And you point out how data and how technically, and
technology is influencing our life.
And you came in today, I wanna point out to you guys here and
open this up to you Abby as well, cuz I wanna open up this discussion.
What is it again?
ChatGPT, it's a term I've never heard of.
>> Sure. >> But there are influences with our
technology and just how the world is changing.
And many times we're in the middle of that change.
I'm one of the people, I have no idea the best way forward, at least what is that
we're being influenced by and also what we're feeding into.
Ramesh you were talking about that.
Yeah, this is the biggest type in artificial intelligence in recent years.
But it really has actually almost nothing to do with either intelligence or
even artificial intelligence itself.
So I'm a former AI developer mainly cuz I was
just studying engineering cuz even though I'm into many other things.
As a former engineer, I used to build and study artificial intelligence systems.
And what we did when we were doing that was we were interested in
how the mind worked, how reasoning worked, and
how do you build computer systems to try to emulate that?
That is not at all what this is.
So even the cause of AI should be questioned,
like what's the point of it, right?
Should we be building computers that can emulate humans?
What about other types of intelligence?
Like emotional intelligence, environmental intelligence, non-human intelligence.
That's a more out there idea I think a lot about.
So what does ChatGPT do?
Its part of the trojan horse, like what we've all signed onto and
we shouldn't feel bad about it.
What we have been coerced onto as a default in this country and many parts of
the world, which is indiscriminate data collection of us at all times.
So that's not just us using the phone, that's not just us on Facebook or
Instagram, when we use a credit card, when we get picked up by a surveillance camera,
when an Amazon vehicle passes us on the street, all of that is tracking and
gathering data about us.
So why is that important?
Because all that data is being stored and computed and
we have very fast pattern matching algorithms.
Algorithms are rules written in code.
You can basically write a question to the platform, ChatGPT,
and will spit out an answer.
You can say write an essay about Jenko Eager,
write an essay about the young turks and but what will it spit out?
It will spit out the most common patterns associated with that question.
So what does that mean?
That computer system is simply pattern matching.
It's not actually reasoning, right?
It's not actually thinking, or reasoning, or
actually it's not what we call semantic, right?
And what it also is is simply spitting out are the mass cultural patterns.
So any ability for us to reason, to grow to develop,
to even be irrational at times, these systems are the opposite of that.
And I also wanna note that this system was created by open AI,
which Elon Musk was involved in at the beginning,
it was supposed to be this beneficial technology for humanity.
And as soon as the hype of this blew up and Microsoft started pouring money into
it, while Microsoft is cutting thousands of jobs, mind you,
it's now of course a for profit company.
So this, I have been emailing with Noam Chomsky a little bit about it,
cuz I was very interesting what he had to say.
He calls it high tech plagiarism.
Because all it's doing, it's a game,
it's a toy by which we can just be kind of and it's fun, right?
I mean, don't get me wrong, you can spit out these patterns that are kind
of uncanny, but it is not anything to do with humans.
It's not anything to do with intelligence.
It's certainly not a tool or a set of systems that we have power over or
are necessarily taking us or our youth in a great direction.
>> I guess the thought I had and I'm not sure if you were on this line,
because I know nothing about these types of things.
But my thought when I first hear, we know there's indiscriminate data collection.
I know every time- >> Yeah.
>> I put my my bank card and something that it's leaving an impression.
Or every time I honestly gas stations and there's cameras there banks, any of these
types of things people are checking and continue with all your whole life.
But is it possible to avoid it?
Cuz you have people who say, I'm off the grid man.
I live way out there where it's barely in the Internet and I don't really do this,
not paying cash, and all this stuff.
But is it impossible to get away from it or not participate in that system?
I think the default is indiscriminate data collection.
We need to accept that as the kind of current standard.
I mean, I talk to people in Congress including progresses, but
even some centrists who are concerned about that and
wanna have the default be the opting out of data collection of us.
But different countries have different privacy laws and so on.
But I think the question is, is if we accept that data is constant being
collected about us by third parties, whether it's states or corporations.
And that's being used to basically influence our lives and
influence what we might buy, influence how we might feel, what we might think.
Then what I think the interventions need to be are about public interest,
labor centric, health centric, like youth health centric etc,
policies to regulate these types of systems to all audit them.
We should be creating jobs of the future to ensure that these systems do not abuse
our lives.
And so for me it's like even if you accept the de facto position that,
all this is being collected, that doesn't make us paralyzed or unable to act.
