Amazon's Alexa Telling Users That 2020 Election Was Rigged
themessenger.com
themessenger.com
You cant blame algorithms. People will get the digital society they deserve. Unless they do something about it.
A sane online world will not materialize as a god-given present. It will the result of informed, enlightened and passionate people banging about the cause for as long as it takes.
The challenge is commensurate with any of the major civic struggles of the past.
If Amazon gets sued enough they'll either make their service better or discontinue it.
Even if the best solution were to make these types of algorithms & code illegal, it still wouldn't exactly be "blaming" the algorithms - the same as when people call for gun control they're still blaming the shooters of guns for the actual crimes committed, not the guns, but banning the guns is seen (by gun control advocates) as a way of preventing those bad actors from doing what they'd otherwise do.
> People will get the digital society they deserve
Algorithms don't create digital societies, other people do, and they use these algorithms to create them on the cheap.
Algorithms don't misinform people, people choose to use algorithms beyond what is deemed acceptable or safe (where these are moving, socially defined attributes).
There is nothing new here. A person can misinform other people using linear regression. The old saying "lies, damn lies and statistics" captures precisely that reality.
We can't escape the difficult debates. Our societies produce alot of information and keeps producing more. How that is processed, dissemniated and acted upon is a vital question and imho people haven't quite woken up to this new reality.
Humans at Amazon decided to add such a feature to Alexa, somebody else implemented it and somebody decided to use crap data, so you can blame somebody.
The interesting part is that people that post bullshit online often believe that they are "informed, enlightened and passionate people banging about the cause for as long as it takes".
Maybe the large amount of links to this article fed into that. When I searched for this article the first page of results was pointing to lots of sites that pointed to it; in fact I couldn't find the time.com URL directly....
Another heading on the front page of hacker news right now...
Misinformation is the same.
If alexa told people to drink bleach, lawyers would be queueing up to hit Bezos for restitution. And, if you read the story the programmers intervened.
My prior comment was a bit tangential and sort of off-topic, but I'll leave it there for context.
How is such a distinction useful?
I can, physically, drive a car over a speed limit, resulting in a fine; the fine is the enforcement of the prohibition. For speech (in the broader sense that includes non-vocal publication) we also have various prohibitions such as copyright and (as Musk has found) influencing stock prices, which are still prohibitions even if when they can only be enforced after the event.
Whether or not we should have such prohibitions/penalties specifically on AI models is something that I feel will be the defining political battle of the decade, and may yield different results in different polities: we already have very vocal cohorts who speak with anger of OpenAI "lobotomising" ChatGPT and "censoring" DALL•E (ditto Midjourney), while other vocal cohorts are appalled at the way even these models are being used to deceive, to sexualise, to propagandise, etc.
There are exceptions, but they're unlikely to cover something like who won the last election.
Most of us here will be surprised by things in Law School 101 (I know I have been, but only because it being phrased like this came up one time in a Legal Eagle), and many (like me) aren't American and don't get the meme-sphere of assumed knowledge about the FCC or whatever, so a broader ELI-15 might be helpful.
The FCC can't regulate the sites spreading misinformation, why would it be able to regulate the AIs that consume it?
De facto, or de jure?
Laws can change, and this is a mass produced consumer device with a single AI behind it (and for most people there's only Alexa, Google, Siri, and ChatGPT, with e.g. Cortana being in the "I didn't know they even did that" category) making it an easy target.
For example, I can say here on HN "fuckity shitting fuck shit" and not be fined or imprisoned. But try saying it to a judge during a trial, and the outcome will likely be different.
And it's the same for saying it on broadcast television at certain times of day and in certain contexts.
So it’s interesting how we’re so quick to judge people who question the 2020 result.
Particularly given the outright corruption uncovered in The Big Guy’s regime and the government agencies that manipulated social media to cover it up.
Some of Trump’s last tweets (before his first amendment rights were violated and his tweets were hidden from the public):
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
“I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”
https://x.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1346912780700577792?s=4...
