Aaron Swartz Day 2018, Ethical Algorithms

Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs) & Corporations Seminar at the Internet Archive Tomorrow (Sunday)

April 7, 2018 lisa

Note: if you can’t make this event, check out this literature review and this paper, which will still give you good idea of some of the subject matter :)

When: Sunday, April 8, 2018
Where: The Internet Archive, 300 Funston Ave, San Francisco, CA
Time: 2-6pm

Artificial General Intelligences & Corporations

Description:

Even if we don’t know yet how to align Artificial General Intelligences with our goals, we do have experience in aligning organizations with our goals. Some argue corporations are in fact Artificial Intelligences – legally at least we treat them as persons already.

The Foresight Institute, along with the Internet Archive, invite you to spend an afternoon examining AI alignment, especially whether our interactions with different types of organizations, e.g. our treatment of corporations as persons, allow insights into how to align AI goals with human goals.

While this meeting focuses on AI safety, it merges AI safety, philosophy, computer security, and law and should be highly relevant for anyone working in or interested in those areas.

Why this is really really important:

As we learned during last year’s Ethical Algorithms panel, there are many different ways that unchecked black box algorithms are being used against citizens daily.

This kind of software can literally ruin a person’s life, through no fault of their own – especially if they are already being discriminated against or profiled unfairly in some way in real life. This is because the algorithms tend to amplify and exaggerate any biases that already occur in the data being fed into the system (that it “learns” on).

Algorithms are just one of many tools that an an AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) might use in the course of its daily activities on behalf of whatever Corporation for which it operates.

The danger lies in the potential for misinterpretation by these AGIs should they be making decisions based on the faulty interpretations of unchecked black box algorithmic calculations. For this reason, preservation of and public access to the original data sets used to train these algorithms is of paramount importance. And currently, that just isn’t the case.

The promise of AGIs is downright exciting, but how do we ensure that corporate-driven AGIs do not gain unruly control over public systems?

Arguably, corporations are already given too many rights – those rivaling or surpassing those of actual humans, at this point.

What happens when these Corporate “persons” have AGIs out in the world, interacting with live humans and other AGIs, on a constant basis. (AGIs never sleep.) How many tasks could your AGI do for you while you sleep at night? What instructions would you give your AGI? And whose “fault” is it when the goals of an AGI conflict with those of a living person?

Joi Ito, the Director of the MIT Media Lab, wrote a piece for the ACLU this week, concluding that AI Engineers Must Open Their Designs to Democratic Control -“The internet, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, crypto-currencies, and other technologies are providing us with ever more tools to change the world around us. But there is a cost. We’re now awakening to the implications that many of these technologies have for individuals and society…

AI is now making decisions for judges about the risks that someone accused of a crime will violate the terms of his pretrial probation, even though a growing body of research has shown flaws in such decisions made by machines,” he writes. “A significant problem is that any biases or errors in the data the engineers used to teach the machine will result in outcomes that reflect those biases…

Joi explains that the researchers at the M.I.T. Media Lab, have been starting to refer to these technologies as “extended intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence.” “The term “extended intelligence” better reflects the expanding relationship between humans and society, on the one hand, and technologies like AI, blockchain, and genetic engineering on the other. Think of it as the principle of bringing society or humans into the loop,” he explains.

Sunday’s seminar will discuss all of these ideas and more, working towards a concept called “AI Alignment” – where the Corporate-controlled AGIs and humans work toward shared goals.

The problem is that almost all of the AGIs being developed are, in fact, some form of corporate AGI.

That’s why a group of AGI scientists founded OpenCog, to provide a framework that anyone can use.

Aaron Swartz Day is working with OpenCog on building an in-world robot concierge for our VR Destination, and we will be discussing and teaching about the privacy and security considerations of AGI and VR in an educational area within the museum – and of course on this website :-). Also #AGIEthics will be a hackathon track this year, along with #EthicalAlgorithms :-)

So! If this is all interesting to you – PLEASE come on Sunday :-) !