I mean, I'm on a complete mission to try to do anything I can about this.
>> So it is- >> Not even ChatGPT,
but the larger sort of trojan horse that we've all entered into.
>> Can even be seen as a generally a negative thing.
I mean, is it negative?
>> I think it's very negative, because I think part of being in a democracy is
being able to separate myself, my private self when I go home, myself hanging out
with you, and meeting you Abby, versus myself when I'm teaching at UCLA.
We should have control over our identities in relation to the context with which
we're a part.
That's not what's happening here, everything's been collected all the time.
And we also know shady groups like data brokers are using psychographic
algorithms to target us, to make us essentially drive us pretty crazy.
>> And things I feel like I know a lot of stuff.
>> That's what Cambridge Analytica did other groups like Clinton, yeah.
>> Maybe a couple years ago and I bought the Oculus.
You guys know the Oculus quest?
The, what's it called?
The, >> The goggles.
>> See now my brain is saying AI, but it's the virtual reality, right?
>> We call it a human machine interface, that's the term, yeah.
>> So, and as I had to set up the account, it goes to this whole thing and
I'm seeing choose an AV, you're living in this particular living room, you look up,
it's literally where you are.
And then the tv in the living room, was a tv and I can play YouTube videos just like
I'm watching on my tv at home and watching YouTube videos.
And I said, I could sit here for an hour.
>> Yeah. >> In this fake ass living room,
[LAUGH] Watching this fake as tv,
watching YouTube while I can watch it in real life on my couch,
which I'm still sitting on [LAUGH] in real life, and why would I want to do that?
And then after doing that, how long will I be in here?
And then after that, will I start living only as this AI that maybe I didn't wanna
have hair that day and I cut it off in the AI version of my life,
and I start interacting with the people who are also sitting in their lives.
Like, yes, this is when I'm becoming the old man going,
now we're starting to lose identity on actual human interaction, and
it's an age old thing to say, but how close are we to that reality?
>> I mean pretty fun for us to play games and to enter different worlds,
that I'm not inherently saying that like doing virtual reality, or
is an issue, or playing video games.
It's more that, who knew, did know when you were wearing Oculus that everything
was being collected- >> Right.
>> About you while you had Oculus.
>> See I assumed so. >> That's the question.
>> Still not the way which you can avoid that.
Once you bought it, it's I guess over.
>> It's part of meta.
I mean it's one of the- >> Yeah.
>> Products, Facebook's products, yeah.
Yeah, and that's just, Sorry Abby, I feel like I've-
>> Yeah sorry.
>> It's okay, I know y'all were having fun in the conversation.
I guess I would just say like this is a conversation that's coming up in
the legal field as well, and more so on the benefits, right?
So when you think about public defenders who have 700 cases that they
are trying to manage at one time, producing all those memos, and
petitions, and things like that could be fairly difficult on one person.
And so, I know the conversations have been coming up around how that could actually
help our legal system and help kind of move things along in the legal system.
On the other spectrum, there is a conversation about its accuracy, right?
So I believe- >> Yeah.
>> There was an experiment done not too long ago, where a group of individuals
question ChatGPT about like some Supreme Court justices, right?
And they had it take a law school exam, and I think it scored like a D minus or
something like that, right?
So it goes to show you the accuracy this type of intelligence and what we're using.
So I think we have to be really careful and
mindful of still using our critical thinking skills, and research skills.
Because that could be a problem where people are expecting a particular answer
or response from these machines, right?
And not back checking, and not doing research, and things for themselves.
And now you're just believing everything you hear even though it could
potentially be foul.
>> Yeah I totally, I totally agree.
I mean, we've seen a few different examples over the last few years that
really show, how if you simply bow to these computational systems,
what we call big data systems, they're just scrape patterns based on stimuli,
how it can end up pushing out misogynist, racist,
essentially psychotic kind of outcomes, right?
So Google its image recognition algorithm was unable to tell
the distinction between certain images of black people and gorillas.
It started labeling them as gorillas.
Microsoft created what's called theChatBot,
which is like a bot that you put on Twitter to hang out and chat with people.
Within three days it started turning racist, xenophobic,
misogynist, and started hashtaging mega on it.
>> Jesus. >> And it had to be shut down, right?
So, this is why what we call content moderators who should
be people paid a living wage, who should be journalists, and
it should be part of the economy of the future, are so important.