Fair to say he also questioned the election process in strong terms.
But so did Nancy Pelosi in 2016 when she said: “ Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.”
https://x.com/speakerpelosi/status/864522009048494080?s=46&t...
I said Clinton and Pelosi did not orchestrate violence because they didn't and Trump did. He rallied in DC. He told them to march on the capital. I could tell this would happen just from rhetoric in speeches in the preceding week. All of this deflection is nonsense.
It was amazing when states like PA were counting and clearly said results will change by the morning, and when that happened and people woke up to a different result they started crying conspiracy.
The election definitely wasn't rigged, but if it had been necessary to do so I would have supported it. Can't ever repeat the disaster we had from 2016 - 2022 again.
And this is not going to fuel more conspiracy theories, at all \o/
And to downplay the issues as 'a president's style' is incredibly disingenuous.
> > These are simply more opinions [...]
> > > No, not opinions. Demonstrable facts.
you're going to have to explain this one to me
Voting on that basis has, and will continue to have real damage for citizens of the country, and thus the country as an entity.
Our "current understanding" seems to be shifting a lot.
However, this mirrors what the QAnons and the hardline MAGAs say about Clinton and Biden. Or more or less what Bush used to tell about Saddam. It might be worth noticing.
Or we only have to outrun the slower party in order to successfully outrun the grizzly bear of being less best for the country. No other accountability applies for very long if your faction can still pull back ahead as the better one for some projective new future of America, but both factions by their own definition will always outrun the other in that shadow race.
Have you lived outside the US? Socialites in expensive lavish cities are the minority in the world by far. The majority is what you just described, poverty, and lack of education to start.
To them you are like Maria Antoinette telling them just eat cake from your cushy little San Fran bubble.
Yes, I've lived outside the US - I'm not even from the US. I've lived in 5 different countries.
I don't really care how it seems. Ignorance, and offense at having that ignorance called out, is not a sufficient reason to burn a country to the ground and violate the rights of citizens.
If it were up to that poor uneducated half of the US, most of them would push for the US to be closer to Gilead.
Walk a mile in their shoes before you Insult and attack their way of life and thinking. that is the definition of ignorance in of itself
> Walk a mile in their shoes before you Insult and attack their way of life and thinking
You're making a ton of assumptions here to make a point that has no bearing on mine.
You seem to be remarkably out of touch.
It's a flawed system anyway. Ridiculous that everyone should have a say.
(Since it's the second quote of his I've used in this thread, I'd like to actively clarify that despite being British I am a long way from being a fan of Churchill, but he does have some good quotes attributed to him!)
So when you say "It's a flawed system anyway. Ridiculous that everyone should have a say." - do you have a better system in mind, that works better than existing forms of democracy?
First I should point out how utterly ridiculous it is that with all the data we have access too, all our analytical capability and ability to model and simulation, there are not many people working on alternate systems, and anything people come up with is not taken seriously. People would rather poke holes in anything new, even if it has less problems than our current system.
I do have a rough idea for a system, it's based on a lot of research, but only exists as a lot of rough notes - I haven't taken the time yet to properly organize and write everything out, it's a big project.
Basically though, it tries to solve some of the problems of representative democracy like we have in the US. Some example differences (which I'm not sure if I can devote time to defending in this thread, I just list them as examples) by:
- Removing elections for many positions, having them appointed or offered to people from a qualified pool - possibly even assigning them the duty of serving in such a position, not unlike jury duty.
- Giving people in positions of power more power to act unilaterally, while still having their actions subject to review, a cross between SCOTUS and a jury of qualified individuals randomly selected.
- Ensuring leaders must act based on current science and knowledge, not personal feeling or intuition - these are not things the general population should be voting on, even indirectly.
- Many more referendums for big issues, rather than just having elected representatives make the decision, or worse, fail to make the decision.
