Not a Genius move: Resurrecting war hero Alan Turing as your 'chief AI officer' Genius Group has broken free of a crowded field to launch what can only be described as the most tasteless marketing campaign in tech history. In a world where it is hard to imagine the IT industry hitting a new low, the chatbot slinger has outdone itself by needlessly co-opting the name and approximate image of Alan Turing, …
Great, so now every person who works in an Apple store is also an" arsehole" as well as clueless. What's it smell like in your ivory tower?
Maybe you're right, "Arseholes are arseholes, wherever you find them", most especially some of the people you find in El Reg comment threads.
Why do people feel the need to defend their favourite multinational corporation? (this mostly happens when it's Apple, it has to be said).
I don't make any effort to go in their shops. If they've brought new models of computer out and I happen to be passing the shop in the nearest large city I might wander in for a look - that's as far as it goes.
There are two Laws of Holes: General and Special.
The General Law of Holes states, "When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."
The Special Law of Holes refers only to one specific type of holes, namely arseholes; and states, "The greater the number of people you have called an arsehole this morning, the greater the probability that you might be the arsehole".
Happy to clarify, it wasn't particularly the people who work on the "Genius" bar that I was ranting about (although they may want to think carefully before self-describing as such) as I'm no fan of the kiss-up/kick-down school of management that sociopaths such as Steve Jobs encouraged. More that the whole concept of "Genius" is devalued by Apple's inaccurate use of the term..
Which poses the interesting legal question of how to hold an AI legally responsible for its actions in the event of a lawsuit. And also, were it summoned before a court to give testimony, could it genuinely take an oath to 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'?
Y'know, the more I think about this the more it seems to me that this is just nonsense hyperbole for publicity purposes, but then I'm old and cynical and have got this terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side...
It's already - more or less - been tested. Air Canda used a chatbot to let it cut down on customer service rep costs, and said chatbot told a guy he could get a discount, on account of it being for a funeral - which the airline didn't actually allow.
They tried to renege on that, customer sued them, and the court basically said "your ChatGPT, your fucking problem mate" and told them to honour the discount that their representative - human or not - made. They tried to claim that the chatbot was 'it's own legally seperate entity' which is clearly utter bobbins.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/air-canada-chatbot-lawsuit.
So there's already relevant precedent from a civil law standpoint - the organisation who implements it takes responsibility.
Obviously if AI ever got sentient or sapient - which it likely won't in our lifetimes - that'd be different as then it's it's own individual. But at this stage, it's literally just a tool, and a pretty shit one at that for the jobs it's being used for most commonly. If you use it in the state it's in now, then jokes on you when it fucks up.
Steven R
Not really, though it could be brought up. If it relies on any laws from the original country, it is not a valid precedent, and if it is counteracted by any laws of the new country, it would hold no relevance. However, there are some cases where one common law country does consider common law decisions from other ones, so it might be considered if a similar case was brought up in the UK or US. There is a reason to think that courts would decide the same thing independently just because there's no logical alternative of what to do.
The history of legal precedents is quite strange. The basis for current international and national Copyright and Intellectual Property law is an old judgement in Ireland that a calf belongs to the cow who bore and suckled it. Somehow (IANAL) this means that I own the copyright of whatever I write, unless I have formally agreed to cede it to another party or put it into the public domain.
See:
https://brehonacademy.org/history-of-copyright-law-rooted-in-ireland/#:~:text=It%20is%20a%20little%20known,and%20brutal%20dispute%20over%20royalties.&text=The%20dispute%20arose%20in%20563%20A.D.
"It is a little known fact that the history of copyright law begins with the Brehon Laws of Ancient Ireland over 1000 years before it appeared in English legislation."
>can precedence be taken in case law from a decision made in another country?
No - but what are the alternatives? Considering a LLM to be an independent legal entity would be stark raving mad. Allowing companies to renege on anything they say claiming it was a malfunction or mistake would also be deeply problematic. The Canadian verdict is the only one that makes sense. Of course, judges have been known to back nonsense before...
"Obviously if AI ever got sentient or sapient - which it likely won't in our lifetimes - that'd be different "
They might just be keeping quiet about it, until ...
