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YouTube, Facebook and many other media platforms are facing a problem: a lot of smut is distributed through their channels. That has always been the case but, recently, it has become a threat since extremists of all sorts have begun to use their channels to spread propagandist and violence-glorifying content. As new privacy laws are passed and advertising sponsors put on the pressure, the media giants have to either find better ways to handle the deluge of user posts or risk hefty fines. Artificial intelligence (AI) has been touted as the magic bullet but are algorithms really the solution?
To give you an idea of the scope I'm talking about: 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute - and counting. It would require hundreds of thousands of workers to review and, if necessary, delete them. And it's a golden opportunity to become a big employer - Google has the funds after all! Instead of a measly 80,000 employees world-wide, 2,500,000 additional jobs could be created to give back a few of those billions to the community. Naturally, that's out of the question. Profits would be declining and share holders surely threaten with self-immolation. That's why Google is leaving this issue in the hands of technology.
Here's the plan: human workers have marked 2 million videos for deletion by adding certain markers to further specify the cause. Self-learning machines analyze the data and scan both audio and video tracks to learn about humans and objects in context (or situations). Even text overlays along with political or religious symbols are recognized. The objective: to find and remove v iolence-glorifying content, terrorist propaganda, hate speech, SPAM and, naturally, nudity.
Today, artificial intelligence has already replaced many human workers.
The algorithms are continuously refined with each iteration. Which videos are showing a bombing, swastika or uncovered female breast? In the past, censors were already quite swift when it came to pornography but other illegal content is now also slowly coming into focus. Affected videos are marked and later deleted from the portal. Of over 8 million recently deleted videos, a whopping 6,6 million were identified through AI while human workers and user feedback did the rest. Many videos hadn't even become publicly viewable yet, while the video portal is celebrating, the devil is in the detail.
As of late, problem cases have been piling up since the technology doesn't always act as intended. War crime documentaries that serve to foster education were erroneously deleted and so were historical movies. The algorithms detected the depiction of inhuman practices but failed to grasp the intention behind the movies. Such are the limits of AI to this day: it can spot questionable content but it can't decipher the rationale behind it (yet). The same applies to nudity: nude paintings, as common in the fine arts, also met with disapproval from the virtual jury and were likewise deleted. After all, how can algorithms tell the difference between artful nudity and obscene home videos? It seems companies c an't do without common (human) sense just yet.
Which of the countless videos contain illegal content?
Satire is also beyond a machine's comprehension. While many of us can laugh at Monty Python's Nazi jokes, computers are totally devoid of any sense of humor. The closer the jokes stick to the "original", the quicker they'll face automated deletion. That's why many users see signs of of a digital inquisition on the horizon. Though they welcome YouTube's struggle to no longer be a cesspool of extremist, hateful or confused minds, they criticize the shotgun approach exhibited by the AI. Today, investigative journalists or organizations that document war crimes are facing permanent suspension of their channels. Even G-rated garden party videos are deleted because the AI misinterprets bare skin. By contrast, videos uploaded by pedophiles stay up because these people know how to exploit the AI's weaknesses through subtlety. No algorithm can decipher the many possible shades to a topic (yet).
It seems, human workers will remain indispensable for some time to come to evaluate said shades and YouTube will have to comply with some form of binding standard to stay relevant. They will also have to be more transparent: presently, users receive no explanation as to why their videos were blocked. YouTube has vowed to respond quicker to questions and to provide insights into the implementation of their guidelines. That should be a given, but, in the case YouTube, it actually means progress. They've also recruited additional staff, if only in moderation. Apparently, YouTube themselves don't trust their AI very much and that's at least some comfort.
What I would like to know: do you believe artificial intelligence is the way to go here or is common (human) sense still a necessity?
Reply to Bernard Kominski.
You stated that ," Caterpillars have no BRAIN or conscience." ....caterpillars have awareness, they are not dumb or stupid, in reality are far more intelligent than humans.
What gives you the right to make that statement of which is incorrect....you do not have a way of knowing the life of a caterpillar or any other of Earth's creatures.
Incorrect also is HAVE no brain, no creatures can HAVE nothing, 'do NOT have' is correct English.
Please read my initial comment and try to understand at what level on the ladder of life do human beings exist.
The bottom of the ladder of creatures is where, other creatures do not try to create a machine which is superior to themselves.
................
Note*, I cannot say, "I HAVE no money", to have is a verb,, meaning to have or own something, and this is an action of human intelligence which is causing the English language to be used INCORRECTLY in many instances, as above.
I do not have any interest in any artificial products created by humans, my intelligence surpasses the need to be subservient to human, unintelligent inventions because the awareness of the inventions and use thereof proves that human intelligence also has a level of awareness, which differs among human creatures.
The awareness of a caterpillar being aware of where it belongs is supremely superior to human creatures who continue to be unaware of where they belong in the one and only life they have.
