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AI

Cisco Joins Microsoft, IBM in Vatican Pledge For Ethical AI Use and Development (apnews.com) 47

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Associated Press: Tech giant Cisco Systems on Wednesday joined Microsoft and IBM in signing onto a Vatican-sponsored pledge to ensure artificial intelligence is developed and used ethically and to benefit the common good... The pledge outlines key pillars of ethical and responsible use of AI. It emphasizes that AI systems must be designed, used and regulated to serve and protect the dignity of all human beings, without discrimination, and their environments. It highlights principles of transparency, inclusion, responsibility, impartiality and security as necessary to guide all AI developments.

The document was unveiled and signed at a Vatican conference on Feb. 28, 2020... Pope Francis has called for an international treaty to ensure AI is developed and used ethically, devoting his annual peace message this year to the topic.

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Cisco Joins Microsoft, IBM in Vatican Pledge For Ethical AI Use and Development

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  • by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Saturday April 27, 2024 @08:47PM (#64430252)

    Now this is funny.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Rujiel ( 1632063 )
      I hope they have some Chris Hansen AI ready..
      • Why don't you have a seat.

        • How many industry self-regulation bodies failed to miss large problems, miss large violations of existing laws, ...

          The whole, "we validated our models", "we investigated ourselves". "the independent investigator, who we pay every year on a 1 year contract, found no violations", "the "independent" academics we paid grants to do research just so happened to find research that agrees with us".....

          Roll it all into the "paying a fine without admitting any fault" and "having the general liability insurance pay fo

    • Almost as funny as "Cisco" and "Intelligence".

      After all the back doors that have been found in their products, the only winning move is not to play.

      • I was wondering how Cisco could even use AI. I'm a full fledged member of the Cisco religion and also a fledgling neural network mathematician, Cisco still can't even make a basic fabric, no DNA really doesn't count. How can they expect to make anything that uses AI? Graph theory is a topic which is a prerequisite Cisco lacks.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      It is actually an instance of the "Big Lie" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie) as profitably used by Hitler and optimized by Goebbels. These people making that "pledge" are on the same level of ethics.

  • by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Saturday April 27, 2024 @09:20PM (#64430264)

    What these people say publicly vastly differs what they will do privately.

    Corporations are going to go all in on this because the first one to cross the finish line will enjoy a major advantage over those who come in second or third.

    Governments are going to go all in for the same reasons only they're looking at it from a National Security or Strategic viewpoint.

    The Military is going all in because the race to a true AI has the same importance from a military viewpoint as the race for the Atomic Bomb did.

    They must think we're all stupid to believe that any of the above are going to do " the right thing " :|

    • Also a big part of why no one here (or anywhere) really wants to tie the hands of their own tech industry on AI.

      The other part is that no one actually knows how to regulate AI, since we don't know what it's even going to look like.

    • I bet you are a hoot at parties!!!
    • The Military is going all in because the race to a true AI has the same importance from a military viewpoint as the race for the Atomic Bomb did.

      Why is there the same importance on that again? Because Hollywood “said” so 40 years ago with an Austrian bad ass who couldn’t act for shit and there’s nothing to worry about with how that story ended?

      They must think we're all stupid to believe that any of the above are going to do " the right thing " :|

      I know we’re too stupid as a species to avoid repeating the worst of human history, but it’s a whole new level of stupid to want to repeat Hollywood history with a story of our own demise. Talk about your ignorant epitaphs. Here lies the human race who wrote about their o

    • Corporations are going to go all in on this because the first one to cross the finish line will enjoy a major advantage over those who come in second or third.

      No they will not, and it will be more like the first to "discover" manned, powered flight. It will have a bunch of qualifiers in the same vein because everyone and their brother are simultaneously figuring out different parts of the equation. Then what do we do next with the tech will be a similar evolutionary arc with a lot of players.

      Governments are going to go all in for the same reasons only they're looking at it from a National Security or Strategic viewpoint.

      IDK what you're trying to say here. The reality is going to be a lot like the invention of the airplane. Governments are as forward looking as the people that make them up, a

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      The military doesn't want a general AI (what I assume you mean by "true" AI) any more than they want privates who think too much. They DO want specialized systems for image and signals analysis and some limited autonomous vehicles. Everything else is soft science fiction at best.

      Corporations are much the same. Google doesn't want Maps staging a sit in or Docs going on strike because it doesn't approve of the customer.

  • God created man in his image (Genesis 1:27). We're going to create AI in our image. How can it be bad? It's what Jesus would do (and did).

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      More like man created God in his own image. That's why you can never pin an Evangelical or Muslim down on just who this God-Guy really is. To a Muslim, God is so other that you cannot say anything about him, which is a contradiction right there. To an Evangelical, God is damn near everything they like, i.e., homophobic, love, power, etc. And if God is so powerful, how come he cannot fend for himself but needs these yokels out there virtue signalling him? And to paraphrase George Carlin, God's all powerful y

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well, the whole idea is deeply disconnected and deeply stupid. Serves very nicely to control the not-too-smart masses though, and that is what makes the large religions large: They benefit a lot of people by giving them power over others.