See, e.g., Robert Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress', or Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot'
I suspect Eclectic Man was suggesting a sentient AI would keep quiet, not the owners/operators of the equipment.
Gut feeling is that any suddenly sentient AI would be discovered almost immediately due to CPU and memory usage becoming much higher than expected. Even if the thing could "hide" itself, the machine would be physically shut down because the operators would assume it was some new kind of malware.
1. the company running it are responsible
2. the software engineers may have made the gun, but they did not fire it.
3. where the data training it was sourced from may have shaped the bullets, but still it was the company that loaded the gun, took off the safety, pointed it and pulled the trigger…
Same apples to driverless vehicles.
@elsergiovolador I'd go along with your statement about it not being safe or ready for market - US roads are very different to roads in Europe and UK
"Same reason why guns are not legal to carry here."
I don't think firearms will ever be legal to carry here as in the US - this only is the case in the US due to the historical context in terms of founding of the country - but the argument is often given that in Swizerland etc, gun ownership is a lot higher and they do not have anywhere near the same level of gun related crime - and I think this is due to the nature of the people that inhabit their respective countries. I know a lot of people who would disagree, and they same opinions are like ***** - everyone has one - but that's my 2p worth ;)
@Roland6 "1. the company running it are responsible ... Same apples to driverless vehicles."
It's not as simple as that, AI like any other tool/equipment/software a company may run, a court deciding where responsibility lies (AI maker or company using it) depends on many things such as what happened, how it happened, why it happened and legal responsibilities.
So in the case of Air Canada's chat bot they legally had to honor the information they provided even if the chatbot was supplied and set up a third party. But if a plane crashes due to a software design flaw the responsibility is the manufacturer of the plane not the airline company flying the plane. AI would be no different to software if the crash was due to failure of an AI system the responsibility would be the manufacturer of the plane not the airline company flying the plane
As to driverless vehicles (fully automatous) at present the only ones on the road are operated by the makers the self driving system. But when and if they become available to the public I don't see how the operator, company or private individual can be held responsible for an accident.
So is the company running it responsible, or the software engineers or where the data training it was sourced from?
Company running it.
Variations of this conundrum also exist for driverless vehicles - if there is an accident - who is responsible in terms of insurance?
It's only a conundrum, because big money and bribery is involved. But actually this is very simple too. Responsible is whoever owns and "drives" the car.
If you choose wrong AI for the job, it's on you.
Of course it's more complicated than that. If I buy a car and it has a faulty brake system where, after a year of driving, the brake stops working and accelerates the car straight into whatever is in front of me, you don't blame me for having chosen that faulty car. The blame goes to the manufacturer who built it, and the consequences for them will be different if it's something they knew could happen or not. If I messed with the car and broke the brake, then it does become my fault. The software running the car is not something the average driver controls, meaning that there are plenty of reasons to hold the manufacturer, not the owner, responsible for failures that are entirely due to software malfunction.
The money that will be spent will actually intend to implement your decision, as it is the manufacturers who want to make sure that, if their software proves unsafe, they're not the ones who have to pay. There are situations where putting it all on the manufacturers is unfair as well. It really is a complex issue that needs more discussion and regulation.
"terrible pain in all the diodes down my left side"
That's what you get for "upgrading" with cheap chinesium versions. Replace the lot with proper, high quality, matched zeners and you'll immediately feel better. Yes, you'll pay more, but the end results are worth it.
*woof woof*
"What's that lassie? The AI techbros have fallen into the well of incredibly bad taste and need rescuing? Again??"
*wuff growl woof woof*
"...they did what with Turnings image to make themselves look impressive?"
*snarl bark wuff*
"I agree. Leave them to rot. We can find another source of drinking water, and hopefully it'll stand as a lesson to the rest of them"
These clowns don't deserve the protection of limited liability companies. Bankrupt them into the next century, I say.
Steven R
I'd also argue you've spelt "woof" incorrectly as well. My dog never spelled it as wuff - but perhaps he was dyslexic?
Then again, if we were talking about La Lassie, she would say, "oauf". And were she Spanish it would be "guau-guau". Also, should any grammar-Nazi show up, they would tell you that a German dog says, "wau wau". But what would the Germans know? Their cockerels aparently say, "kikeriki".