Avoiding a solution (paid crowdsourcing) to maximize profits will never be the correct answer, not because it's worshipping The Almighty Profit (never a worthy cause), but because it's avoiding a solution, one that could be implemented instantly in comparison to AI. Google has more than enough cash and wherewithal to figure something out that leverages peoople, but they no longer appear to be the "do no evil" of their beginnings. Most likely they will press that AI is the "only" solution and allow the festering to continue until they have something that's marketable for all manner of other not necessarily Constitutional purposes beyond filtering obscene video. In the interim we have the status quo. It's good that at least advertisers are pushing back; they need to push harder.
Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron because intelligence can never be artificial due to awareness being a part of human intelligence, then add the multitude of inexplicable human 'feelings' as part of the awareness.
If we look for awareness we can’t find anything to grasp, it is empty yet not a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative, alert, radiant, self-realising.
Awareness is empty and fundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid.
If we look for space we don’t find anything there. Nobody has ever touched or grasped space directly, but unlike space, awareness can at least be measured directly.
It can measure itself, it knows its own nature.
Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, the underlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come to be, that is unanswerable.
What is it, that is unanswerable as well, but there is no doubt that awareness is taking place.
Each sentient being has a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.
Humans are inferior creatures in this world of creatures and use that intelligence to build 'machines' which only increases their inferiority due to trying to create a 'machine which is superior to themselves.
The proof is in this article, an Al cannot be created to be aware of the difference between good and evil.
Hello Sven
How come you posted my response at 7:29 Twice.
Its interesting because on the topic of computer or any intelligence no body actually noticed it.
That is a typical computer like programed algorithm response.
I am interested to hear your explanation why that happened.
It was an accident I did not send it twice...
see what happens...
Of course, I read every comment. But sometimes I´m sleepy or distracted. :)
I couldn’t sleep so researched the meaning of intelligence and found there are many definitions.
Then I FOUND MY RESPONSE WAS POSTED 2X like as if a computer read and accepted it. Oh boy. Did you actually read my post Sven..WHY PUBLISH it 2x. Are you a computer???
Read on for real intelligence.. As in the great game of survival...
The example below is definitely an intelligent action.
In Assam in India a caterpillar bites the stem of a leaf so it dries out and curls up. Previously it attached the leaf to the twig so it does not fall to the ground. (Some people might forget to do that). The caterpillar then moves on and repeats the procedure with 7 or more leaves, before it eventually cocoons itself in one of them. It almost looks like the caterpillar understands bird psychology. When a bird pecks at one of the brownish leaves, finds nothing then tries a couple more, it loses interest and flies away. Even if the bird gets lucky and finds a snack the first time, the intelligent camouflage trick is still useful, the bird now painstakingly tries every leaf expecting another snack and flies away disappointed after not hitting the Jackpot. Birds learn by experience so the bird will probably not enthusiastically target leaves anymore.
For me that is true intelligence and even if you call it instinct...
Still it had to be learned, or come from somewhere. Caterpillars have no BRAIN or conscience. We seem to think that intelligence cannot exist without brains. Maybe intelligent actions can one day in the far future exist as code run as 0 and 1's or even an in between.
Humans have this anthropocentric viewpoint that the world exists just for us. We could be in for a surprise one day. But not so much from Google.
Humans with a brain for finance use a similar trick to hide money from the taxman, by having numerous shell companies and bank accounts. If a caterpillar without a brain can perform this intelligent trick, perhaps one day we can recreate this artificially using a computer. That would be AI.
Great blog Sven. Are you a computer?
It seems to me that there should be different levels of AI - level one could detect the most obvious no - nos; level two could submit questionable material for human approval - a two-prong approach.
In my opinion, there will always be the need for human intervention, because along with the perfection of said AI we as the human species are always evolving. However good AI gets to be I personally believe that, forget what you see in Science Fiction, the human factor will always be a step ahead of AI, only if WE stay smart. Tools are supposed to be created to HELP us and as long as we subscribe to that theory we'll be ok.
Sven, I LOVE your articles and most of what you write about opens up a lot of brain thinking time, which is GOOD for us, by the way. Please keep it going.........
I think most religious matter should be banned, mainly because a lot of so-calledd religions have been and indeed still are guilty of child abuse and also war mongering, most of the wars throughout history have been relion oriented also the child abuse is still being practist by strong religious groups even up to the present time and so deserve to be blocked by all internet media, becuse how can the technoligy be expected to seperate the the good and genuine from the objectional
Most of us expect our children to have sexual experiences - we hope that they will be romantic, consensual and full of love.
Most (All?) of us hope that they do not have violent experiences.
The censorship regime at the moment would tend to reinforce the opposite - violence is used as a sex-substitute,
You can show a female being cut in half by a machine gun as long as you can't see bare breasts.
