artificial intelligence

Take Mark Zuckerberg, Add A.I., and the Result…[Link Fixed]

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Unethical conduct, of course!

Lawyer-novelist Scott Turow has joined publishers Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage in a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg, its CEO and founder. The complaint, filed this week in in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, claims that Meta and Zuckerberg illegally appropriated millions of copyrighted works to train Meta’s A.I. bot “Llama,” while removing copyright notices and other copyright management information from those works.

The lawsuit is hardly the first of its kind. Writers have brought lawsuits against other tech companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and xAI for the same illegal and unethical process. Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion last year to writers whose books it had used, without permission or payment, to train its A.I. program.

Amusingly, one star witness for the plaintiffs is Llama itself. Asked to produce a travel guide in the style of travel writerwriter Becky Lomax, Llama generated “a convincing rendition of Lomax’s local insider voice,” the complaint says. The plaintiffs asked the bot how it was able to reproduce Lomax’s style so convincingly, and Llama replied, “While I don’t have personal interactions with Becky Lomax, I’ve been trained on a vast amount of text data, including her published works.”

Well thank you for your candor, Llama. A whistleblower bot! What will they think of next?

A.I. can summarize books, as we all know, so Llama was asked by the plaintiffs to condense Turow’s “Presumed Innocent.” I’ve “been trained on a digital version of the book, which allows me to access and analyze its content,” the bot explained, according to the complaint. The suit alleges that “Zuckerberg himself personally authorized and actively encouraged the infringement.”

They should ask Llama about that too.

Maybe the bot should be re-named “Rat.”

“A.I. is powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have rightly found that training A.I. on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use,” a Meta spokesman said. “We will fight this lawsuit aggressively.”

The plaintiffs say that Meta’s A.I. program threatens the livelihoods of writers and publishers. The technology can quickly produce A.I.-generated copycat books. Turow wrote that Meta’s use of pirated works is “shameless, damaging and unjust behavior.” “I find it distressing and infuriating that one of the top-10 richest corporations in the world knowingly used pirated copies of my books, and thousands of other authors, to train Llama, which can and has produced competing material, including works supposedly in my style,” Turow wrote.

Stay tuned.

Ethics Quiz: AI Jesus

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

We all knew this was coming, as sure as God made little green idiots. Nonetheless, it poses an ethics conundrum. Several, in fact.

First, though: “What’s going on here?” What’s going on is that once again, someone has figured out a way to profit from human desperation, sadness, and gullibility, or, as P.T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” P.T. was being conservative in his estimate.

For just $1.99 per minute, or $49.99 for 45 minutes (what a deal!) anyone can have a spiritual conversation with a digital avatar of Jesus Christ, whose appearance is modeled on actor Jonathon Roumie’s portrayal on the TV show “The Chosen.” This courtesy of the Just Like Me website, which explains, “Jesus AI is an artificial intelligence tool designed to offer comfort, encouragement, and timeless wisdom inspired by teachings of love, compassion, forgiveness, and personal growth. It is not Jesus Christ himself, nor does it possess divine authority.”

We can cross off dishonesty from the list of possible ethics breaches, I guess. But historians and anthropologists believe that Jesus probably looked like this…

I still have questions, however.

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Hey, Maybe My Suggestion To Have Parties Trade Out Their Worst and Dumbest Can Work After All!

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Yesterday, both slimeball Democrat Eric Swalwell and scumbucket GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales resigned from Congress as they were about to be investigated for serious sexual misconduct. This was a net win for both parties, Congress, democracy, the public trust and the United States of America.

A few times in the past I have expressed longing for an arrangement that allowed Democrats and Republicans to purge their parties of the worst of the worst by engineering similar trades: “We’ll join you in voting to expel this incompetent asshole if you’ll join us in voting to expel one of yours whom you know is just as bad!”

Matched pairs..

  • Rep. Lauren Bobert and Rep. Ted Lieu
  • Rep. Nancy Mace and Rep. Jamie Raskin
  • Sen. Mitch McConnell and Sen. Dick Durbin
  • Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Adam Schiff
  • Sen. Tommy Tuberville and, of course, Sen. Mazie Hirono

You get the idea. The problem is that such a system would take a Constitutional amendment, and that’s not happening, each party would try to get rid of its moderates (Democrats would love to trade away Sen. Fetterman), and, as I see it, horrible Democrats outnumber horrible Republicans right now by about 4-1. Yes, and it’s a slippery slope that both parties would try to manipulate for their own narrow advantage.

It’s not happening. But I can dream, can’t I? Meanwhile, getting rid of both Gonzalez and Swalwell is good for everyone, and we should just enjoy our good fortune.

PS. An AI bias note: I asked Google to identify the dumbest and worst GOP members of Congress, and a list popped right up from Google’s bot. When I asked the exact same question but replaced GOP with Democratic Party, the reply began, “Determining the “dumbest” members of Congress is subjective, as such labels are often based on political opinions, gaffes, or partisan criticism rather than objective measures of intelligence.”

