The human cost of our AI-driven future

I think there's a genuine conversation to be had about whether there even is such a thing as "hate speech." There's certainly "offensive speech," but if that's what we're going to try to eliminate, then it seems we'll have a bad time as the offense is definitionally subjective.

Is the claim there some special property that makes it impossible to convey hate as opposed any other type of idea through text?

That seems extremely wrong, especially in this context, given that LLMs make no attempt to formalize "ideas", they're only interested in syntax.

There is hate speech, like when someone tells poeple how other people are not human and must be eliminated. Happened a lot, happening now in wars you read about.

I'm not sure "offensive" is actually subjective. Rather, I dare say it's morally obligatory to be offensive at times, but different communities put the line in different places.

Stating the position "torture is bad" is enough to get you banned from some places (because it's offensive to people who believe that it's okay as long as the victims are less-than-human).

There is a definition for hate speech though.

Actually, I think the problem is there are many definitions of hate speech.

I think there's only 1 main definition. Which is clear in spirit, but it's of course possible that people may interpret the definition definitely.

Maybe the name for the "hate speech" is poorly chosen, since it's not necessarily about "hate".

But when "hate speech" becomes censorable and a crime, then people are incentivized to interpret as broadly as possible their opponents' statements and claim they should be interpreted as dehumanizing or encouraging violence.

This can be done from both sides. Examples:

Not sufficiently (for whoever) enforcing immigration laws? "Trying to eliminate the majority population, gradual ethnic cleansing".

Talking about deporting illegal immigrants? "The first step on the road to murdering people they don't want in the country."

And if the local judiciary or law enforcement is aligned with the interests of one side or the other, they can stretch the anti hate speech laws to use the legal system against their opponents.

That may be so, but the denigrate (and common case as this thread suggests) is to expand the notion to any offensive speech that is disliked by the offended person. That is much more subjective and hard to define. The fact that we have some (better) definitions doesn't really help. The desire to censure speech is widespread, for different reasons, many conflicting. And the fact that there might be a rough academic consensus on where to draw lines (at least theoretically if not practically) isn't good enough in practice to actually define clear rules.

> I think there's a genuine conversation to be had about whether there even is such a thing as "hate speech."

It may be fuzzy on the far edges, but any speech that calls for the elimination, marginalizes, dehumanizes or denies human or civil rights of a group of people is right in the heart of the meaning of hate speech.

That definition still leaves huge amounts of space for satire, comedy, political and other forms of protected speech, even "offensive speech".

I mean, what's the claim then, there's no such thing as an illegal idea? You can't assign a semantic value to a legal system.

> the elimination

Yep, that's bad alright.

> marginalizes, dehumanizes

This is the part which means anything that authorities or other powerful groups need it to.

>> the elimination, marginalizes, dehumanizes or denies human or civil rights

but you've already lumped together a huge range of behaviours and impacts. Elimination? OK, we can probably broadly define that, but I just heard news reports with quotes of Israelis calling for the elimination of Hamas, and Iran the elimination of Israel. How do we handle that? marginalized? as defined by who? What about marginalizing undesirable behaviours or speech? What does "dehumanize" mean? Who's definition of human or civil rights?

?? This can be done from both sides.

You are seeing this EXACT thing in the middle east right now.

What do you think the definition is?

Any speech (or well communications) that intends to incite violence or general harm on groups of people or a person with certain characteristics such as age, sex, orientation, race, etc.

E.g. "X race/gender/sexual orientation are bad for the society for reason Y, and therefore they should be treated with Z (a negative consequence)"

So intending to call out harm because of certain inherent characteristics a group of people have, and such characteristics that are not harmful for the society.

People will endlessly argue over what "incite violence or general harm" actually mean, and they will also endlessly argue over if something should be considered an implied "characteristics of age, sex, orientation, race, etc".

Currently there is an ongoing court case regarding the case where a person criticized and made offensive statements about Muhammad, and if that should count as inciting violence or general harm against Muslims. One side is arguing that any negative statements about Muhammad is veiled statements directed against Muslims as a group, and the other side is arguing it is criticism against the religion and not about people who believe in that religion. People did similar arguments with Monty Python movie Life of Brian.

When it comes to symbols like flags, people often characteristic any action (positive and negative) as a form of hate speech if they dislike it, or as important symbolic gestures when they like it. Burning flags get often called hate speech, and forbidding people from waving flags (including general rules against all flags for specific events) has also been called hate speech.

The spirit needs to be understood clearly. The spirit of hate speech is to by forms of communication cause harm to a person or group of people for certain inherent characteristics that are not harmful for the society. Harm in such a way that manifests itself as violence or discrimination.

> Elimination? OK, we can probably broadly define that, but I just heard news reports with quotes of Israelis calling for the elimination of Hamas, and Iran the elimination of Israel. How do we handle that? marginalized? as defined by who?

I'd call both of them hate speech without qualification. But between countries, there's no legal system that would rule on speech (only actions, like the ICJ tries to adjudicate).

> What about marginalizing undesirable behaviours or speech?

What is the example of undesirable behavior being undertaken by a group that would warrant their marginalization as a group? I'm having a hard time finding an example of that. Calling out a group of racists or bigots (based on their words) for what they are isn't marginalization.

> What does "dehumanize" mean?

This has a very straightforward definition:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dehumanize

> Who's definition of human or civil rights?

In the US context, this is also well defined:

https://www.findlaw.com/civilrights/civil-rights-overview/wh...

What was the negative statement? To me the logic is that:

1. Criticising a religion != hate speech, or generally making fun of or criticising any sort of religious figure like Muhammad or Jesus != hate speech.

2. Calling out for a group of people of certain religion to have X negative consequences = hate speech.