Bennett MorrisonApr 11, 2023
Robin Berjon
This joke is from 1974 (in *Computer Lib*). It only took 50 years to build.
Apr 10, 2023 at 8:54pmElk
Show thread(((o))) Acoustic MirrorApr 10, 2023

@robin @inquiline Another great Pentagon-DARPA-MIT moment from back in those days (1970's) was when Minsky's MIT Media Lab was demoing their advances in machine translation from Russian. The demo involved inverse translation (EN-US to Russian, and the Russian translation back into EN-US).

They fed the programme the phrase "The flesh is weak, but the spirit is strong." The software responded with the translation "The meat is rotten, but the vodka is good."

(Could be an urban myth, but it's nice to see 1970's AI research was as ridiculous as 2020s AI research.)

Show threadMarcApr 11, 2023
@acousticmirror @robin @inquiline The 1986 book "Machinery of the Mind" by George Johnson has a chapter ("The Meaning of Meaning") on machine translation. It states that machine translation had become the target of many jokes and that one story which was told at the time (~ 1960s) was that "Out of sight, out of mind" was translated to "Blind and insane" or "Invisible idiot".
Show threadSansContextApr 11, 2023
@acousticmirror @robin @[email protected] This specific mistranslation is often cited when talking about why it's important to migrate complex documentation to Global English prior to translation. 😅
Show threadAriaflameApr 12, 2023
@acousticmirror @robin @inquiline The one I heard involved an engineering paper that came back with many references to water sheep. Turns out the original had hydraulic rams.
Show threadDavid MankinsApr 12, 2023

@acousticmirror @robin @inquiline

Early days of speech understanding, one group has a system that augmented its auditory capabilities with expectations about what might be said, and was demonstrating it using chess as the domain.

During the demo, the ARPA sponsor asked if he could try. Of course!

He sits down to the microphone, and (as one does) cleared his throat.

The computer prints: “Pawn to queen 4”

Show thread(((o))) Acoustic MirrorApr 12, 2023

@lain_7 I'm glad he didn't sneeze. Then the computer would have adjourned the game.

@robin @inquiline

Show threadFrancis 🏴‍☠️ GulottaApr 10, 2023
@robin I love this too much
Show threadRobin BerjonApr 10, 2023
@reconbot I mean, it has aged better than I would've known even a few years ago!
Show threadDavid M. Levinson ⁂Apr 10, 2023
@robin As an AI language model, I cannot predict the future or determine whether there will be war or peace. However, I can tell you that the future largely depends on the decisions made by governments, international organizations, and individuals around the world. Striving for diplomacy, communication, and cooperation can help promote peace and avoid conflicts.
Show threadDennis HazelettApr 10, 2023
@robin NLP joke
Show threadApicultor 🐝Apr 11, 2023
@robin /r/InclusiveOr, but decades ahead of its time!
Show threadSchwernApr 11, 2023

@robin

A project was training an AI to recognize tanks in the field. They had a stack of photos, some with tanks, some without. They picked half the photos at random to train the AI.

They used the remaining half to test the AI. To their surprise, it worked!!!

Just to be sure, QA went out and took a fresh set of photos. Once again they tested the AI. It failed miserably! What happened?
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In the first set, all the pictures of tanks were taken on a cloudy day. All the not-tank photos were taken on a sunny day. The second batch was all taken on the same day.

The AI learned to tell a cloudy day from a sunny one.

Like kids, AI learns your implicit biases.

Show threadL'égrégore André ꕭꕬApr 11, 2023
@schwern @robin Same when they taught an AI to identify cancer from MRI scans: it got really great at finding the notes the humans had made indicating probable cancer cells.
Show threadEndlessMasonApr 11, 2023
@Mabande @schwern @robin pictures of cancer always have a ruler in them to show the scale...
Show threadL'égrégore André ꕭꕬApr 11, 2023
@EndlessMason @schwern @robin Thank you! That's it! I'd forgotten what the indicator was so I defaulted to "notes" :)
Show threadTom RitchfordApr 16, 2023

@Mabande @schwern @robin Hmm, I heard a similar story, except that it learned the signature of the chief oncologist.

And, oh, dear, I couldn't find an example of contemporary doctor writing notes on X-rays and I couldn't find any source for either your story or mine.

Maybe it's an AI urban legend!?

Show threadL'égrégore André ꕭꕬApr 16, 2023
@TomSwirly
Did a quick (I mean real quick) search for "AI ruler cancer" and landed on https://venturebeat.com/business/when-ai-flags-the-ruler-not-the-tumor-and-other-arguments-for-abolishing-the-black-box-vb-live/ and, with that as a jump off point it took me about five minutes to find https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13555-022-00833-8
So the only urban legend style thing seems to be of me accurately remembering the details, cause the point was real but deets were …lacking.
@schwern @robin
When AI flags the ruler, not the tumor — and other arguments for abolishing the black box (VB Live)

One of the big issues that exists within AI generally, but is particularly acute in health care settings, is the issue of transparency.

VentureBeat
Show threadTom RitchfordApr 17, 2023

@Mabande @schwern @robin

You did the research!

"Ruler" might have been the key word I should have searched on.

Show threadtmsmqwxApr 11, 2023
@robin "Yes, Sir!" Hillarious
Show threadSaurabhApr 11, 2023
@robin
hi
Show threadElena ``of Valhalla''Apr 11, 2023
@robin sigh, the good old times when AI systems gave *accurate* answers, rather than confident ones.
Show threadSwagpuss McGApr 11, 2023
@robin
DERPA
Show threadRotimiApr 11, 2023
@robin the AI didn't want to hurt the general's feelings😂😂
Show threadArne Dehli HalvorsenApr 20, 2023
@robin The Theodore Sturgeon story "The Nail and the Oracle" is very relevant here. Summarized (and spoiled) at https://mporcius.blogspot.com/2018/02/science-fiction-and-fantasy-from_25.html
Science Fiction and Fantasy from Playboy: Pohl, Sturgeon, Davidson and Ballard

Brief and spoilertastic notes on fiction I have read.