There will also be an Aaron Swartz Day planning meeting –> way early this year –> because really we never stopped working on the projects from last November –> you are gonna love it! –> The meeting is at the Internet Archive on May 23, 2018 at 6pm. There will be an RSVP soon – but save the date! :-)

Big Weekend At The Internet Archive – John Perry Barlow Symposium and AGI & Corporations Seminar

April 5, 2018 lisa

We wanted to make sure that everyone knew about two important events happening this weekend at the Internet Archive.

The first is a John Perry Barlow Symposium from 2pm-6pm – which we think might actually be better than an old fashioned memorial :-)

THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT, BUT YOU CAN WATCH THE LIVESTREAM HERE: https://eff.org/ArchiveYouTube

Much like Aaron Swartz Day, rather than simply mourn the loss of our friend, the Internet Archive is taking this opportunity to discuss and promote many of the ideals that John Perry stood for, with some speakers that knew him well, so that we can carry on working in his name:

Edward Snowden, noted whistleblower and President of Freedom of the Press Foundation

Cindy Cohn, Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation

Cory Doctorow, celebrated scifi author and Editor in Chief of Boing Boing

Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab

John Gilmore, EFF Co-founder, Board Member, entrepreneur and technologist

Trevor Timm, Executive Director of Freedom of the Press

Shari Steele, Executive Director of the Tor Foundation and former EFF Executive Director

Mitch Kapor, Co-founder of EFF and Co-chair of the Kapor Center for Social Impact

Pam Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley

Steven Levy, Wired Senior Writer, and author of Hackers, In the Plex, and other books

Amelia Barlow, daughter of John Perry Barlow

See you there!

Then on Sunday, the Internet Archive is putting on a seminar on AGI (Artificial General Intelligences) & Corporations that is as frightening and interesting as it sounds.

This ties in to this year’s Aaron Swartz Day event, where we have an “AGI Ethics” track this year. (The Ethical Algorithms track is sticking around too.)

About the event:

Even if we don’t know yet how to align Artificial General Intelligences with our goals, we do have experience in aligning organizations with our goals. Some argue corporations are in fact Artificial Intelligences – legally at least we treat them as persons already.

The Foresight Institute, along with the Internet Archive, invite you to spend an afternoon examining AI alignment, especially whether our interactions with different types of organizations, e.g. our treatment of corporations as persons, allow insights into how to align AI goals with human goals.

While this meeting focuses on AI safety, it merges AI safety, philosophy, computer security, and law and should be highly relevant for anyone working in or interested in those areas.

Tickets – $10

See you there too! :-)

Aaron Swartz Day 2018, Aaron Swartz International Hackathon 2018, Facebook Fake News Fiasco, Journalist's Toolbox

Wired Hears Our Call For an “RSS Revival”

April 4, 2018 lisa

It’s Time for an RSS Revival

By Brian Barrett for Wired.

Can I get a Hallelujah! :-) Looks like we got through to someone re: bringing back RSS! As we explained back in November:

We now realize that centralized news is “bad” for all sorts of reasons. Many of us have let Google News and Facebook become our primary news filters, which was stupid and naive and lazy of us, but I think I can safely say we are now paying the price.

But what’s done is done. Time to fix it now. Let’s revive RSS and dig up all the old news readers. The news outlets still use it, and they will use it more, if we demand it of them.

The Wired article has pointed out the newest tools (below)! Just like we asked! Thanks to Brian Barrett :-)

From the Wired article:

“There are multiple approaches to connecting to news. Social felt pretty interesting at first, but when you mix social and algorithmic, you can easily get into these noise bubbles, or areas where you don’t necessarily feel 100 percent in control of the algorithm,” says Edwin Khodabakchian, cofounder and CEO of popular RSS reader Feedly. “A tool like Feedly gives you a more transparent and controllable way to connect to the information you need.”…

…Feedly has plenty to offer casual users. It has a clean user interface, and the free version of its service lets you follow 100 sources, categorized into up to three feeds—think News, Sports, Humor, or wherever your interests lie. …Paid accounts—of which Feedly has about 100,000—get you more feeds and integrations, faster updates, and better tools for teams.