Basically, many more elements of a meritocracy, much less influence and say from the population, while still ensuring they have a voice. It would be a much less democratic representative democracy in the best way possible, although I suppose it could still fall under that same umbrella.
- must act based on current science and knowledge (religious oppression)
- positions of power more power to act unilaterally (monarchy)
- appointed or offered to people from a qualified pool (nobility)
But, yes, religious oppression to a point is a good thing. At a minimum kids should not be allowed to be indoctrinated.
More power to act unilaterally does not equal complete power to act unilaterally i.e. a monarchy.
A qualified pool would be based on education, not heredity.
And the US is both a representative democracy (no need for scarequotes) and a representative republic.
I used 'representative democracy' (quotes actually make sense here) because the context was about how well democracy as a form of government works.
This[0] helpful wiki page may be of interest to you.
The US is a republic. Calling it a democracy is done by people who want a different form of government where the majority rules and can remove the rights of the minority.
Got it.
Its use as a source is specifically banned in every academic institution I've attended over my entire adult life.
Yes, it's banned in universities, but that's largely as a holdover from when anyone could edit it. Wikipedia is repeatedly tested to be more accurate than Britannica, which has never been banned.
It doesn't matter anyway, as Encyclopedia articles are summaries, and the actual sources can be referenced.
In this case, the article is correct, explains why it is correct, and certainly trumps your baseless assertion.
Let's imagine a hypothetical political party and its presidential nominee that had an official policy of "if we get elected, we will nuke every country in the world except our own, and if we don't get destroyed in return we'll then move on to use our military to murder every white person in America" (hopefully that's extreme enough and far enough from actual policies for anyone to read it as a dig against a particular party!), and imagine 51% of the country supported this party and these policies. How many people would go "well fair enough, democracy!"?
It's a bit like that old line attributed to Churchill:
> Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?"
> Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "
> Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"
> Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!"
> Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price"
It's easy (for some people, though I don't condone this view) to look down on prostitutes as being immoral and disgusting if nobody would offer you more than £5, but how many people with that view would be willing to bend their ethics if they genuinely had an offer of tens of millions in return for having sex one time?
Likewise, it's easy to say we should respect democracy when both sides genuinely want what's best for as many people as possible but disagree on how to achieve that, but what about if democratic voting leads to having a leader like Stalin, or Idi Amin, or Putin?
Put another way: if you sincerely believe either that all Democrats are evil and trying to wipe out white people and destroy Christianity, or you believe that Republicans are all literally the same as Hitler and will do as much harm, in either case (despite neither view being accurate) if it's a genuine belief then isn't the ethical reaction to oppose them even if undemocratic? (As a non-American I can't claim to be an expert on what the worst, most-exaggerated claims made against each of Biden and Trump are, so insert whatever they are to replace the examples above.)
One problem is when you get leaders who genuinely will do evil things and yet manage to be popular enough to win elections; the second problem is when you have enough people believing conspiracy theories and bad faith claims about a party that make them look evil. Neither is an easy problem to solve.
"Right side of history" isn't used just to sound cool. It's to embolden opinions like his. Same with the description of "just a bunch of old white men".
If the extremist party remains competitive, doesn't the other party increasingly get drawn away from the public interest and towards entertaining (or at least resisting) extremist policies?
If the extremist party doesn't remain competitive, doesn't the other party win without needing to appeal to voters, leading it into corruption (or at least complacency)?
It seems to me that there are only three ways (violent or otherwise) to restore democracy in a two-party system after one of the two parties turns to extremism:
1) replace the extremist party, restoring two-party democracy
2) rescue the extremist party from extremism, restoring two-party democracy
3) reform the voting system to facilitate multi-party democracy
There's an obstacle to opposing extremism in the United States by democratic means; electoral procedures (such as the Electoral College) too often give victory to a party (extremist or otherwise) without the most votes, so persuading a majority of voters isn't enough.
Ah yes, as a student of 1940s Jewish culture, I am quite fond of the "it didn't happen, but they deserved it" angle myself.