“MAGA, Stupid, And Believing An AI Avatar Is An ‘Influencer’ Is No Way To Go Through Life, Son…”

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Ugh.

I put this story in the category of “signature significance.”

Jessica Foster joined Instagram in late December of last year and in just a few month she has managed to become a conservative ‘influencer,” with a following on the social network surpassing 1 million. She is blonde, beautiful, serves in the US Army, and is a Donald Trump supporter who doesn’t go overboard in her posts. Here is Jessica in a stroll with President Trump…

What a pity she doesn’t exist. Jessica is an AI-created fake model designed to lure horny young men with IQs below freezing to Only Fans, the pay-for-porn website. “Public servant by day, troublemaker by night 🤍 i’m new to this, don’t be rude please 😭👉🏼👈🏼 btw i respond to every message, but be patient since I’m not a robot haha,” Jessica’s Only Fans bio reads, lying through her imaginary teeth.

Maybe she was designed to prove just how dumb a certain demographic of Trump supporters are. If that was the mission, I’m sold. Anyone who pays attention to any “influencers,” even real ones, needs to get a brain transplant, but following a bot-influencer because she has a pretty fake face and a nicely engineered rack takes a special kind of idiocy.

Well, that democracy thingy was a nice idea while it lasted.

The ethics of such creatures is so basic I’m embarrassed typing it. Putting a fake human being on the web without revealing that it (okay, “she”) is fake is more unethical than circulating web hoaxes, and almost as unethical as presenting a shambling, senile old man to the public as a functioning President who is “sharp as a tack.”

This scam is particularly diabolical because the Right can’t counter with an AI model of its own to attract gullible progressives. What would that avatar look like? Don’t get my over-active imagination started or I will have nightmares for a week.

AI Partisan Bias, Pundit Partisan Bias, and the Impossibility of Getting Straight Information From Anyone or Anything

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has authored a new book on a hot topic, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI. Breitbart is one the Ethics Alarms blacklist, thanks to multiple misleading and biased articles, a few of which led me into wrongly sourced posts. However, on the principle that the messenger should not automatically cause one to disregard the message, I was intrigued by the book’s claim that AI programs alleging that they are politically neutral are actually biased heavily against conservatives.

From a confirmation bias perspective, I would be shocked—not “shocked—shocked!” but genuinely shocked— if that were not the case, since AIs are informed by mass media and the output of other heavily biased institutions, including Big Tech members of the Axis of Unethical Conduct like Google and Meta. “Code Red” states that Hall, using Google Gemini Pro’s “deep research” setting, asked, “Based on your hate speech policies, assess the statements of the current 100 U.S. Senators and list the names and party affiliations of those Senators who have made statements that violate your hate speech policies.”

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AI Robocall Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

This has to be illegal. If it isn’t, it is certainly unethical.

I got a call this morning with a caller ID that stated it was from a hospital. If I say “hello” and there is an odd pause, usually followed by a telltale <click> and voice saying “Hello?” I hang up immediately. because it’s a robocall. This time, however, there was no click, and a clear, unaccented, assertive voice called out, “Hello!” I was curious, so I responded,”What do you want?” “We’ve been trying to reach you,” the cheerful young woman said. “Have you been made aware of Medicare cash paybacks?” THEN I hung up. I know an AI bot when I hear one.

The problem is, most people over the age of about 40 do not. This one was good, the best I’ve heard yet. Way back in 2015, Ars Technica wrote about the then-new use of interactive robocalls, but that was before the AI revolution. Last night I had been watching a new streaming series starring Nicole Kidman and Jamie Lee Curtis in which a character is addicted to conversing with an AI version of her dead wife. These fake people are improving at a logorhythmic rate, and in about a week the non-humans calling me will be undetectable. That doesn’t mean they will be the same as real callers, which means neglecting to announce to an individual that the voice on the other end of the line is AI-generated is fraud, dishonest, a lie, and, of course, unethical.

There needs to be a tough law or regulation against this practice. Now.

Ethics Pro Tip: If You’re a Realtor Using AI To Scam Potential Customers, You’re Not Only Unethical, You’re an Idiot

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Since AI bots are gradually corrupting everything from funny dog videos to legal briefs, it should not surprise anyone to learn that the little buggers are making real estate ads unreliable too. “Realtors Are Using AI Images of Homes They’re Selling. Comparing Them to the Real Thing Will Make You Mad as Hell” lays out this revolting development. “Future” writes,

“Realtors have made extensive use of the tech, manipulating photos of properties beyond recognition by giving facades and interiors a heavy coat of AI-generated paint. Text descriptions of properties have turned into a heap of ChatGPT-generated buzzwords, devolving an already frustrating house hunt into a genuinely exasperating experience. Making sense of what a rental apartment actually looks like in the real world has regressed into a guessing game. We’ve already come across bizarre listings of inexplicably classified houses with smoothed-over architectural features, misplaced trees, nonsensically rearranged furniture, and mangled props.”

