Joe Biden Wants US Government Algorithms Tested for Potential Harm Against Citizens

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨jeffw@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.wired.com/story/joe-biden-wants-us-government-algorithms-tested-for-potential-harm-against-citizens/

Highlights: The White House issued draft rules today that would require federal agencies to evaluate and constantly monitor algorithms used in health care, law enforcement, and housing for potential discrimination or other harmful effects on human rights.

Once in effect, the rules could force changes in US government activity dependent on AI, such as the FBI’s use of face recognition technology, which has been criticized for not taking steps called for by Congress to protect civil liberties. The new rules would require government agencies to assess existing algorithms by August 2024 and stop using any that don’t comply.

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KeraKali@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“If the benefits do not meaningfully outweigh the risks, agencies should not use the AI,” the memo says. But the draft memo carves out an exemption for models that deal with national security and allows agencies to effectively issue themselves waivers if ending use of an AI model “would create an unacceptable impediment to critical agency operations.”

Thus tells me that nothing is going to change if people can just say their algoriths would make them too inefficient. Great sentiment but this loophole will make it useless.

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- paris@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This seems to me like an exception that would realistically only apply to the CIA, NSA, and sometimes the FBI. I doubt the Department of Housing and Urban Development will get a pass. Overall seems like a good change in a good direction.
  
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  - mememuseum@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The CIA and NSA are exactly who we don’t want using it though.
    
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  - postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Algorithms that gerrymander voting district boundries might be an early battleground.
    
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  - BearOfaTime@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    “Realistically” baahahaba. Right.
    
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- masquenox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  Great sentiment but
  
  It’s not a “great sentiment” - it’s essentially just more of the same liberal “let’s pretend we care by doing something completely ineffective” posturing and little else.
  
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- postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Folksy narrator: “Turns out, the U.S. government can not operate without racism.”
  
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- intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Democrats are so fucking naive. They actually think that a system of permission slips is sufficient to protect us from the singularity.
  
  OpenAI’s original mission, before they forgot it, was the only workable method: distribute the AI far and wide to establish a multipolar ecosystem.
  
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Cris_Color@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I mean that broadly seems like a good thing. Execution is important, but on paper this seems like the kind of forward thinking policy we need

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- pandacoder@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Quite frankly it didn’t put enough restrictions on the various “national security” agencies, and so while it may help to stem the tide of irresponsible usage by many of the lesser-impact agencies, it doesn’t do the same for the agencies that we know will be the worst offenders (and have been the worst offenders).
  
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  - remus989@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I really don’t understand the downvotes on this comment…
    
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Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Hell fucking yea. Who is this Biden guy?

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- OniiFam@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Another W from Biden and extreme leftist will still say he did nothing. 😔
  
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  - tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Extremes hate everything, so it doesn’t really matter what they think.
    
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  - southsamurai@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Nah, if this sticks, my extreme leftist ass will sing his praises.
    
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  - pandacoder@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He did something: add national security loopholes
    
    The worst possible offenders aren’t really being reined in by this executive order.
    
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  - Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    As an extreme leftist, this rings hollow.
    
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- liquidparasyte@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Dark Brandon is Awake.
  
  I wish he was around more often than Sleepy Joe. 😔
  
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  - Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Sleepy Joe is just a manufactured slur by a demented idiot supported only by second-long video clips of Biden between going to meetings and making changes.
    
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twisted28@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wait til he hears about our health care lmao

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- doctorcrimson@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  They know, the DNC wanted single payer initially and compromised and they’ve been the party with a single payer platform ever since.
  
  If the DNC at any point had the house and 2/3rds of the Senate then we would have Single Payer Health Care right now. We don’t because they can’t.
  
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intensely_human@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I swear to god there has to be an entire chapter in Gödel Escher Bach about how this is literally impossible.

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- Sparlock@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Wow it’s been years since I read GEB…
  I should revisit it. Thanks!
  
