won't ramble on though.

Best of luck man.

The soup kitchen.

Does identifying as an AI expert preclude starting small?

Good luck.

Excellent question and surely you have a point. The thing I’m looking for: is there a way I can use my profession for something good?

I’m already helping out on weekends in the local equivalent of “soup kitchen”. But I’m rethinking life and what I spend my work on.

Since most human activity doesn’t solve the deep problems of abject poverty, a good working hypothesis it that AI doesn’t either.

Even if it does, there is no shortage of people who would like to direct large amounts of resources from a desk chair and feel like they were do-gooders for it.

Andreesen didn’t write “software is feeding the world.” Quite the opposite in fact. And he was in a position to shape some of the world.

I’ve met developers with do-good dream jobs. They are small scale and opened up because the developer paid their dues over many years.

The simplest way to change what you work on is to change the kind of work you do.

E.g. go to nursing school and the possibilities are endless. But you’ll have to change what “being professional“ looks like.

Or quit your job and start the organization that does what you think needs doing.

If I were in your position I'd investigate agricultural applications. There are some companies involved in vertical farming and precision farming, whose crucial enablers are image recognition and autonomous drone technology. The benefits are drastic reductions in the need for water, land, and pesticides. If you can't get any companies to hire you then you can always volunteer to assist a university research group in that area provided you can convince the PI that you'll need negligible supervision.

Create a Chrome extension that can analyze the materials used in any e-commerce product to tell you how sustainable it is.

Have AI fit your newly ordered clothes so that you do not have to return ill fitting clothes.

Probably universities are your best bet? Usually, the novel ideas get developed there and only later are deployed by various government (or multi-government) agencies. The deployment state requires less of expertise than the R&D part, so you may not be needed there.

I'm actively looking for a co-founder that is an expert in ML.

AI is not a threat to humanity. Humanity's greed is a threat to humanity.

You want to help humanity? Find a way to kill off advertising. It's the cancer that's not just funding the current downsides of technology, but reshaping the technology industry to serve it even more.

Find a way to kill off advertising.

Wtf?

Well not literally kill off but regulate it away so it’s no longer profitable.

A large chunk of the problems we currently see with social media, privacy, etc are incentivised by advertising. You remove that and those problems are significantly reduced - people won’t pay for a social network that intentionally prioritises outrage or fake/misleading news over their friends’ content for example - the only reason it happens right now is because advertising pays for it.

Advertising funds most of the internet. If you remove it, who's going to pay for it? You do understand that someone has to pay for it, right? Or do you propose every social network starts charging its users? Do you really want and expect people to pay for google search, youtube, facebook, instagram, twitter, reddit, etc?

> Or do you propose every social network starts charging its users? Do you really want and expect people to pay for google search, youtube, facebook, instagram, twitter, reddit, etc?

Yes, that's my point. People will pay for things they find valuable, switch to a cheaper alternative or do without (a lot of spammy content that is currently only funded by ad impressions and survives because you can't ask for a refund on an ad impression will no longer survive as nobody would pay).

People will pay

Got any data to back up your claim?

People routinely pay for various goods/services when they can't get them for free. I'm sure today you may have paid for groceries/transport/etc or used utilities for which you'll pay the bill at the end of the month. Why is "paying for things" fine in real life but such a weird concept when it's on the internet?

In my previous comment I did say that a lot of content isn't worth paying for and will stop being produced for monetary gain (because the only way it currently survives is due to the non-refundability of ad impressions - people can't take back their "payment" even if they've been duped by clickbait/garbage content), but that doesn't mean all content/services will disappear - some has genuine value that will still be profitable to produce, some will keep being produced because the objective wasn't monetary gain to begin with.

How do you know what people want? I, for example, am perfectly OK with advertising. I don’t want to pay to do a Google search or watch Youtube. So, I ask you again, do you have any data to support your opinion?

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