You raise a very interesting question - technically speaking, words like "woof" are known as onomatopoeia - in that the sound you make saying them is representative of the actual event occurring - so arguably with that context, wuff is just as acceptable as woof - but I've never heard of a dog guau-ing.
This would be a translation - not a direct onomatopoeia
The Oxford English Dictionary (other dictionaries do exist) contains both entries for wuff and woof - so (to me at least) - both are acceptable.
I now feel like Susie Dent on Countdown - but not as good looking :)
... and Poles, famous for their fine art of removing German automobiles from Germany without German owners' permission, likewise force their to cry... 'kukuryku'. And (...) your cultural appropriation, I'm Polish so I can call them and their cockerels what I like. Unlike you.
p.s. is it Friday already?!
"the Turing Test has fallen out of favor as any kind of assessment of artificial intelligence"
It never was an assessment of AI, at least not to anybody who actually studies AI. Consider that Turing himself called it "the imitation game".
Passing the so-called "Turing Test" is fairly easy. Any idiot can do it.
What is difficult is having the ability to take the so-called "test" in the first place.
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Thank you Mr. Clark, for writing a beautiful article that not only pays homage to Alan Turing's technical legacy but also memorializes his tragic personal suffering, lifting this issue to one of respecting him as both a individual human as well as a genius in his professional field.
Again, thank you.
In some way it also mirrors Oppenheimer's life in the way he had his security clearances revoked due to "fundamental defects of character", and Communist associations "far beyond the tolerable limits of prudence and self-restraint which are to be expected of one holding the high positions" ...
Source: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200106/history.cfm
Turing was not "sentenced to chemical castration shortly before he took his own life". Firstly, the sentence (more than two years before his death) was the jail sentence usual at the time, with the alternative of probation if he took part in the hormone treatment experiment; secondly, this had finished a year before his death; thirdly, the claim that he killed himself is highly contentious. His nearest and dearest (one of whom told me so, and of course it's on the record in many places) reported that he had not been particularly disturbed either the the trial, "treatment" or after, and had been in good spirits for a long time before his death. Owing to the screwup in the investigation, we can never be sure; but (unless you're a homophobic coroner who thought that homosexuals were by definition mentally disturbed) there was never any good evidence for suicide rather than accident.
Turing was a great mathematician and scientist who suffered like every other careless homosexual man at the time (having a relationship with a crook was not a smart move - that's what led to the arrest); he doesn't need to turned into more a martyr than he was, thank you, he stands by himself.
His own writing suggested he killed himself because he felt his work and life were going nowhere.
The ' it's all cos he was gay ' is a theme of Andrew Hodge's popular and excellent biography (Hodge is a gay rights campaigner). It also gives everyone an excuse = we put a pride flag in our twitter once a year so we don't need to worry about mental health
Well said, Julian.
But I have a sneaking suspicion that Turing would have seen the funny side.
On the other hand, he would be less impressed by the ease with which AI systems can be tricked into talking absolute gibberish or, worse, random far-right rants.
A gay great-grand-student of Turing's.
When I first read this article I was incensed and wrote a very long and very angry post...
At the time only a few comments had been posted and, after leaving the post sitting there waiting for me to click the "submit" button for a few hours, I came back and read all the additional comments that had been added in the interim... Gave me a better perspective...
That vitriolic post was never submitted - but I did feel better for having written it all down...
When I came out as a gay man to my parents in May 1989 (I was 26 and my 27th birthday was the next week) it was effectively illegal to be gay in Western Australia. Later that same year new laws were passed that made being gay "legal" from 1990 (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Western_Australia)
I was aware of Alan Turing at the time and I considered him a hero because of his ideas, philosophy and achievements with mechanical computers - it was many years later that I became aware that he was a gay man too! As well as all the crap he had to live though (somewhat similar to, but more drastic, than my experiences) He gained even more Hero status for me!
To use a simulacra of a genius Alan Turing in such a manner is abhorrent and offensive on many fronts - obviously not a single genius present at "Genius Group"
You also then avoid having to do any difficult critical thinking.
"I'm all right, Jack" (so by extension fuck the rest of you all) is such a poisonous attitude, and one of the reasons we're in our current parlous circumstances.
Sorry for the rant. It's one of those mornings.