For more of a throwback feel, you might try The Old Reader, which strips down the RSS reader experience while still emphasizing a social component…

Power users, meanwhile, might try Inoreader, which offers for free many of the features—unlimited feeds and tags, and some key integrations—Feedly reserves for paid accounts…

(Dave) Winer has re-entered the fray, this week introducing feedbase, a database of feeds that makes it easy to see what others subscribe to, ideally prompting discovery and an even more open approach. “I thought it might be a good time to try to add an important feature to RSS that was always part of the vision, dynamic subscription lists,” Winer says.

Art, Chelsea Manning, History

Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg: Together Again

March 22, 2018 lisa

By Lisa Rein

I wrote the Mondo2000 article “Why Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg Speaking Together Today In Ann Arbor Is A Pretty Big Deal” to tell the story of my having the honor and privilege to work with Chelsea Manning and Heather Dewey-Hagborg on their fascinating and frighteningly-enlightening art projects :-) (via Mondo2000)

Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Chelsea Manning in Ann Arbor, MI

They spoke together in Ann Arbor, on March 15, at the University of Michigan, and in Pittsburg, on March 20, at the Carnegie Mellon School of Art.

Heather and Chelsea, with illustrator Shoili Kanungo made a beautiful little comic book about Chelsea and Heather’s first collaboration, “Radical Love.” The last frame of the Supressed Images comic book has Chelsea out of prison and looking at her own self-portraits for the first time. It was an emotional moment when it came true, and Heather helps me take a walk down memory lane, so we can bring you all sides of this amazing story :-)

Top pic: #11 of their Supressed Images comic book, published January 17, 2017.

Bottom pic: Chelsea at the installation at the Fridman Gallery, in New York City, in August 2018.

Seriously folks. We are talking about a dream come true ending here.

From “Probably Chelsea” at the Fridman Gallery, NYC.

Chelsea Manning, Digging Deeper, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Freedom of the Press Foundation, History, Internet Archive, Remembering Aaron, Remembering John Perry Barlow

A Trip Down Memory Lane With John Perry Barlow For Mondo 2000

February 26, 2018 lisa

RU Sirius, over at the newly revamped Mondo 2000 asked Lisa Rein if she would write a few words about her memories of hanging out and working with John Perry Barlow, who gave her very thoughtful and enthusiastic advice on all three of her “life’s work” archival projects. (That is, her projects of cataloguing and explaining the lives of Dr. Timothy Leary, Aaron Swartz, and Chelsea Manning.)

John Perry Barlow Through the Lens of Lisa Rein’s Archival Memories

From the piece:

We didn’t realize it, but John Perry Barlow really identified with Aaron and was greatly inspired by him. Barlow showed up at Aaron’s San Francisco memorial and read a short prepared statement, the first in a large collection of many other folks who were not part of the “official memorial.” (Brewster and I had so many requests from people that wanted to speak, we figured we’d better open it up afterwards to give people a chance to share their stories.)

It was in part due to John Perry’s words that night that Brewster and I realized we needed to have an Aaron Swartz-inspired celebration every year, to harness the sad energy into something constructive and positive that could reach out and protect future generations of precocious youth.

Here is John Perry’s speech from the San Francisco memorial:

“I will be brief. My name is John Perry Barlow, and Aaron Swartz was the embodiment and the apotheosis of everything I’ve stood for for the last 25 years. And it is paradoxical that even though that is true, and even though he was profoundly involved with most of my best friends and greatest heroes, I spent almost all the time I ever spent with him, one afternoon in, I think 1996, when he really was a very little kid.

I had been asked by the Headmaster of Northshore Country Day to come and speak to the middle school. And, for some reason, there was this 10 to 11 year old that was among the middle schoolers.

And I spent the afternoon —- and this was a time when I don’t think there were that many people that felt the way I did about this stuff — most of them are in this room now… and I was promoting the idea that we could make a world where anybody anywhere could give his thirst for knowledge and curiosity everything that it wanted to know, and that anybody could know as much as any human being knew about anything in the future.

