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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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You are annoyed at the rhetoric of my attempt of being succinct. So let me expand on that. Yes they "cancelled" actions of a group of people that own and operate a language model that was trained on existing rap lyrics. My statement was reduction on that. The thing that I'm trying to convey here is that the discussion with the ethics around input and output AI models in general is very shallow. The discussions revolve around harm caused by unpredictable output which have no actual consequence other than making someone feel bad over a generated content. Image or lyric...

The ethics discussion should be deeper than social panics du jour. It shouldn't be ethical for example to use machine learning algorithms to nudge behavior of people. e.g. presenting alcohol ads to people that has a signal in their online behavior that they are prone to become alcoholics. The other example which I saw recently on a friends youtube, ads for investment scams when he searches for how to invest in stocks(since he most likely don't have requisite knowledge to sniff out scams). Those AI applications have the potential to ruin someones life as opposed to n-word by algorithm or violent nightmare fuel from an AI painter.

Sure, this is a much better argument because now you have to address the substance of who (or what, if an AI isn't a who) is allowed to utter the n-word and whether non-blacks can utter it indirectly through the operation of AI systems or whether it causes "harm" or not.

Yes and what is the difference between an AI and CD recording? Predictability? Determinism? Am I allowed as a non-black operate a CD-player with rap album in it? To sample it and create a new piece of art?

All these questions because some people decided to equate the copy with the original. AI just mimics reality but it isn’t reality.

Try blasting the song "Nigga Nigga Nigga" as a white guy next to some wokes. I guess they'd disapprove.

(also CDs are grandfathered in, their analog predecessors were made much earlier than the current progressive morals around race).

What happens if the Spotify algorithm recommends and blasts a song with "Nigga Nigga Nigga" next to some wokes? Is that racist? Do I have an argument that "the algorithm" did it?

I could guess that if a spotify recommendation played "Gary Barts Ntu Troop - Uhuru Sasa" and "Gil Scott Heron - The revolution will not be televised" it would be deemed as appropriation.