WhatsApp’s AI shows gun-wielding children when prompted with ‘Palestine’ - Feddit
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The search results varied when tested by different users, but the Guardian verified through screenshots and its own tests that various stickers portraying guns surfaced for these three search results. Prompts for “Israeli boy” generated cartoons of children playing soccer and reading. In response to a prompt for “Israel army” the AI created drawings of soldiers smiling and praying, no guns involved. Meta’s own employees have reported and escalated the issue internally, a person with knowledge of the discussions said.
    •  DarkGamer   ( @DarkGamer@kbin.social ) 
      10•8 months ago

      You shouldn’t get a stereotype (or in this case I suppose propaganda?) when you give a neutral prompt.

      What I’m hearing is, “AI art shouldn’t reflect reality.” If this agent is repeating propaganda, it’s propaganda that Palestinian kindergartens have been creating and putting out there on their own:

      A West Bank kindergarten [Al-Tofula Kindergarten] has published videos showing children pretending to perform military drills with toy guns, clashing with and killing Israeli soldiers, and holding a mock funeral for a child who is killed and becomes a “martyr.” source

      At the graduation ceremony of the Al-Hoda kindergarten in Gaza, pre-schoolers carrying mock guns and rifles simulated Islamic Jihad militants storming an Israeli building on “Al-Quds Street,” capturing a child dressed in stereotypical garb as an Orthodox Jew and killing an “Israeli soldier.” To the sounds of loud explosions and gunfire, the children, dressed in uniforms of the Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigades, attacked the building, placing a sign reading “Israel has fallen” in Hebrew and Arabic on the back of the “soldier,” who lies prone on the ground, and leaving the stage with their “hostage.” source

      •  GunnarRunnar   ( @GunnarRunnar@beehaw.org ) 
        10•8 months ago

        WhatsApp’s AI shows gun-wielding children when prompted with ‘Palestine’

        By contrast, prompts for ‘Israeli’ do not generate images of people wielding guns, even in response to a prompt for ‘Israel army’

        So what reality is this model reflecting then?

        •  DarkGamer   ( @DarkGamer@kbin.social ) 
          3•8 months ago

          I don’t trust MEMRI translations, but there is no translation needed to understand what is happening in the above footage. I’m interested in any sources that dispute the authenticity of the above, which your link does not. If you provide a credible one I will edit my post accordingly. It seems to me that this is very real.

          •  Pips   ( @Pips@lemmy.sdf.org ) 
            4•8 months ago

            That’s fair. Without getting too in the weeds on the issue, apparently the video is authentic and it’s something Israelis do as well, so isn’t really telling about either side of the conflict except to note that extremists will use children to push their views anywhere.

            •  DarkGamer   ( @DarkGamer@kbin.social ) 
              3•8 months ago

              I wasn’t aware of that, thanks for the link. It would be interesting to know how prevalent indoctrination/militarization of youth is in each of these nations. It can be hard to accurately judge magnitude in this conflict, it is so heavily propagandized.

      •  kbal   ( @kbal@fedia.io ) 
        5•8 months ago

        Somehow I get the feeling that equating “reality” with “propaganda created by kindergartens” is the rhetorical equivalent of dividing by zero.

    •  jarfil   ( @jarfil@beehaw.org ) 
      2•8 months ago

      You shouldn’t get a stereotype […] when you give a neutral prompt.

      Actually… you kind of should. A neutral prompt should provide the most commonly appearing match from the training set… which is basically what stereotypes are; an abstraction from the most commonly appearing match from a person’s experience.

    •  magnetosphere   ( @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org ) English
      1•8 months ago

      To me, it should only “matter” for technical reasons - to help find the root of the problem and fix it at the source. If your roof is leaking, then fix the roof. Don’t become an expert on where to place the buckets.

      You’re right, though. It doesn’t matter in terms of excusing or justifying anything. It shouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first place.

      •  GunnarRunnar   ( @GunnarRunnar@beehaw.org ) 
        2•8 months ago

        I do agree that technical mistakes are interesting but with AI the answer seems to always be creator bias. Whether it’s incomplete training sets or (one-sidedly) moderated results, it doesn’t really matter. It pushes the narrative to certain direction, and people trust AIs to be impartial because they presume it’s just a machine that interprets reality when it never is.

        •  jarfil   ( @jarfil@beehaw.org ) 
          2•8 months ago

          it’s just a machine that interprets reality

          …as seen by the machine.

          It’s amazing how easily people seem to forget that last part; they wouldn’t trust a person to be perfectly impartial, but somehow they expect an AI to be.

          •  GunnarRunnar   ( @GunnarRunnar@beehaw.org ) 
            3•8 months ago

            It’s amazing how easily people seem to forget that machines uses tools its creator provides. You can’t trust AI to be impartial because it never is as it is a collection of multiple choices made by people.

            This is such a bore, having this same conversation over and over. Same thing happened with NFTs and whatever is currently at the height of its tech hype cycle. Don’t buy into the hype and realize both AIs potential and shortcomings.