And, he didn’t say much. He was extremely memorable however. He was much younger. He was all eyes and mind and spiritual radiance, in a way. And I scarcely saw him again.”

Read the rest here.

History, Remembering Aaron, Remembering John Perry Barlow

John Perry Barlow Has Left Us Meat Space Folks Behind

February 8, 2018 lisa

We will be remembering John Perry for quite a while, as he was an Aaron Swartz Day advisor and a good friend to this community.

John Perry Barlow (October 3, 1947 – February 6, 2018)

John Perry only met Aaron once, when Aaron was twelve years old. John Perry describes it here.

(Although you often see he and Aaron together in this famous photograph, which of course, was taken much later.)

The Freedom of the Press Foundation, of which John Perry was a co-founder, has written this piece.

Here’s the EFF’s post, written by Cindy Cohn.

ArsTechnica’s Cyrus Farivar covered it here.

Announcements, Remembering Aaron, Remembering John Perry Barlow

John Perry Barlow Recalls A 12 year-old Aaron Swartz

February 7, 2018 lisa

Although you often see John Perry Barlow sitting behind Aaron in the famous photograph by Daniel J. Sieradski, above, the two of them ~~never actually met each other~~.

From John Perry on November 8, 2014: “Correction! Aaron and I met and met heavily… But primarily on that one day. We were casual friends later but I think he never got over the initial awe enough to relax and really tell me what happened that day. But he did tell his father.”

John Perry walked up to the front of the room at the very beginning of the “open mic” segment at the end of Aaron’s San Francisco memorial, and explained that they had actually met before, sort-of, many years earlier, when John Perry came to talk to his school one day, whe Aaron was 11 or 12 years old.

When John Perry ran into Aaron’s father, Robert Swartz, after he had accepted Aaron’s Internet Hall of Fame award last year, he asked if he thought he’d had made an impression on Aaron that day?

Robert replied that he most certainly had.

The rest, as they say, is history.

John Perry Barlow’s speech during “open mic” portion of the San Francisco Memorial, January 24, 2013:

Aaron Swartz was the embodiment and apotheosis of everything that I’ve stood for for the last 25 years, and it is paradoxical that even though that was true, and even though he was profoundly involved with most of my best friends and greatest heroes, I spent almost all the time that I ever spent with him, one afternoon in, I think, 1996, when he really was a very little kid.

I’d been asked by the headmaster of Northshore Country Day to come and speak to the middle school, and, for some reason, there was this 10 or 11 year old that was in among the middle schoolers. And I spent the afternoon – this was a time when, I don’t think there were that many people who felt the way I did about this stuff. Most of them are in this room now. And I was promoting the idea that we could make a world where anybody anywhere could give his thirst for knowledge and his curiosity everything that it wanted to know. And *anybody* could know as much as any human being knew about any thing, in the future. He didn’t say much. He was extremely memorable, however. He was much younger. He was all eyes, and mind, and…spiritual radiance, in a way. And I scarcely saw him again.

But years later… Last year, at one point, when I was with a bunch of copyright barons in Paris at the EG8, and they were all talking about how enforcement and education was gonna come out right, and it was gonna be just like the War on some Drugs. And I happened to be on a panel with these guys. I said “you know, you think you’ve won this thing, or you will win this thing. But the truth is that you’ve turned a whole generation into an electronic Hezbollah. And you will be dead when they are alive. And I was thinking of Aaron Swartz and it’s really very difficult for me to see that he is dead, and they are alive. But he is not dead, and they will be.

****

Historical notes:

This was originally republished on November 8, 2016, and republished on February 8, 2018.

