Health Care and Steerable AI
December 4, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Large language models are powerful tools that can be used for the betterment of humanity. Or, in the hands of for-profit entities, to get away with wringing every last penny out of a system in the most opaque and intractable ways possible. When that system manages the wellbeing of millions and millions of people, the fallout can be tragic. TechDirt charges, “’AI’ Is Supercharging our Broken Healthcare System’s Worst Tendencies.”
Reporter Karl Bode begins by illustrating the bad blend of corporate greed and AI with journalism as an example. Media companies, he writes, were so eager to cut corners and dodge unionized labor they adopted AI technology before it was ready. In that case the results were “plagiarism, bull[pucky], a lower quality product, and chaos.” Those are bad. Mistakes in healthcare are worse. We learn:
“Not to be outdone, the very broken U.S. healthcare industry is similarly trying to layer half-baked AI systems on top of a very broken system. Except here, human lives are at stake. For example UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurance company in the US, has been using AI to determine whether elderly patients should be cut off from Medicare benefits. If you’ve ever navigated this system on behalf of an elderly loved one, you likely know what a preposterously heartless [poop]whistle this whole system already is long before automation gets involved. But a recent investigation by STAT showed the AI consistently made major errors and cut elderly folks off from needed care prematurely, with little recourse by patients or families. … A recent lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Minnesota alleges that the AI in question was reversed by human review roughly 90 percent of the time.”
And yet, employees were ordered to follow the algorithm’s decisions no matter their inanity. For the few patients who did win hard-fought reversals, those decisions were immediately followed by fresh rejections that kicked them back to square one. Bode writes:
“The company in question insists that the AI’s rulings are only used as a guide. But it seems pretty apparent that, as in most early applications of LLMs, the systems are primarily viewed by executives as a quick and easy way to cut costs and automate systems already rife with problems, frustrated consumers, and underpaid and overtaxed support employees.”
But is there hope these trends will be eventually curtailed? Well, no. The write-up concludes by scoffing at the idea that government regulations or class action lawsuits are any match for corporate greed. Sounds about right.
Cynthia Murrell, December 4, 2023
Google Maps: Trust in Us. Well, Mostly
December 1, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
Friday and December 1, 2023. I want to commemorate the beginning of the last month of what has been an exciting 2023. How exciting. How about a Google Maps’ story?
Navigate to “Google Maps Mistake Leaves Dozens of Families Stranded in the Desert”. Here’s the story: The outstanding and from my point of view almost unusable Google Maps directed a number of people to a “dreadful dirt path during a dust storm.”
“Mommy, says the teenage son, “I told you exactly what the smart map system said to do. Why are we parked in a tree?” Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Good enough art.
Hey, wait up. I thought Google had developed a super duper quantum smart weather prediction system. Is Google unable to cross correlate Google Maps with potential negative weather events?
The answer, “Who are you kidding?” Google appears to be in content marketing hyperbole “we are better at high tech” mode. Let’s not forget the Google breakthrough regarding material science. Imagine. Google’s smart software identified oodles of new materials. Was this “new” news? Nope. Computational chemists have been generating potentially useful chemical substances for — what is it now? — decades. Is the Google materials science breakthrough going to solve the problem of burned food sticking to a cookie sheet? Sure, I am waiting for the news release.
What’s up with the Google Maps?
The write up says:
Google Maps apologized for the rerouting disaster and said that it had removed that route from its platform.
Hey, that’s helpful. I assume it was a quantum answer to a “we’re smart” outfit.
I wish I had kept the folder which had my collection of Google Map news items. I do recall someone who drove off a cliff. I had my own notes about my trying to find Seymour Rubinstein’s house on a bright sunny day. The inventor of WordStar did not live in the Bay. That was the location of Mr. Rubinstein’s house, according to Google Maps. I did find the house, and I had sufficient common sense not to drive into the water. I had other examples of great mappiness, but, alas!, no longer.
Is directing a harried mother into a desert during a dust storm humorous? Maybe to some in Sillycon Valley. I am not amused. I don’t think the mother was amused because in addition to the disturbing situation, her vehicle suffered $5,000 in damage.
The question is, “Why?”
Perhaps Google’s incentive system is not aligned to move consumer products like Google Maps from “good enough” to “excellent.” And the money that could have been spent on improving Google Maps may be needed to output stories about Google’s smart software inventing new materials.
Interesting. Isn’t OpenAI and the much loved Microsoft leading the smart software mindshare race? I think so. Perhaps Maps’ missteps are signal about management misalignment and deep issues within the Alphabet Google YouTube inferiority complex?
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2023
AI Adolescence Ascendance: AI-iiiiii!