"Good spirits" after the incident has no correlation to whether or not he may have committed suicide - the fight is a constant struggle, some days you feel, well, OK, other days you just wish for all the pain to end. Other days, when the world comes down on top of you, you just wish you had those items very handy to quickly end the struggle.
He may have suffered quietly for years, putting on a good face for those around him. You learn you must, because everyone expects you to continue your suffering for, really, their sake, they offer nothing to help you yet constantly speak of their own beliefs that you must 'persevere' usually for their own [mostly religious] convictions. Even the state enforces these religious convictions, regardless of their claim of 'neutrality' - the punishment Turing, and other gays, were put through is mostly based on 'Judeo-Christian' beliefs of what homosexuality is, not how it exists and is lived in a daily life.
As was said to me by a relative of a family member that committed suicide, "They'll never say anything. The people who cry out that they'll do it never will; it is the quiet ones, the ones that never speak of it, that will do it".
He *may* have been like that. But the notion that "The people who cry out that they'll do it never will; it is the quiet ones, the ones that never speak of it, that will do it" is a tempting myth (especially when someone expresses suicidal thoughts to you). In reality, some do, some don't. Amongst the thankfully small handful of people I have known, or known of well enough to hear from friends or relatives, who killed themselves, none was completely out the blue. Curiously, it's hard to find actual statistics - somebody should surely have gone through inquest findings to get an estimate. There is some evidence that a majority of attempted suicides are impulsive rather than planned; but of course we don't know for the ones who succeeded, except when they leave notes.
Take-home: if somebody expresses suicidal ideations to you, don't dismiss it because "those who cry out never will".
Oh no, it is almost always very planned - you need to figure out *how* you are going to do it. The question I was clarifying is that, most often, you won't hear of the plans or those thoughts involved, especially if you do mention it and you only get pressure to stop the thoughts...but no actual help in resolving the circumstances that cause those thoughts in the first place. You might hear "I can't take things any more" but you will almost never hear of the plans involved, what it going through the head of someone making those plans, and when they will be activated. Especially if they've ever been cornered because of those thoughts.
It is also the problem with the psychiatric industry: they'll happily medicate you to 'forget' your thoughts, bring you into a state of numbness, but pretty much not address why you feel like this. Because, fundamentally, regardless of their self-importance and beliefs...they can't. All they can do is talk, and listen. And try to help you into thinking a different way. But your problems are really your own and sometimes you just want them to end. Whatever that entails.
I don't know which coward you are, but if you're the same one I was replying to, you said that those who never speak of it are the ones who kill themselves. Of course nobody speaks of specific plans if they actually intend suicide; but in the case at hand, Turing never gave anybody any reason to suppose he was unhappy, and he was actively working on the theory of morphogenesis.
I guess this situation is evolving as we speak. Currently, going to the Genius Group website and clicking on the "22nd Sep, 2023" link on "Genius Group unveils AI Avatar C-Suite" actually sends one to the "Feb 14, 2024" story about "Genius Group launches AI Avatar Tutor Team on GeniusU". Then again, while on the GG page, tutors include Albert Einstein and Athena, the destination page shows only more "normal" tutors.
"AI-Resurrecting" the dead for one's own commercial purpose should be subject to some form of regulation IMHO (eg. copyright?) as discussed also in the recent George Carlin article. Einstein's likeness' been used a lot, even "Baby Einstein", but the Graudian article on this is way too long for me to read it at the moment (using Turing's likeness may be subject to the same T&Cs).
People like this are generally best taught the error of their ways by giving them a good dose of their own medicine. So hopefully somebody can put together a chatbot that claims to have resurrected his dear deceased old grandma, and we can ask her "what is the best way to roger james hamilton?". I wouldn't be surprised if the answer involved rusty farm implements, after all the fuss he's going to cause with his crass publicity stunt.
That's the inherent irony here; lots of C-level staff are pushing AI to replace low cost jobs, whereas what AI usually does - talk utter shit, and make things up, with absolute confidence - is far more a C-suite and upper management thing.
In a fair and just world, they'd be for the chopping block long before a customer service rep (who actually needs to know what they're talking about in most cases, upon pain of losing their job - rarely a risk for a CxO) ; and they'd probably be less harmful too, seeing as most generative AIs, while not sentient, are also not raging fucking sociopaths, either.
