The human cost of our AI-driven future

I don't know how this problem can be solved automatically without something that looks a lot like AGI and can monitor the whole internet to learn the evolving cultural context. AI moderation feels like self driving cars all over again: the happy path of detecting and censoring a dick pic - or self driving in perfect California weather - is relatively easy but automating the last 20% or so of content seems impossibly out of reach.

The "subtle forms of hate speech" is especially hard and nebulous, as dog whistles in niche communities change adversarialy to get past moderation. In the most subtle of cases, there are a lot of judgement calls to make. Then each instance of these AGIs would have to be run in and tailored to local jurisdictions and cultures because that is its own can of worms. I just don't see tech replacing humans in this unfortunate role, only augmenting their abilities.

> The glossy veneer of the tech industry conceals a raw, human reality that spans the globe. From the outskirts of Nairobi to the crowded apartments of Manila, from Syrian refugee communities in Lebanon to the immigrant communities in Germany and the call centers of Casablanca, a vast network of unseen workers power our digital world.

This part never really changed. Mechanical turk is almost 20 years old at this point and call center outsourcing is hardly new. What's new is just how much human-generated garbage we force them to sift through on our behalf. I wish there was a way to force these training data and moderation companies to provide proper mental health care .

I really don’t get it.

Meanwhile a small consolation is that https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/06/17/against-dog-whistles/ agrees with me. So I’m in decent company.

One of the signs of dog whistle use is the situations in which the term is used that raises probability beyond the credible level of coincidence.

To my mind, this dog whistle moniker is more of a tool for suppressing dissenting views than identifying covert bigotry.

Apparently all the critical thinking has already been done off stage and now only those whom we agree with are tolerated. The others are shunned as racists or worse.

In general, yes: there is a long history of conversation on various topics, actions that have caused trust levels to be preset among various groups, and meta-symbols constructed atop that information. Those new to the conversation may be unaware of the context.

> and now only those whom we agree with are tolerated

I'm not sure who "we" is in that context. In the US, currently, the polity is very divided because sevaral key events have, in a sense, caused "mask off" to occur in the mainstream of both political parties that makes it difficult for anyone to believe one of them is willing to share power.

(as a side note: rhetorical questions don't usually convey well through text media. If you didn't literally mean "I really don't get it" when you said you didn't get it, making clear you are being rhetorical could be considered polite).

Perhaps the nation’s division is evidence of the lack of genuine sharing of ideas? Where would one go to have an intellectual discussion in safety? Workplace? Obviously not. Online forum? Downvotes, brigadding, and generally lack of tolerance.

Small wonder that I’m not being persuaded and neither are you.