Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)Feb 3, 2023

It's 2023. "Gosh, we didn't realize how people would misuse this" just isn't believable anymore.

Bare minimum, with any new tech:
1) How would a stalker use this?
2) What will 4chan do with this?

And don't release, not even as alpha or beta, before mitigating those risks.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/31/23579289/ai-voice-clone-deepfake-abuse-4chan-elevenlabs

#AIethics #ethNLP

4chan users embrace AI voice clone tool to generate celebrity hatespeech

AI voice cloning software is improving rapidly — as is its accessibility. 4chan users recently discovered free software that lets them clone the voices of celebrities like Joe Rogan and Emma Watson, generating audio samples ranging from hatespeech to erotica.

The Verge
Show threadJoshFeb 3, 2023

@emilymbender

AI is a tool and it’s rather difficult to make sure that a digital tool won’t fall into the hands of someone with ill intent

Photoshop has been publicly available for years now, and people initially thought it would destroy the integrity of all photos

Now in retrospect we can see that it didn’t, it’s not unreasonable to see AI as a similar case

Dystopia is often more boring than we think it will be, in the case of photoshop we got airbrushed instagram photos

Show threadscotianFeb 3, 2023
@zamallama @emilymbender This is a common but inexact comparison, I think, for a few reasons (e.g., Photoshop requiring more skill to manipulate images than it takes to type a prompt into an AI tool). A more apt comparison might be another Adobe tool, Voco, which was demoed but never released to the public: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Voco
Adobe Voco - Wikipedia

Show threadJoshFeb 3, 2023

@scotian @emilymbender

I watched a 13 minute long face swap tutorial in the 8th grade and used my 🏴‍☠️ copy of Photoshop

I was able to do a convincing face swap my math teacher for a meme in less than two hours

With all the updates since then it’s even easier now, there’s free apps that do what photoshop was doing back then

I can doctor iMessage screenshots in my default photos app now lol

Show threadscotianFeb 3, 2023

@zamallama @emilymbender Right, that's where we ended up after ~30 years since the initial release of Photoshop. And we are all 30 years wiser in terms of spotting this stuff.

My point is it's a slightly strained comparison because these AI tools are, relatively, much newer, easier to use, and collectively we have not developed our spidey senses to know what is and isn't legitimate. So trying to build a smart, consistent ethical framework makes sense (as a first step, not an afterthought).

Show threadJosh

@scotian @emilymbender

Yeah I agree that would be good, I’m just saying typically new technology doesn’t go the scifi dystopia/utopia route like people expect it to

The internet could’ve made most colleges obsolete, instead we pay to watch professors hit play on YouTube videos

Social media could’ve created a united global community, instead we got a loneliness epidemic

Widespread surveillance ends up being used to serve you tailored ads, etc

AI will probably follow suit

Feb 3, 2023 at 3:48pmWeb
Show threadscotianFeb 3, 2023
@zamallama @emilymbender Absolutely. We don't have to stop the march of technological progress, so long as we give due consideration to possible harms that could be introduced. In this sense, Photoshop is a good exemplar of society (eventually) getting it right, e.g., newsrooms introduced policies about sourcing and verifying images before publishing that account for possible digital manipulation.