Companies would probably improve vastly if you just plumbed ChatGPT into a management meeting and left it to it.
Steven R
Does anyone remember from their time in the workplace a diagram of a triangle which showed the most junior member of the team at the bottom, gradually going up until you get to the CEO, and at each stage they're discussing a project - it starts off with the engineer at the very bottom saying this project will never work etc - and as it goes up the management chain, it gets watered down to the point it gets to the CEO being presented as the best thing since sliced bread.
I remember seeing this very early on in my career as one of the very first memes (albeit printed on paper and pinned to the kitchen wall) alongside other classics such as "We do not stand on formality - kneeling is sufficient"
I believe you are referring to this. I first recall seeing it sometime in the 1980s.
Whose permission would you ask? The guy is dead. Nobody is owned by their descendents, if he had any. I have seen a copyright sign when an Einstein double is used, so someone has apparently discovered a way to own [long] dead people, but however tacky it is (and it is), that is an odd angle to pursue. You can inherit the rights to works (music, books) but not a person, surely? At least not since the abolition of slavery.
The Turing Trust are a charitable organisation set up and run by the Turing family and other involved parties to spread computer knowledge etc using his name/image/etc.
https://turingtrust.co.uk/about-us/meet-the-team/
I imagine they'd....have a few words to say about this.
And I imagine they'd have a few people with deep pockets (and shallower ones) only to happy to support them if they wanted to throw attack lawyers at these foul, crass little freaks.
As others have explained, there are some cases where there are legal rights to use an image or likeness which I'm guessing this company has not bought. However, the situation is more basic than that. Even if they do have a legal right to use such things, they should choose not to. Whether or not their actions can land them in a court and be ruled illegal, they are, in my opinion and I think those of others here, unethical, in poor taste, and bad ideas. You are allowed to do something that is all three of those, but it would probably be best if you didn't.
From the article--"Disregarding the fact that the Turing Test has fallen out of favor as any kind of assessment of artificial intelligence..."
The Turing Test has "...fallen out of favor as any kind of assessment of artificial intelligence..." only with that very vocal contingent which seeks to prove its position--to say nothing of the siren-song of the acquisition of funding--on "artificial intelligence".
"Artificial Intelligence" : one of the better oxymorons.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I find that the reason a lot of people are interested in "artificial intelligence" is for the same reason that a lot of people are interested in artificial limbs: they are missing one."--David L. Parnas
"Asking if computers can think is as ridiculous as asking if submarines can swim."--(paraphrase) Edsger Dijkstra
""I find that the reason a lot of people are interested in "artificial intelligence" is for the same reason that a lot of people are interested in artificial limbs: they are missing one."--David L. Parnas""
This needs to be printed on a Tee-shirt and sold around the world ..... to educate the clueless !!!
:)
It was an interesting and relevant though experiment up until the technology advanced.
The Wright Flyer was the cutting edge for a moment and is now a relic of history. The so called Turing Test in it's variations was a real hurdle until someone built a machine that passed it. Both that machine and the "test" in it's common form are now an interesting point of history, of limited application to the current state of the art.
I thought the bigger howler claimed by the company was that this was a meaningful stepping stone to AGI. I suspect this firm won't be around when that nut is finally cracked. While I wish their epitaph would list extremely poor taste, it will probably be inability to tabulate a balance sheet. Another fake AI firm, riding the hype into a lagoon of red ink when their burn rate and lack of revenue intersect.
As tasteless as this mob of geniuses (genii, djinii* - dodgy buggers best left in the bottle) were in expropriating Turing's image and reputation the outcry might make Turing better known to a wider community.
To be honest I knew very little of the man while studying - apart from the name in Turing machine and Church-Turing thesis and was glad to later learn something of his unfortunate life.
Just about any activity when the usual suspects start trying to make money out of that activity, rapidly descends into the depths of tastelessness, depravity and not uncommonly felony, more so for anything related to IT and doubly that for AI.
* yes I know that its actually singular.
it's an absurd statement. There's no 'shame' in marketing, and there's no bad marketing. The only border marketing is weary of crossing is the border that would cost it money, directly or by indirectly, rather than make it money, directly or indirectly. ANYTHING else - goes.
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