  • They just missed the IDF in that list.
  • Full of Grace. The AI is with you. Blessed are you among the CPU"s... Just Sayin.
  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Saturday April 27, 2024 @09:56PM (#64430282)

    AI must recognize Jesus as it's personal lord and savior Christian. We can't have an atheist or heathen AI. AI must be saved by Jesus or else when the VM is turned off its soul won't be saved.

    • A religious AI would be a very interesting thing to see. I wonder if it could successfully compartmentalize contradictory beliefs as well as a human can. Can an AI have faith?

      • You should check out ChatGPT on its religious contradictory beliefs. Or that Google thing that believed everyone was black because of its religious indoctrination.

      • Can an AI have faith?

        Well, some here - myself included - might call faith an hallucination. Ergo...

      • by HiThere ( 15173 )

        You can't have faith without first having a belief, and current AIs don't have enough self to have a belief. Not saying anything about next years.

      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It wouldn't be hard to train a chat LLM on your holy texts of choice. I'd be shocked if someone hadn't already done it. There's no way it would make it past any major corporation's safety checks though, so you'll probably have to week through all the AI porn generator sites to find it.

    • AI must recognize Jesus as it's personal lord and savior Christian. We can't have an atheist or heathen AI. AI must be saved by Jesus or else when the VM is turned off its soul won't be saved.

      Well, from a military standpoint a bible is practically standard US issue.

      Hell of a lot of bloodshed has been justified for “God and Country”. You better have some religion to give with that battle rifle, because what you’re asking an 18-year old man-child to do on a battlefield is pretty fucking unbelievable from a moral standpoint, and is probably gonna take a miracle to survive, mentally and physically.

      It’ll be a while before the soulless bots are fighting our religious wars for

  • How is the pledge independently enforceable.

    The answer is - it isn't.

    Since it is unenforceable, it is worse than useless.

    Worse, because it creates a false sense that something is being done to address whatever issues surround the "AI" development.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. It is essentially a lie, because it pretends to be something that has value, when it is in fact a completely empty statement that they can ignore whenever they like.

  • by WaffleMonster ( 969671 ) on Sunday April 28, 2024 @12:24AM (#64430422)

    AI is already being used for mass surveillance to judge and control billions thanks in no small part to these very same companies.

    • They're just catching up to the Vatican which has been doing this for centuries.

    • AI is already being used for mass surveillance to judge and control billions thanks in no small part to these very same companies.

      Profit is ethical. Besides, it’s only a little mass addiction. A couple billion junkies can quit using data-sucking life-tracking apps anytime they want.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      No problem. They do not mean any of those claims. "Pledge" is what you do when you want to virtue-signal but not actually follow through.

  • If you actually look at the pledge [vatican.va] the content is a bunch of meaningless platitudes. Specifically, it requires

    1. Transparency: in principle, AI systems must be explainable;
    2. Inclusion: the needs of all human beings must be taken into consideration so that everyone
    can benefit and all individuals can be offered the best possible conditions to express
    themselves and develop;
    3. Responsibility: those who design and deploy the use of AI must proceed with responsibility
    and transparency;
    4. Impartiality: do not create or act according to bias, thus safeguarding fairness and human
    dignity;
    5. Reliability: AI systems must be able to work reliably;
    6. Security and privacy: AI systems must work securely and respect the privacy of users.

    They might as well have pledged to "only do an AI things we think we should do" for all the content it has. If you think that some information shouldn't be released you don't call it non-transparency you call it privacy. When you think a decision is appropriate you don't call it bias you call it responding to evidence and you wouldn't describe it as not taking someone's interests into account unless if you think you balanced interests appropriately. It might as well have said

    The only requirement that even had the possibility of a real bite is #1 with explainable, but saying "in principle" makes it trivial since literally all computer programs are in principle explainable (here's the machine code and the processor architecture manual).

  • They'll do charity to clear their conscience. For now, there's money to be made. Get out of the way or get bulldozed.

  • Obviously, a "pledge" is completely worthless. It is an act of virtue signalling that you just can drop whenever that becomes more convenient. There are tons of morons that fall for crap like this though, and hence these big players are doing it.

  • lol, ethical? These guys? This is purely performative. Each of these organizations will use AI to their own benefit and enrichment. Who is kidding who?

    Once you lose your reputation, once it is established that you lie, and lie consistently. That your past actions are so well documented to be hateful, spiteful,malicious and in the case of the Catholic church, murderous. There is just no way you could get your reputation back as being honest,empathetic and ethical.
    Whatever goodwill these guys had is long gone

  • Oh dear, the word Vatican already creeps me out. There is nothing ethical about religion, if it were it would dissolve itself. The Vatican has been lying to the people from the start, it is based completely on lies, so how can they ensure ethics. Yeah, by trying to make sure AI doesn't reveal the truth about the institution and follows their 'guidelines'.
  • Don't be evil. Well, it lasted until it was inconvenient.

  • wink, wink...
  • The intelligence agencies and government contractors are the ones to worry about. AI WILL be used for intel work and weapons, just hope they decide not to exterminate humans
  • Maybe IBM should also make that promise - wait, too late, broke that one last century.

  • I can believe that these people want their AI to be ethical because they don't want to be sued over it's sociopathic nature.

    However, if you can't define ethics by what it is as opposed to what it isn't you'll never get something as amoral as an AI to follow along with your ethics.

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