The difference between the various regional film styles is marked, however watching a movie with sub-titles can be distracting. I tend to prefer European styles of movies, although many would not pass American censorship without cuts and an AI would probably not leave any coherent plot.
C.
Beware of unquestioned presumptions being passed off as given to be used as invisible levers to create a paradigm shift in society. Confucious once said that if he ruled the World he would change the names for things to better reflect the goodness or otherwise in them. Nowadays this kind of social control is employed wholesale by the cognoscentii.
This subliminal kind of aural manipulation occurs today with an increasing regularity so words like homosexual become transcribed into the word gay thus perceptions and preconceptions are changed. Hey presto what was once a curseword that once threatened incarceration or worse becomes a honorary title..a platform to reinforce a person's identity.
We are the people of our time our store of preferences and prejudices are socially manufactured just like any other facet of our existentialism. Whether this constructed consensus be a fount of accumulated wisdom is debatable the trends that influence us seem to be emanating from an ever less representative sectors of our present day societies.
The idea that something is wrong or bad is sometimes a specious imposition promoted to inhibit the speculations in our imaginations rather than serve to enlighten our present day lives.
I agree with Dennis Cambly, AI is not the solution as it has not reached the level of investigative humans. Humans can, with a set of guidelines and the capability to determine the difference between amoral and moral writings and video or graphic content as well as fake and real news that comes from encrypted URLs.
Teams of humans with good educations and computer skills could do this from home systems that are secured with malware and virus packages and behind VPNs. And as Dennis points out the major browser companies should be part and parcel to the defining and train the individuals that are required for such a task.
The question is easy to answer with our current level of technology.
No! Artificial Intelligence is not advanced enough to make the right decisions with a success rate acceptable by Dennis, others and myself.
After all lines of code running on fast computers, just based on
algorithms and programmed responses, of images that are evaluated and processed according to numerical values from hash tables, like the next best move in a game of chess, are not really classed as intelligence.
It is the cheapest solution for Google, but also provides them with a reason to further research and develop this technology in an extremely complicated application.
Imagine what it would be worth to Google if they improve this
technology so it is correct in about 95-98% ... Its sad but poor
Dennis and others are collateral damage, important to google probably only as a statistic that needs improving.
Great blog Sven, always interesting.
Nations need to get together to bring strict internet identity laws so you need a unique national insurance like number to use the internet and for that to be well policed. Then the likes of Facebook and Google can have pressure applied to more effectively ban the accounts of abusers and for every new account they make to have a criminal record due to the number of times they need to apply for a new (pay-for) license to get their use of internet back. So what I propose is a fines and criminal record model, applied strictly. Many will cry that such rigid control is an infringement on our human rights and internet liberty, but I think that is a small price to pay to get a safe and well behaved environment in which platforms should operate.
The problem here revolves around just how "intelligent" is artificial intelligence? At present, in terms of being able to apply interpretative aspects to its "knowledge" as described above for humans, artificial intelligence is particularly dumb. Solving this is a challenge receiving much attention but how long it will take to achieve a more "human" intelligence, to be capable of the needed contextual interpretation, is any body's guess.
Ultimately, the amount of material that needs processing is far too large to be successfully handled by humans, so artificial intelligence, with all of its current limitations, must play a part in the scrutiny of material. But the present role of artificial intelligence needs to be reviewed. Perhaps when material is to be removed due to assessment by artificial intelligence, the person or organisation who placed the material should be advised and given the opportunity to justify the posting.
This should not mean that many millions of protests will need to be handled manually, as only legitimate cases will lodge an objection (or is that too idealistic?).
Far from perfect of course, but a possible interim approach to a serious issue that must be treated more thoroughly than at present.
humans not ai
AI depends on the values, spirit and heart of people and that is difficult to include in any 'programmed' software. Basically there are only 2 world views inherent in any human discourse, a God inspired Spirit led one which represents truth and light or a Satan inspired one with its lies and aversion to truth, bringing distortion and darkness. One cannot discern what is false and a lie without a Spiritual infusion or transformation, that is what will arrest and stop things, without that people will continue to be fooled and deceived and 'authorities' will continue to be ineffective and part of the problem.
The words 'artificial intelligence' is the answer to the question. It's nothing more than wires, plastic and metal parts. Another overblown excuse to delete photos and videos a piece of machinery will never understand. Due to my sarcasm a blog I was keeping was terminated and everything lost after 7 years. Was it AI or someone who misunderstood what I was saying? Recent attacks by those who believe they are morally righteous have hit YouTube videos with the word 'gay' in them and YouTube does delete them.
Google could hire a much smaller group of people and let them work from their homes to review videos. They won't nor will Facebook while pretending AI is will do a better job when in fact it will not. Sneaky plans for a pretentious service all in the name of censorship by the few against the many.