Because they ensure the safety of these feeds.
Do you know who are the content moderators for ChatGPT?
Do you know by any chance Abby.
>> No. >> They're people be paid $1 an hour
approximately in Nairobi Kenya.
And they will be phased out soon.
And it's very similar to people who were doing this for Facebook.
They were people in the Philippines who encountered great amounts of PTSD cuz
they're being exposed to the most heinous content.
>> But why there, why those folks?
>> Cheap labor.
[CROSSTALK] >> What decision making process based off-
>> English speaking country, cheap labor,
and they are an intermediate stage to a complete phase out of it.
Because Elon Musk on Twitter wants to have no content moderators essentially.
Or he said, we're gonna phase that out and we're just gonna give in to the system and
technology will just be efficient, whatever that means.
>> I talk a lot about that movie.
I robot [LAUGH] I know this is different.
>> I never saw that actually.
>> Not even, how about Ag Akunna?
>> That's one of my favorite.
>> I didn't see it.
Which one is it?
[CROSSTALK] >> I don't know.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah, but it's a good movie, but
I think that's even more telling about where we're going in terms of technology,
and essentially how dangerous it could be if there is no moderation, on top of how
dangerous the individuals that are creating these systems can become.
>> That's why it's a huge opportunity for
it to be driven by a certain set of values.
And we need people who are civil rights oriented people, gender rights oriented
people, journalists, people who care about the public interest.
They should be working with technology companies.
For me as a former engineer,
in none of my engineering classes do we learn any of this stuff.
Even at UCLA right now, like all the computer science professors are like,
hey Ramesh, we need an ethics class.
Can you help us?
Like, can you teach that class?
Can we just have your class be the ethics class?
I'm like, what do you mean by ethics?
Ethics is a trap door for
everything that is not sort of blind technical engineering.
But when you engineer for society and you don't really know anything about society,
let alone elevate the power of society, you engage in social engineering.
>> We all thought it would be just, purpose, I mean there's some driven behind
it where obviously you know the process, you're not the only person in the world
who does, and then- >> Yeah.
>> We're willing to accept- >> Easy needed, a lot of my colleges,
journalists colleges, yeah.
>> Yeah, and just know how it's gonna work, but then we'll accept it.
Like you said, they're asking to teach the ethics part,
but who's the person who's against that being taught or that information being
spread and people understanding the way these things really work?
Well, good stuff.
One last thing that you did mention you when you were
traveling- >> Yeah.
>> And the reasons why these particular countries that you went to and
your interaction with- >> Yeah.
>> Human face this really fast.
>> Yeah, I actually was on the damage report from a temple town in South India.
I was out of the country the most of the last eight months on what they call
a sabbatical.
I was working on a new book.
I was spending time in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and in India.
And I was looking at examples of technologies of all types that
people are creating, that are not based on the individual,
because all of our technologies target us as individuals, right?
They collect data based on, I'm gonna gather data about Jayar as an individual.
All your historical data.
But I was looking at examples of people building digital networks together,
that they own together.
I was taking examples from, and I will talk about this more another time,
people taking electronic waste or waste of all kinds and
creating new value out of that waste, breathing life into things that are dead.
So here's a crazy example, 3D printers are being built in
Nairobi by a bunch of entrepreneurs, street level entrepreneurs,
in Swahili they're called [FOREIGN], which means hot sun.
And they're building those 3D printers out of completely like dumpster diving,
all electronic waste, like chip boards from photocopiers that are abandoned.
Even the plastic that the 3D printers print from,
they're able to turn into the resin that that printers use by using convection and
conduction, heating it and clamping it.
So they are able to print, thousands of microscopes that are in schools,
all over East Africa, that never could have afforded a microscope otherwise.
Because they built everything out of waste.
And why are they doing that?
I don't want to fetishize them.
That is exemplifying a very unequal world.
But it's about the power of human creativity to guide and think about and
conceive of technology in a way that we all really need to
recognize right now with climate and so many other things.
Whether we like it or not, we're kind of all in it together.
So technologies that individuated us, and atomize us, and polarize us, and
isolate us are the exact opposite of that.
So my new book is likely gonna be about technologies that bring people together.
And that's not about technology.
It's never been about technology.
It's about what we choose to- >> Yeah.
>> Stand for as human beings.
>> And now it's all about communication, and interactions, and all that.
We don't think about it technologically wise.