December 1, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The monkey business of smart software has revealed its inner core. The cute high school essays and the comments about how to do search engine optimization are based on the fundamental elements of money, power, and what I call ego-tanium. When these fundamental elements go critical, exciting things happen. I know this this assertion is correct because I read “The AI Doomers Have Lost This Battle”, an essay which appears in the weird orange newspaper The Financial Times.
The British bastion of practical financial information says:
It would be easy to say that this chaos showed that both OpenAI’s board and its curious subdivided non-profit and for-profit structure were not fit for purpose. One could also suggest that the external board members did not have the appropriate background or experience to oversee a $90bn company that has been setting the agenda for a hugely important technology breakthrough.
In my lingo, the orange newspaper is pointing out that a high school science club management style is like a burning electric vehicle. Once ignited, the message is, “Stand back, folks. Let it burn.”
“Isn’t this great?” asks the driver. The passenger, a former Doomsayer, replies, “AIiiiiiiiiii.” Thanks MidJourney, another good enough illustration which I am supposed to be able to determine contains copyrighted material. Exactly how? may I ask. Oh, you don’t know.
The FT picks up a big-picture idea; that is, smart software can become a problem for humanity. That’s interesting because the book “Weapons of Math Destruction” did a good job of explaining why algorithms can go off the rails. But the FT’s essay embraces the idea of software as the Terminator with the enthusiasm of the crazy old-time guy who shouted “Eureka.”
I note this passage:
Unfortunately for the “doomers”, the events of the last week have sped everything up. One of the now resigned board members was quoted as saying that shutting down OpenAI would be consistent with the mission (better safe than sorry). But the hundreds of companies that were building on OpenAI’s application programming interfaces are scrambling for alternatives, both from its commercial competitors and from the growing wave of open-source projects that aren’t controlled by anyone. AI will now move faster and be more dispersed and less controlled. Failed coups often accelerate the thing that they were trying to prevent.
Okay, the yip yap about slowing down smart software is officially wrong. I am not sure about the government committees’ and their white papers about artificial intelligence. Perhaps the documents can be printed out and used to heat the camp sites of knowledge workers who find themselves out of work.
I find it amusing that some of the governments worried about smart software are involved in autonomous weapons. The idea of a drone with access to a facial recognition component can pick out a target and then explode over the person’s head is an interesting one.
Is there a connection between the high school antics of OpenAI, the hand-wringing about smart software, and the diffusion of decider systems? Yes, and the relationship is one of those hockey stick curves so loved by MBAs from prestigious US universities. (Non reproducibility and a fondness for Jeffrey Epstein-type donors is normative behavior.)
Those who want to cash in on the next Big Thing are officially in the 2023 equivalent of the California gold rush. Unlike the FT, I had no doubt about the ascendance of the go-fast approach to technological innovation. Technologies, even lousy ones, are like gerbils. Start with a two or three and pretty so there are lots of gerbils.
Will the AI gerbils and the progeny be good or bad. Because they are based on the essential elements of life — money, power, and ego-tanium — the outlook is … exciting. I am glad I am a dinobaby. Too bad about the Doomers, who are regrouping to try and build shield around the most powerful elements now emitting excited particles. The glint in the eyes of Microsoft executives and some venture firms are the traces of high-energy AI emissions in the innovators’ aqueous humor.
Stephen E Arnold, December 1, 2023
Deepfakes: Improving Rapidly with No End in Sight
December 1, 2023
This essay is the work of a dumb dinobaby. No smart software required.
The possible applications of AI technology are endless and we’ve barely imagined the opportunities. While tech experts mainly focus on the benefits of AI, bad actors are concentrating how to use them for illegal activities. The Next Web explains how bad actors are using AI for scams, “Deepfake Fraud Attempts Are Up 3000% In 2023-Here’s Why.” Bad actors are using cheap and widely available AI technology to create deepfake content for fraud attempts.
According to Onfido, an ID verification company in London, reports that deepfake scams increased by 31% in 2023. It’s an entire 3000% year-on-year gain. The AI tool of choice for bad actors is face-swapping apps. They range in quality from a bad copy and paste job to sophisticated, blockbuster quality fakes. While the crude attempts are laughable, it only takes one successful facial identity verification for fraudsters to win.
The bad actors concentrate on quantity over quality and account for 80.3% of attacks in 2023. Biometric information is a key component to stop fraudsters:
“Despite the rise of deepfake fraud, Onfido insists that biometric verification is an effective deterrent. As evidence, the company points to its latest research. The report found that biometrics received three times fewer fraudulent attempts than documents. The criminals, however, are becoming more creative at attacking these defenses. As GenAI tools become more common, malicious actors are increasingly producing fake documents, spoofing biometric defenses, and hijacking camera signals.”
Onfido suggests using “liveness” biometrics in verification technology. Liveness determines if a user if actually present instead of a deepfake, photo, recording, or masked individual.
As AI technology advances so will bad actors in their scams.
Whitney Grace, December 1, 2023
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