Communique for #BlackMastodon and Black folk only:
(White folk can listen too if they want, but this conversation is not for them).
The people telling you to be very afraid of Artificial General Intelligence don't know what they're talking about. Remember, their last big predictions were:
* Monkey jpegs are now money. Buy crypto.
* Elon will be great for Twitter
* Listening to VCs talk on Clubhouse is the next big social network
* Adam Neuman is a genius, and we should give him more money
These people are very very rich, not very very smart. The track record of their judgment speaks for itself.
There are very real, very serious, risks from Machine Learning in general, but they are not the risks that these delusional dudes are talking about.
The real risks are not "coming in the near future." They are here with us today, and they affect systems that impact marginalized communities the most.
Most of the experts on the real risks are from marginalized communities.
All this talk of artificial general intelligence is a head fake to draw attention from the massive and real harms that can be caused by ML systems today.
Today's systems can:
* Issue a warrant for your arrest for a crime that you didn't even do based on facial recognition
* Decide that you are a pre-trial flight risk and deny you pre-trial release
* Give a false diagnosis at a hospital, deciding that you are not worth putting on life support
* Tell a car to run you over as you cross the street
Start with
@timnitGebru @abebab
@alex
@emilymbender
And work out from there to people that they collaborate with and recommend. 👍🏿
Don't take your AI Ethics and societal impact advice from VCs that hang out in Nazi chatrooms. These people aren't that smart, but most importantly, they don't care about you. At all.
A few years ago, I said don't get your financial advice from VCs that hang out in Nazi chatrooms. Some of y'all listened. Others lost their shirts on crypto.
mekka okereke 
Ricardo Harvin