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- Asifall@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You’re never going to be able to formally prove anything as nebulous as “harm” full stop, so this isn’t a very convincing argument imo.
  
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- postmateDumbass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Achilles: /facepalm
  
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db2@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Joe Biden probably has no idea what most of those words mean, let’s be honest here. He’s only the president because the only other option we were given was worse.

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- Motavader@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  So what? The biggest part of picking a President is the people they’re going to put in their cabinet and surround themselves with. That’s the problem with Trump. He’s going to fill the presidency with a bunch of maga ass hats, on top of doing his own damage.
  
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- 5BC2E7@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Just because some of us understand this issue better than him it doesn’t mean that we should expect him to understand everything at the same level as if he worked in the area… it’s impossible he can’t be an expert economist, computer scientist, anthropologist, chemist, biologist, etc… rolled into one.
  
  For the record I don’t think he is a great president.
  
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  - phillaholic@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You cannot judge how great a President was until long after they are out of office. Good things usually take time. Bad things can be immediate.
    
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- dannoffs@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  He’s only the president because the only other option we were given was worse.
  
  Not if you ask the freaks in /r/neoliberal. They think he’s the best president ever and that his only problem is a bad PR team lmao
  
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  - phillaholic@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    He’s absolutely fine, and the vast majority of complaints I’ve seen fundamentally misunderstand the limits of the Presidency and why an experienced politician has rightful reasons to be cautious about the consequences of radical actions. Populists love to fill your head up with great ideas, but gloss over or ignore the consequences. Some end up lying about it others aren’t effective. Experienced politicians aren’t flashy but get things done step by step.
    
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- Granixo@feddit.cl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You’re wrong, but you’re actually right.
  
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  - db2@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m only “wrong” because others are reading something other than what I said. I’m gratified that at least one person understood though.
    
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bioemerl@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
As long as he doesn't start getting in the way of open source algorithms were fine.

Delay llama 3 and I'm voting for whoever runs against Biden.

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- Assman@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Pretty dumb dawg. The people running against him want christofascism. Not becoming the Christian version of Iran is my single issue.
  
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  - tsonfeir@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Kbin, what do you expect.
    
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- krellor@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I don't think you have anything to worry about. All this requires is that any models used by the government are tested for bias. Which is a good thing.
  
  Go ask an early generation ai image generator to make pictures of people cleaning and it will give you a bunch of pictures of women. There are all sorts of examples of racial, sex, and religious biases in the models because of the data they were trained on.
  
  Requiring the executive agencies to test for bias is a good thing.
  
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- aniki@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  [deleted]
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  - PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    The same way they do it with crypto bullshit I’d imagine. Prosecute people for export.
    
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  - bioemerl@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Pretty darn easily given that the United States controls Nvidia
    
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- PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This will entrench big tech in federal government, but I’m not too worried about limits on the government.
  
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  - bioemerl@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yeah, the only concern I have so far is the leverage of the defense powers act to require foundational model development to sent red team results to the Fed. That's a hint that will enable them to ban release of models in the future.
    
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kapx132@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Watchmen watching themselves, what could possibly go wrong right?

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- spark947@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This isn’t a comic book. Its good policy.
  
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thejodie@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Sent to my state representative. Thanks!

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endlessmeddler@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Is it already too late for us? Does anyone truly believe that will be enough to protect us?

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paf0@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Interesting. I want algorithms to warn us about potential harms by Joe Biden. What if we were able to fund an AI run by the GAO that can tell us when government decisions make the majority of our lives worse?

It’s a long way off and might be a bad idea to trust an AI outright, but I just wish we had a more data informed government.

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- Syringe@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You might be interested in data.gov. The Obama admin kicked of the Government Open Data Initiative to provide transparency in government. Agencies have been given a means to publish their data, which US taxes pay for. You’d be surprised what’s in there. It’s not an algorithm, but you could certainly build one from that if you wanted to.
  
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