2. This post used to say “EFF and Freedom of the Press co-founder John Perry Barlow will be appearing with Freedom of the Press co-founder and executive director Trevor Timm, and Brian Knappenberger, Director of “The Internet’s Own Boy,” for a Q & A with the audience at tonight’s Aaron Swartz Day celebration.” at the top :)

History

Ben Swartz Writes A Few Words About Aaron

February 2, 2018 lisa

Aaron, 5 years later

by Ben Swartz

From the post:

The last time I ever saw Aaron face to face was Thanksgiving 2012. He wasn’t upset that I was working at Google, he was upset that I wasn’t using my power as a Google employee to effect change. As we talked over the phone after Thanksgiving it was clear that he was proud of me.

Every year, on the anniversary of his death, I spend the day reflecting on Aaron. I reread old blog posts, watch old videos, and read articles. One video I always watch is his Freedom To Connect Speech “How we stopped SOPA”. One especially powerful quote from it is:

It wasn't a dream or a nightmare, it was all very real. And it will happen again. Sure, it will have yet another name and maybe a different excuse and probably do its damage in a different way. But make no mistake the enemies of the freedom to connect have not disappeared...If we let them persuade us we didn't actually make a difference. If we start seeing it as someone else's responsibility to do this work and it's our job just to go home and pop some popcorn and curl up on the couch to watch Transformers, well then next time, they might just win."

In 2017, I had the privilege to respond to this quote exactly. I worked to make sure that Twitch had a response for the Net Neutrality Day of Action.

Working on the project was exhilarating yet exhausting. I felt amazing writing code that I knew would make the world a better place. I felt good when I finally convinced people that we needed to do this. But every time I ran into bureaucratic problems, I felt crushed. Every time I ran into a bug, I felt hopeless. I felt the weight of the entire internet on my shoulders–I felt that if I failed, I would be flattened.

I can only start to imagine how Aaron felt every day fighting for the things he fought for. Hopefully, by giving back even a tiny amount, I’ve made a difference that he would have been proud of.

Read the whole thing here: Aaron, 5 years later.

Chelsea Manning

Chelsea Manning Is Running For A Senate Seat In Maryland!

January 14, 2018 lisa

Update January 19, 2018 – Read Chelsea’s first interview since her announcement here.

Here’s Chelsea’s video about her candidacy:

You can donate here!

All she has said about it so far are these tweets:

yup, we’re running for senate 😎🌈💕 #WeGotThis https://t.co/ynFv6w32np

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 14, 2018

and

donate: https://t.co/xn4k74SZPc

— Chelsea E. Manning (@xychelsea) January 14, 2018

Save Net Neutrality

Don’t Be Fooled By the Bogus – “Open Internet Preservation Act” – Which does the opposite it claims

December 23, 2017 lisa

Congress’ latest bait and switch tactic regarding Net Neutrality is called the “Open Internet Preservation Act ,” which pretty much does the opposite that the title suggests.

This legislation will kill Net Neutrality for good and even prohibit states from having their own legal protections (against such unfair practices as throttling the speed on websites that can’t pay additional fees).

Keep calling your congress critters every day on the Senate Hotline: (202) 224-3121, put the code on your site from BattleForTheNet.com, and keep the fight going through to the next year!

Here’s the scoreboard showing all the members of congress and where they stand on this issue.

To catch you up a bit: At this point, the FCC vote has happened. That means that the Title II-regulated Net Neutrality is dead. But Congress could use the Congressional Review Act to pass a Resolution of Disapproval, overriding the vote. But instead, Marsha Blackburn has introduced legislation that will kill the Title II qualification for good and legalize throttling internet speeds, calling it the “Open Internet Preservation Act,” like a bad Orwellian parody of itself.

During the holidays, right now, is when these tricky dickies like to push through especially appalling legislation that would never fly when everyone is paying attention. We’ve done a pretty good job of keeping the pressure on Congress right now despite the holidays, so all we have to do is keep up our momentum :-)

To put code on your site and join in the fight, go to BattleForTheNet.com

References:

“The Republican net neutrality bill doesn’t save net neutrality“, By Adi Robertson, For The Verge, https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/19/16797778/congress-open-internet-preservation-act-marsha-blackburn-net-neutrality-bill

Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon