UK Home Sec thinks a Minority Report-style AI will prevent people posting bad things

The Home Secretary believes artificial intelligence will soon be used to stop people posting on the internet pre-emptively with a kind of Minority Report-style "precrime" unit. Amber Rudd made the call at an event hosted by the US think tank the New America Foundation. The Home Secretary castigated the platforms for taking " …

[amanfromMars 1]

The only viable explanation for going off the straight and narrow and onto a bender.

I'll take an ounce of whatever Amber Rudd is smoking. It is obviously great gear. :-)

Does she really expect people to listen and take heed and action on such AI Meanderings? Strewth says it all methinks.

[Solarflare]

Re: The only viable explanation for going off the straight and narrow and onto a bender.

"I'll take an ounce of whatever Amber Rudd is smoking. It is obviously great gear. :-)"

When amanfromMars calls you out for crazy, incoherent babble, you know you have a problem.

[Chemical Bob]

Re: The only viable explanation for going off the straight and narrow and onto a bender.

"When amanfromMars calls you out for crazy, incoherent babble, you know you have a problem."

No, you don't know because you are too crazy and incoherent.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rudd is a mouthpiece of utter conjecture. "Real people" shouldn't listen to her.

If we'd found out she'd pronounced 'AI' as in 'Al-istair' during her speech, would any of us really be surprised?

She is quite like a computer though, her parents fed what amounts to Garbage into the Private Education system, and at the end of all that expense, it produced Garbage out.

You can have the best private education in the World, but unless you have the raw ingredients to nurture, it can be such as waste, as Rudd clearly shows.

Rudd's simplistic ideas are blunt instruments, lacking any of the required nuances, that will have us all in digital zombie-like virtual shackles. Step out of line, and you'll find those digital systems laser-focused on you, with no room to maneuver. You'll be digitally silenced.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Rudd is a mouthpiece of utter conjecture. "Real people" shouldn't listen to her.

El Reg could help her out, instigate a trial of a big reg AI Button in the top right corner of El Reg, where readers could (at the click of switch) digitally silence Amber Rudd content and leave every other non technical diuretic mouthpiece to carry on regardless because the only extremely divisive content I've ever felt 'digitally threatened by' is the online web content authored by Amber Rudd.

[Dan 55]

Re: The only viable explanation for going off the straight and narrow and onto a bender.

I'll take an ounce of whatever Amber Rudd is smoking. It is obviously great gear. :-)

The finest hashtags known to humanity.

[Tom Paine]

Re: The only viable explanation for going off the straight and narrow and onto a bender.

No idea how well or badly it works, but there IS a commercial product out there that claims to do this, pitched at the enterprise "don't frighten the horses" market: http://www.safescribe.com .

Anyone got first hand experience with that thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Count me unimpressed

"Our best brains have been working for a decade on behavioural analysis, which powers the giant ad duopoly of Google and Facebook, and the recommendation systems of Amazon."

If the Amazon recommendations are one of the poster boys for behavioural analysis, then I can only conclude that our "best brains" are the same sort of very-well-qualified-yet-supremely-stupid people who (in the UK) normally go into government or run the Civil Service.

In what, fifteen years of buying from Amazon, I've never, ever bought anything that Amazon has recommended to me, and I've always scoffed at the crapness of their recommendations. Looking over my partner's shoulder at their Facebook feed (won't touch it myself), its full of garbage adverts and garbage news that likewise is ignored.

[tony72]

Re: Count me unimpressed

Amazon is great at recommending things I want to buy ... after I've already bought them. Hey you bought a nice TV; here are some more nice TV's. Thanks, already got one. I guess I probably don't buy enough from Amazon for them to properly profile me though, so maybe that's not fair, but on the surface, that seems to be about the level of intelligence behind their recommendations.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Count me unimpressed

It's a small step from "you bought X so you'll like X"

FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Count me unimpressed

"[...] I've never, ever bought anything that Amazon has recommended to me, [...]"

Books, DVDs, and CDs are a more reliable category of Amazon Recommendations. Not really AI though - it just has to recommend what other people have bought that overlaps your purchases or what you have looked at.

It does occasionally recommend titles that I have already bought through Amazon though.

They used to have lists compiled by users - and that was a far more intelligent way to introduce you to things that were possibly of interest. Obviously that was more limited compared to using the sales/viewing data. It depended on users having the motivation to compile a list - and almost certainly only covered a subset of their own titles.

[0laf]

Re: Count me unimpressed

I usually only get recommended things I've already bought. and often they're not the sort of thing you would ever buy twice

[TitterYeNot]

Re: Count me unimpressed

I'm afraid I must disagree with the naysayers, post-behavioural-analysis precognition can be shown to be an extremely reliable predictor of behaviour.

For example, after scanning the headline, but before reading the article, I was able to accurately predict that Amber Rudd had opened her ignorant gob and made a complete tit of herself. Again...

[Rich 11]

Re: Count me unimpressed

It's a small step from "you bought X so you'll like Y" to "you posted X, so you'll post Y next".

If I buy a Motorhead CD it's quite reasonable to think that I might like another Motorhead CD. However it's a very different thing to claim that the next item I buy will be a Motorhead CD. I wouldn't even say it's the most likely thing I would buy next. Now change the arena from purchasing preferences to posting subject/response behaviour, and it's much less likely to be accurate because so much of what I post (like this) depends entirely upon what articles are published and whether or not (let alone when) I notice them.

Screw that precog shit.

[Chris King]

Re: Count me unimpressed

"Our best brains have been working for a decade on behavioural analysis, which powers the giant ad duopoly of Google and Facebook, and the recommendation systems of Amazon".

Errr, no.

I bought an ironing board cover from Amazon one time, and for several days afterwards the only thing it would recommend was porn videos. And absolutely nothing else.

Maybe this was Amazon's way of saying I needed to loosen up a bit ?

Icon, because that must have been one of the best brains they could find.

[smudge]

Re: Count me unimpressed

I bought an ironing board cover from Amazon one time, and for several days afterwards the only thing it would recommend was porn videos. And absolutely nothing else.

Maybe this was Amazon's way of saying I needed to loosen up a bit ?

Maybe millions of housepersons watch porn whilst doing the ironing?

[John 110]

Re: Count me unimpressed

"Maybe millions of housepersons watch porn whilst doing the ironing?"

I wouldn't, not near a hot iron...

[Anonymous Noel Coward]

Re: Count me unimpressed

@John 110:

Hi, I'm here to nurse your burn...

*muzak*

[BongoJoe]

Re: Count me unimpressed

I bought an ironing board cover from Amazon one time, and for several days afterwards the only thing it would recommend was porn videos. And absolutely nothing else.

According to the AI you like hot, steamy manual back and forth action whilst bending over a table...

[Tom 7]

Its a small step from

conning people into believing that the items advertised at you are chosen because you'll like them rather than the advertiser has paid to get rid of the tut.

[SkippyBing]

Re: Count me unimpressed

'If the Amazon recommendations are one of the poster boys for behavioural analysis, then I can only conclude that our "best brains" are the same sort of very-well-qualified-yet-supremely-stupid people who (in the UK) normally go into government or run the Civil Service.'

So the sort of people who, in the UK, are advising Amber Rudd? I think we've found the problem...

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Count me unimpressed

"I've never, ever bought anything that Amazon has recommended to me"

I have. Before it was even recommended. How's that for precognition?

[tfewster]

Re: Count me unimpressed

The Amazon AI should be fine - It only needs to be smarter than Amber Rudd, after all. And, to be fair, it does have a kind of logic "You bought an expensive TV, so you must a) Really like TVs and b) Have money. Would you like to buy another TV?"

Or as Zaphod said: 'You'd just have to program it to say "What?" And "I don't understand" and "Where's the tea?"'

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Count me unimpressed

"In what, fifteen years of buying from Amazon, I've never, ever bought anything that Amazon has recommended to me"

I once bought something in the "Others bought this with that item". But that's just data, not AI, or even algorithm,

[Suricou Raven]

Re: Count me unimpressed

Amazon, for some odd reason, keeps suggesting condoms to me on their discount deals. All manner of condoms. Colored condoms, ribbed condoms, flavored condoms.

I'm a thirty-two-year-old single virgin. If my parent's house had a basement, I'd dwell there. Amazon really does not know me.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: Count me unimpressed

Whenever I buy some product, most recently a 6V sealed led acid battery for my telescope, all these "AI" methods from Amazon and the like keep trying to flog more sealed led acid batteries. Same with the tumble dryer I bought online: endless tumble dryer adverts. Same again when I bought a 100-400mm zoom lens: they keep trying to flog more of exactly the same type of lens. Now, if the AI had suggested lenses complementary to the 100-400 (and not the 18-55 kit lens, which someone with a 100-400 zoom either has, or has already replaced by something better), that would show a modicum of intelligence. As it is, I am not impressed.

Youtube has made some interesting recommendations, I must say. It's latest one of The Dead South (In Hell I'll be in Good Company) did put a smile on my face

[Steve Davies 3]

She's deluded

if she thinks that people will stop posting Crap. A whole generation are addicted to FB, Twitter etc and most of what they post is pure dog poo.

Still, a story like this will take the mind of the plebs off of BREXIT, who has supposedly molested whom and other political nonsense for a few seconds.

[Chris King]

Re: She's deluded

"if she thinks that people will stop posting Crap. A whole generation are addicted to FB, Twitter etc and most of what they post is pure dog poo".

We'll only accept it if it can muzzle idiots like her and Boris Johnson.

Poor bloody AI doesn't stand a chance.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Re: She's deluded

"Poor bloody AI doesn't stand a chance."

Not sure about that. A rule-based system could learn rules like

IF (post.poster.name = "Boris Johnson") OR (post.poster.name = "Amber Rudd") THEN

REDIRECT(post, "/dev/null")

But somehow I think they don't want that kind of AI

[inmypjs]

Re: She's deluded

"people will stop posting Crap"

The delusion is not that people will stop posting crap. The delusion is that the crap people post makes any significant difference to anything.

That for some subjects the whole world must stick its head in the sand and pretend they don't exist - the woman is a moron.

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to own up. Who let her near a computer again?

My limited understanding of AI is that you need large data sets to enable it to learn which puts this back to the original problem of employing people to monitor content in the first place.

Would it not be a simple case of people that get their content reported are then monitored?

[Doctor Syntax]

"Who let her near a computer again?"

Nobody. Her HO minders gave her another script to mouth.

If anyone let her near a computer there's a faint chance (admittedly on the levels of monkeys and Shakespeare) that she'd Google something that would explain stuff to her. HO thinking can't allow even the faintest chance of that. They depend on her deepest ignorance so that she can read out what she's given with complete sincerity.

[Zippy's Sausage Factory]

I think it's very possible that Amber Rudd intends to waste a huge amount of taxpayers' money on artificial intelligence software that won't work. What really scares me is that based on recent legislation, the government tends to make things statutory offences* so that there can't be any defence against the charge when they really shouldn't, and I wonder if "being told you're going to do so by precog software" is going to be one of them... :(

* if that's the term - ones where there's no permissible defence, like the five years when they find a hun in your home or child porn on your laptop...

[Roj Blake]

Statutory Offence

A statutory offence is one that's definde by statute (ie law that's been passed by parliament).

[Tom 38]

Re: Statutory Offence

A statutory offence is one that's definde by statute (ie law that's been passed by parliament).

Yeah but OP clarified that he wasn't sure if that was the correct term and explained what he was searching for, which is actually called a strict liability offence, in which mens rea is not required.

[Zippy's Sausage Factory]

Re: Statutory Offence

@Tom 38 you are correct - strict liability offence is the term I was looking for and can never remember.

No doubt I won't remember it next time I need to refer to the concept, either... :)

[iron]

Five years for having a Ranger's fan in your home?

[graeme leggett]

A problem made in Holywood

Someone paid too much attention to the Film and not enough to the book and subjects of issues of free will and authoritarianism?

[amanfromMars 1]

You gotta laugh ... otherwise you might cry.

Whenever one hears of such fantasy from the likes of a government minister/political party stalwart, is one never going to their aid with applications of anything resembling what they might need in the future because they are obviously terrified of communications and the sharing of alternative and/or opposing views has them petrified and stagnating in a present struggling with the baggage of the past.

Such as is certainly a crazy madness in them, condemns such souls to continued existence in pools of ignorance where arrogance is rife and rabid.

But hey, if that is all you are equipped for, that is all you are equipped for.

I wonder if that puts aliens on any AI Watch Lists? :-)

[Roj Blake]

Shocking

Minority Report was 2002?

[HieronymusBloggs]

Re: Shocking

"Minority Report was 2002?"

The short story was written in 1956.

[Solarflare]

Re: Shocking

Calling Tom Cruise 'The Short Story' is a bit harsh. He is a bit vertically challenged, but the guy has feelings. Also, he was born in 1962, not 1956.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Shocking

Calling Tom Cruise 'The Short Story' is a bit harsh

Remember the old Hollywood joke: fan is short for fanatic, hype is short for hyperbole and Tom Cruise(*) is short for a leading man.

(*) Substitute Mel Gibson if you like.

[Neil Barnes]

Emily Post

Dear Net-Mail User:

Your mailbox has just been rifled by EmilyPost, an autonomous courtesy-worm chain program released in October 2036 by an anonymous group of net subscribers in western Alaska ([]ref: sequestered confession 592864 -2376298.96534, deposited with Bank Leumi 10/23/36:20:34:21. Expiration-disclosure 10 years.] Under the civil disobedience sections of the Charter of Rio, we accept in advance the fines and penalties that will come due when our confession is released in 2046...

In brief, dear friend, you are not a very polite person. EmilyPost's syntax analysis routines show that a very high fraction of your net exchanges are heated, vituperative, even obscene.

Of course you enjoy free speech. But EmilyPost has been designed by people who are concerned about the recent trend toward excessive nastiness in some parts of the net...

Of course, should you insist on continuing as before, disseminating nastiness in all directions, we have equipped EmilyPost with other options you'll soon find out about...

----

courtesy David Brin, Earth

[Kiwi]

Re: Emily Post

courtesy David Brin, Earth

I inherited a rather large collection of ebooks a while back. I've learned of some great authors there from posters here on El Reg (eg a comment about "The Mote in God's Eye" led me to an author I'd never heard of and, in a roundabout way, a whole SciFi concept I'd not discovered in my 40+years circling Sol).

I've just tagged this one in my reader as well, after I get through the stuff about wars with oversized moggies..

So much thanks for the heads up!

(I should really get out more...)

[hplasm]

Amber Rudd's Brain

The only thing that current AI is less deluded than.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Amber Rudd's Brain

Something that is thicker than three short planks where all other politicians are only as thick as two short planks.

[Goit]

I'm not racist but

Your post has been deleted

[ukgnome]

Eeek

Time to moderate my comments

___ ______ _ _____ _ smiley

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Eeek

Back when we first heard rumours of Echelon and the like, it was relatively common for people to pepper their online posts with words such as C4, dynamite, bomb, assassinate, president, gun, shoot etc. There was very little comment from people saying they would be more careful with what they posted.

[Pete 2]

Too complicated

It seems to me to be pretty simple to do. Even if it isn't what Rudd thinks she wants.

Just give each post an AI scan between the time the poster hits SEND and the message appears. If it is "approved" then it just passes into the general population of pointless witterings.

However if it fails that first test, there are all sorts of possibilities. The bluntest instrument would simply be to lose the post (maybe Yodel would tender for that job?). But that might not be subtle enough. A far more amusing possibility would be to alter the post somehow.

I expect everyone has, at some point or other, typed "now" instead of "not" [ Dilbert reference goes here ]. And I am equally sure there are far more devious possibilities that could be laid at the door of predictive text.

So, it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility to take messages that would and could be flagged as "terrorism" and turn them to your own advantage. Thus: I do now believe America is the source of all that is good from someone who's ovine followers would then be forced to give up the fight and spend, spend, spend.

With luck the originator wouldn't even notice the change!

[imcdnzl]

Re: Too complicated

I agree with "Pete 2" and think that The Register is running a badly written article. Home secretaries have done and said some pretty stupid things in the past, but to check for content when you submit is, potentially, perfectly reasonable. I didn't actually even see a suggestion that it would be vetted before you typed, which is what the article is implying.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Too complicated

I didn't actually even see a suggestion that it would be vetted before you typed, which is what the article is implying. ... imcdnzl

Surely the concern is that it can be vetted at the posting stage, and if it can, it surely will be a subject for alteration by some Court Jester/Clown/Elite Executive Administration/Kingdom.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Too complicated

Pete 2,

That ability and facility opens up a Pandora's Box of Possibilities and ZeroDay Vulnerability Exploits for Exploring and Expanding Upon into Live Operational Virtual Environments ........ with Quite Heavenly Spaces in Bedeviled Places. Certainly an Environment Perfectly Suited for the Stout Hearted and Brave.

What choose you be .... Saint and Sinner? A Nice Choice for Cyber Explorers ..... AIMegaMetaData Mining.

Seems like someone is already on the ball with the ITeration of this Abomination/An0maly/SubPrime Script .... Setting The Stage For War: US Air Force Says Missile Targeting Saudi Capital Was Iranian

[Anonymous Coward]

It could have worked in Texas ...

It could have worked in Texas ... where there was a guy posting raving mad threats against his in-laws and Christians in general on Facebook, then he grabbed an assault rifle ... Wait a minute, half the people on Facebook are already doing that. FAIL. [Posting anonymously because I live in the Colonies, and I don't want someone hunting me down.]

[JMiles]

Jeez and the woman still wonders why tech people sneer at her. If AI were that good it'd prevent people like her from ever being born!

[John Brown (no body)]

It does make me wonder if people who become Home Secretary are chosen for this level of stupidity or if the job causes it. We do seem to have a had a constant stream of these people over the last few decades, from both parties.

It's quite obvious a lot of the "ideas" are coming from the incumbent civil servants in the department, but not one single Home Secretary seems able to resist the Borg.

[GruntyMcPugh]

Steady on Amber, such an AI would probably be able to detect what a politician was about to say and fact check it before you blurted.

[monty75]

She's a Ruddy idiot

[Elmer Phud]

Amazon?

Nah, more like Tesco on-line ordering.

"You said 'bums' and we decided you like bombs"

[Chris Jasper]

Science Fiction is wonderful

For the love of God, who gave her a Netflix login?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the future of British internet extremism is...

Repost/retweet five or six press releases highlighting the great achievements of the party in power in Westminster, and then follow up with your "Jihad! Jihad!! Die infidels, die!!!" post.

Then find your next five or 6 press releases from the party in power (you know more of them will be forthcoming.)....

[Adrian 4]

Great idea !

Home Office rubbing their hands .. once that's working then they could save money on judges and all that tat, and just imprison people automatically for the crime they're about to commit !

[John Smith 19]

British Home Secretary x Comment on AI x comments on terrorism/whateve-du-jour -->

Usual s**t spout.

The British Home Office.

Should be a designated Centre for Evil

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: British Home Secretary x Comment on AI x comments on terrorism/whateve-du-jour -->

"The British Home Office.

Should be a designated Centre for Evil"

Or a home for the deluded.

[Doctor Syntax]

In 1972, Dick explained that he used "androids or robots or simulacra" as a literary device in much of his fiction to explore ideas of what makes a human.

There you are, then. Not only can it be done, it can be done on an Android phone.

Why is everyone sneering again?

[Sorry that handle is already taken.]

"as the external world becomes more animate"

WTF does that even mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

"will soon be used"

This reminds me of my workplace.

Boss: can you investigate if we can xyz?

Me: I will, I can already tell you we lack y and z and z especially can happen only after Foo is delivered next month.

Boss: not a problem, we're just having a feel

/20min later back at my desk/

[C*O strolls over]: I hear we're getting xyz by next week! Great stuff!

[ThatOne]

1. Leaders ignore reality, after all they pay underlings to deal with that nasty stuff.

2. On the other hand "technology" is the modern times magic, capable of instantly solving any problems which otherwise would require hard work and big sacrifices (Effect known as "magical thinking").

As a result, leaders love identifying potential solutions (if only by misunderstanding stuff) and then claiming to the masses (or the shareholders) that henceforth the big problems of mankind have been solved. (Thanks to them)

Its the same thought system for both C*Os and politicians, except in the politicians' case there is a nice corollary: They find some friendly private company into which they will shovel vast amounts of money to make that pipe dream come true, with the (sole) result that they will have secured a well-paid job for themselves if everything goes pear-shaped in the next elections (alternatively for the spouse, the offspring, etc.). Win-win.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Leaders ignore reality .... @ThatOne ..... at their Peril in these Halcyon Days of 0Days

Such are clearly then not leaders, ThatOne, and it is surely an opportunity one can create and embrace to place right before their very eyes, and in the full glare of worldwide publicity, that which can now be easily done by others to render their ignorance and arrogance obsolete and self-destructive.

And there are all manner of places and spaces to explore for suitable recruits to engage with against what is apparently a very common enemy masquerading as indispensable help everyone needs to be taxed to pay for.

Here be one of those Dynamic Data Exchange things searching in the MOD for Greater IntelAIgent Life Phorms for Delivery of Commands for Order rather than Battling and Losing Control in Manic Conflicts and in CHAOS [Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems]

Just in case you missed the remote invitation, here be it delivered to your door through your own portal ....... https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/11/03/economics-as-storytelling-will-northern-ireland-live-happily-ever-after/#comment-3599660470

It promises to deliver Programming Excellence for Projects Running Future Realities Remotely with Simple Commands to Follow for Inputting Control/Advanced IntelAIgent Mentoring and Monitoring. And that is only a fraction of what its Excellent Programs do, whenever anything and everything truly desirable is possible.

Something novel and useful to MI5 or not? Please advise.

THANK YOU FOR CONTACTING US [on https://www.mi5.gov.uk/contact-us]

And as El Regers can surely imagine, such only introduces parties to the matters disclosed. And many might have a great deal of trouble believing what can so easily very quickly follow upon all of that with just the simplest of enquiries/invitations.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Leaders ignore reality .... @ThatOne ..... at their Peril in these Halcyon Days of 0Days

And just before we flit off onto sting and jolt life into something else ..... there be no prizes offered here for rightly guessing the Actual Response, Reply and Reaction to the Advanced IntelAIgent Quantum Communications which be Registering here, and for All to Witness here too, from our oft much vaunted and seriously serially neglected Secret Intelligent Security Services.

And the Prodigious Charge which all National, International and Internetional Intelligence Agencies risk having to defend themselves against, in relation to both the Here and Now and the Future ..... a Combined Space Place which may be perfectly unknown to them and under Stealthy Alien Control Leverage for Heavenly AI Pressure Cookers/Live Operational Virtual Environments,.... is surely one of Gross Wilful Negligence and Colossal Dereliction of Duty and Care should they fail to freely avail themselves of Quite Magical Abilities with Proprietary AI Quantum Leap Intellectual Property for Future Product Placement in Imminent and Eminent Current Presentations of Augmented Virtual Reality Plays with Greater IntelAIgent Gamers and Global Operating Devices.

Such is that which is On Virtual Offer and Quite Fully Enough Detailed and Deconstructed here.

Oh and don't forget to register your guess so we can all see what you think of established and historic Secret Intelligent Security Services.

[allthecoolshortnamesweretaken]

Of course there is a "tell" that warns you that people are about to post crap on any given social network: they have an account.

[Loyal Commenter]

Amazon makes recommendations

...it doesn't predict what you are going to buy, it tries to make you buy stuff.

By this logic, does Rudd think that FB et al should be recommending terrorism to potential terrorists? Or does she just need to learn about cause-and-effect?

[Stevie]

Bah!

behavioural technology that anticipates a user's actions is certainly very real, and you probably use it every day.

Like the cod that takes perfectly good worms and turns them into order words when I text?

Or the code that produces those "targeted" sidebar ads in my browser?

Because: epic fail doesn't begin to describe the results.