The Real Reason to be Afraid of Artificial Intelligence | Peter Haas | TEDxDirigo
Peter Haas discusses how in present day setting, intelligent systems are already exhibiting bias which should be a warning to people. This isn't new. While he discusses a system which predicts recidivism (the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend) there is actually a system implace which affects everyone. This has to do with the taxation system. For decades, the taxation system has used a predictive model to determine who gets audited or not. I know from experience that some companies tend to be red flagged more than most. Much like his dog/wolf example it is possible that there is some factor like snow is being used as a predictor. Generally when I ran a company I would error on the side of the angels. As an example I would never use "Meals and Entertainment" expense even when it was possible to do so. This way, when I was audited my "error" actually meant that I would be able to pay less tax than I needed to. Just like a computer program can be programmed to flag a particular characteristic, human auditors are programmed to find errors. Every company/bookkeeper/accountant makes an error and an auditor will keep looking until it finds errors.
A chap whom I occasionally played cards with described an old guy he used to work for who had a number of businesses. I don't recommend following what this anecdote describes because it is illegal. However it is a little amusing.
This old guy kept all of his receipts in shoeboxes. He had a good system where all the bills and receipts for a particular expense was contained in a single box. He had an old car and he kept everything referring to the car in a single box labelled Auto. One day one of his businesses was being audited. The auditor asked him questions about the car which he claimed as an expense. The old guy went to the shelf and pulled out the box labelled Auto and the auditor carefully went through all the bills and receipts.
A few weeks later another auditor showed up to audit one of his other businesses and he too asked him questions about the car which he claimed as an expense. The old guy went to the shelf and pulled out the box labelled Auto and the auditor carefully went through all the bills and receipts.
People occasionally are weaker than they think they are and always are less intelligent than they think they are. That is why instead of creating fool-proof systems, they need to design fail-safe programs. I am not sure AI systems like Sophia are advanced enough to interact with some people. Imagine if every person that you met every day asked you the question ... Are you go kill me today? At some point, you might change your behaviour to match that stimulus. While you might not outright kill someone, you might believe that people are afraid of you and will act accordingly. I think Sophia has been asked questions of world domination by every reporter she has met...