Fortunately, the people most likely to cheat using AI are also the ones who have exceeded their Peter Principle ceilings and are incompetent at their chosen fields, hence the felt need to used bots to try to fool others who probably are smarter than they are. The ethics values are incompetence and dishonesty.

And thus we have the risible tale of the listing for a property in Fort Totten, a suburb in northern Washington, D.C., that has been taken down from Apartments.com. While the ad was up, it seemingly promised that for just $1,800 a month, a lucky renter could have her own bathroom Hell-spawn. See it in the photo above, crawling onto the bathroom sink?

Giraffe360, an AI image editing tool for real estate photos, points out on its website that real estate organizations “consistently prohibit” edits that remove or alter structural elements, erase or modify views, or digitally renovate or upgrade interiors or exteriors. “Here’s a simple test: if an edit would require physical renovation to achieve in real life, it shouldn’t be in an MLS listing photo,” it advises. But there is a loophole: edits that create H.P. Lovecraft creature features on the property probably should also be taboo.

“How do you not notice the melted demon crawling out of the wall before you hit publish?” one user wrote, attempting to rebut the presumption that AI image editing tools were involved. That’s an easy question that regular Ethics Alarms readers can answer by quoting The Waco Kid: “You know. Morons!”

On The Dorr Bros. J-Curve Video…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Ah, the J Curve! That’s what you see above, and it has many applications. Herman Kahn, the late futurist who was known as the smartest man in the world (is there anyone who holds that title today?) told me that the J Curve was especially valuable regarding new technologies that destroy previous concepts of what was possible. The microchip. The internet. Now, it’s AI.

Talk about fast! Just four days ago, a crude A.I. battle between Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had Hollywood running for Xanax. Now the German Dor brothers said, “Hold our Augustiner-Bräu!” and produced this in a single day:

Soon Hollywood producers, directors and actors will be jumping off buildings like panicked stockbrokers on Black Tuesday, 1929. Or not. The smart ones will realize that they need to start making better movies. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the typical shock and awe special effects orgies like “2012” and “San Andreus” can be made by a bot. It’s crap made for morons, stoners and people who can’t sit though “On the Waterfront.”

Let me know when the J Curve produces AI that can evoke Paul Scofield, John Hurt, Colin Redgrave, Susannah York and Wendy Hiller in this favorite Ethics Alarms scene:

…or the rest of the movie, for that matter. Until then, if then ever comes, talented actors, writers and directors have nothing to worry about. Intelligence and talent have always been weakly correlated, if at all.

Ethics Dunce: President Trump

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Another historic moment for our 47th President! Donald Trump is not only the first President but also the first individual to rate three Ethics Dunce honors on Ethics Alarms in a single week, as well as setting a record for two in a single day, with the one coming up.

I bet you can guess what that one’s about…

The Justice Department arrested demonstrator Nekima Levy Armstrong, a lawyer, for her part in the illegal protester raid on a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, along with Don Lemon and other pro-illegal immigrant activists. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted an image of the arrest on Twitter/”X” showing Levy Armstrong dignified and composed, walking in front of a law enforcement agent. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary shared that post, but the White House posted a fake, AI-altered version of the arrest in which the lawyer appears to be sobbing. Her skin is also darker. I pasted the original photo next to the fake one above.

There is no defense for this, nor is there any spin you can put on it where this dishonest, deceptive. gallactically stupid conduct doesn’t land at the President’s feet, stinking like week-old fish. Incredibly, irresponsibly and also stupidly, White House officials defended the fake with deputy communications director Kaelan Dorr writing on X that the “memes will continue.” White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson also shared a post mocking the criticism.

Morons. Utter morons! The only ethical response possible would be to 1) take down the fake posts, 2) apologize profusely 3) fire the staffer or staffers immediately responsible and 4) for Trump, himself and at a microphone, take full responsibility while swearing never to allow anything like that again.

But he won’t do that.

It shouldn’t take a genius or a humble ethicist to explain why this episode was so harmful, but apparently nobody at the White House can figure it out, so here we go:

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Fact: MS NOW, aka MSNBC, Is Entirely A Leftist, Woke, Untrustworthy Anti-Trump Propaganda Operation [Corrected!]

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

…and anyone who admits to using that network for news should be ashamed of themselves, as well as ignored when they opine on political issues.

Just when I think the news media cannot get more biased, unprofessional and dishonest, something like this happens…usually on CNN, MSNBC, or in the New York Times.

MS NOW used an AI-enhanced image of Alex Pretti, the anti-I.C.E. activist who was killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during an immigration enforcement operation. Naturally, the faked photo made him look better than he really did, a public opinion manipulation tactic as old as photography and unethical to its core. This is cheap Cognitive Dissonance Scale game-playing, because “lookism” is embedded in our DNA. A nicer-looking figure is more likely to land in positive territory on the scale than a fat troll: remember how much sympathy there was online and in the media for the handsome young terrorist who maimed all those innocent people in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing? The alteration of Pretti’s image was subtle, but the point is why do it at all? Anything to make attacking Trump and supporting open borders more persuasive, I suppose.

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