The bad business of AI powered peace — #88

Hi, and welcome to the 88th edition of this crazy newsletter. I just realised I’m only 12 weeks away from 100, so I guess it’s time to start planning the party.

This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about critical thinking and the difference between “thinking critically” and “questioning” the established view. Is there a difference?

My conclusion so far is that while questioning things is fundamental to thinking critically, you need a certain depth of analytical and logical evaluation for the practice to pass as critical thinking.

Questioning is for the intellectually lazy. Critical thinking involves specific skills and approaches to evaluating information and arguments. It includes analysing arguments, considering alternative perspectives, and drawing conclusions based on sound evidence, logic, and reasoning. And Reddit or your next-door neighbour rarely reaches the threshold for “sound evidence”.

What do you think?

Also, Happy birthday to my Mum! Thank you for teaching me to think critically and for reading my newsletter with curiosity every Sunday.

Anna

Artificial Intelligence is capable of going to war

TECHNOLOGY / ETHICS

Palantir, an American intelligence company founded and owned by billionaire Peter Thiel, has unveiled its latest product, the “Palantir Artificial Intelligence Platform” (AIP), in a video demo this week. It shows a future where military capabilities involve automating and abstracting even more systems than today, with little human intervention.

“LLMs and algorithms must be controlled in this highly regulated and sensitive context to ensure that they are used in a legal and ethical way,” the video begins. The demo then continues by showing a military operator using the tool to monitor the Eastern European border, discovering enemy forces gathering nearby. The operator uses a digital assistant, like ChatGPT, to request help deploying reconnaissance drones, creating tactical responses, and even jamming the enemy’s communications. The tool helps estimate the enemy’s composition and capabilities by launching a reconnaissance drone and suggesting appropriate responses. The human “operator” does nothing beyond asking the chatbot what to do and approving its actions.

Palantir is not selling a military-specific AI or large language model (LLM), but instead offering to integrate existing systems into a controlled environment. The AIP supports different open-source LLMs, but these systems have known issues, such as making things up or “hallucinating.” Palantir offers the illusion of safety and control for defence departments worldwide as it adopts AI, with AIP’s security features controlling what LLMs and AI can and cannot do.

While AIP allegedly offers “industry-leading guardrails” and frameworks to make the use of military AI “ethical” and “legal,” it does not address the various pernicious problems of LLMs and their consequences in a military context.

Fox News cuts ties with Tucker Carlson after settled lawsuit over election lies

BUSINESS / POLITICS

Fox News has severed ties with Tucker Carlson, the right-wing extremist who has used his prime-time perch at the network to exert a firm grip over the Republican Party. Carlson has been the highest-rated single host at Fox News and has propelled himself to stardom in recent years by using his platform to promote conspiracy theories and radical rhetoric, sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election and promoting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines while also elevating white nationalist talking points.

Fox News did not explain his ouster. However, Carlson’s departure comes one week after the network settled a monster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over the network’s dissemination of election lies. Additionally, a lawsuit filed in March by his now-fired top booker, Abby Grossberg, included allegations of rampant sexism and misogyny among the team of Tucker Carlson’s show.

The decision to oust Carlson allegedly came from Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old Fox owner, with input from his son and Fox Corporation CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott.

While it is unlikely that Fox News will stray too far from the right-wing talk that its loyal audience tunes in nightly for, shares of Fox Corp fell 5% on the news of Carlson’s departure. Fox News said that, for now, Carlson’s 8 p.m. time slot will be filled by rotating hosts.

AI-generated political ads are here, and everyone is unprepared

TECHNOLOGY / POLITICS

AI-generated political ads are a reality, and no one seems prepared, including voters and candidates. This week, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released the first-ever campaign video composed entirely of video made by artificial intelligence. It shows a hypothetical dystopian future where President Biden is re-elected, banks collapse, China invades Taiwan, and the military cordons off San Francisco after being overrun by immigrants, gangs, and drugs.

While the RNC explicitly released the ad as AI-generated and labelled it as such, it marks the beginning of a new era where it will become impossible for voters to discern truth from lies. Deepfake videos depicting content challenging to differentiate from actual events are closer than ever. AI is becoming more sophisticated, and candidates and campaigns are just beginning to grapple with practical and ethical concerns over AI-produced content creeping into politics.

Campaign strategists in both parties told VICE that they doubt candidates and party committees will be willing to risk including fake, AI-generated videos in TV campaign ads. But we should worry more about anonymous individuals online, with no accountability or moral scruples, creating deepfake videos and distributing them at low risk of consequences.

While this specific use case is new, we have recently seen deepfake technology used in attempted propaganda. For example, China and Russia have been using deepfake technology to create videos that feature Western news anchors pushing propaganda.

Double-check the headlines

Just making sure you didn’t miss any major world events this week.

• Western Countries have been evacuating citizens from Sudan, where the conflict worsens an already severely underfunded humanitarian crisis.

• Joe Biden announced that he is running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to extend the run of America’s oldest president for four more years.

• Russian aerial attacks across Ukraine killed at least 25, including five children. A Ukrainian counterattack then set fire to a Russian fuel deposit.

• Montana signed a bill into law restricting transition care for transgender minors, joining about a dozen states that have adopted similar laws this year.

• British antitrust regulators blocked Microsoft’s plans to acquire the video game giant Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.

• After a maritime confrontation, the Philippines accused China’s coast guard of “dangerous manoeuvres” and “aggressive tactics” in the South China Sea.

• The devastating drought in the Horn of Africa, stretching five failed rainy seasons, would not have occurred without human-caused climate change.

• The United States will send nuclear submarines to protect South Korea against a nuclear attack from North Korea.

• According to a new estimate from the United Nations, India will overtake China as the most populous nation by the end of April.

• Global military expenditure increased by 3.7 % in 2022, reaching a new high of $2240 billion. EU countries have increased their spending the most. Still, the United States, China and Russia accounted for 56 % of the world total.

One long

The Unpublishable

Eat The Rich, Steal Their Skin?

How the “no make-up” trend is ultimately about wealth and class.

Five short

1. Watch

The film “On the Basis of Sex” about Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back on Netflix. It follows RBG’s journey challenging gender discrimination in the United States and ultimately becoming a Supreme Court Justice.

It gives us a glimpse into her challenges as a woman in a male-dominated legal profession and how she fought tirelessly for gender equality and women’s rights. And if you’ve ever watched Legally Blonde, this is a great complementary view on women attending Harvard Law School.

2. Listen

What is creativity, and how does it differ from intelligence? This episode of The Psychology Podcast dives into this question and provides some great insights.

3. Remember

May is objectively one of the best months in the Northern Hemisphere. It starts tomorrow; treasure it.

4. Change

I’ve decided to spend the last hour of my Friday workday cleaning my inbox. I snooze any unfinished email business and make the messages reappear at an intentional point in time on an upcoming workday.

It’s a minor habit, but it makes the weekend feel different.

5. Try

The New York Times has gathered twenty super simple recipes for people who don’t have the energy to cook. I felt like the target audience, and I guess I will rotate these dishes from now on. (And yes, grilled cheese made the list.)

Thank you for reading! Every time a post gets shared, it makes me very happy. /Anna