That Space Cadet Glow #121

a newsletter

Andrew Burgess

Sep 30, 2021

Issue 121 - 30th September 2021

After a brief summer hiatus, the Space Cadet returns with more AI, technology, psychology and cultural gems for you. In this issue, I look at AI's elephant-in-the-room problem, a couple of really good uses of image recognition, and another experiment for a four day week.

AI's Fatal Flaw?

I've written a few times in the past about how the latest raft of massive algorithms, such as OpenAI's GPT-3, can generate offensive text because they have been trained on pretty much the whole internet, which, as we all know, has more than its fair share of offensive material. But this is the first time that one of the companies that generate these sort of algorithms, in this case Google's DeepMind, have admitted that this toxicity is unsolvable. In a pre-print paper they ran some experiments to try to detoxify the language, but (unsurprisingly) found that the mitigating actions also reduced the coverage for texts
about, and dialects of, marginalised groups. The researchers also compared humans' evaluation of the toxicity of the text and the machine's assessment and found that the machine often under-estimated how toxic its output was. The algorithm obviously doesn't have any inherent understanding of what is toxic and what isn't; it just has no clue what it is talking about (perhaps like the humans who write the toxic text in the first place?). These text-generating algorithms are likely to become a normal part of our lives in the next few years, so this admission from one of the preeminent AI companies in the world is significant. Deepmind have referred the problem to Jigsaw, Google's 'knotty problem' team. My advice to them is to remember the maxim that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

You've Been Framed

In Belgium, all the parliamentary sessions are live-streamed. What the artist Dries Depoorter noticed was that many of the politicians were scrolling on their 'phones rather than paying attention to the proceedings. So he built an AI to spot anyone looking at their 'phones, and then another AI to recognise their faces. The images are then posted automatically to Twitter and Instagram with the politician tagged. I've just checked some images from the UK parliament and we could definitely do with that here as well (although this is nothing compared to what British politicians can get up to when being live-streamed).

These are not the bricks you are looking for

Here is another brilliant use of AI image recognition. This app scans all of your Lego bricks that are spread out on the floor and makes a lightning-fast inventory of them all. It then suggests some models you can build from the pieces you have, and will even tell you where on the floor they are. The app is a fan-project but, as Lego are pretty good at listening to ideas from their customers, I'm sure it will get adopted by the firm soon. You can download the app for iPhone here, and check out the creator's website here. Next I want to see an app that scans your fridge and tells you what you can cook, and one that scans all the parts from an Ikea wardrobe and tells you to give up now.

Scotland the Brave

Only 16 out of the 525 members of Scotland's ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) voted against trialling a 4-day-week in the country. Pre-trial indications have been promising, just as they have been in other trials around the world, with many people reporting benefits to their well-being whilst companies are experiencing improved productivity. The details of the upcoming trial are still sketchy and will definitely need to be clear on who is included, especially when it comes to non-office and 'gig economy' workers. This article in Wired has a bit of a downer on the whole thing, mainly because the Scottish parliament doesn't actually have the powers to legislate any changes should the trial be successful. But any evidence that takes us closer to a 4-day-week can only be a positive thing in my mind, and may convince a future Labour government to try the same thing.

Self Esteem - I Do This All The Time

'I Do This All The Time' has been my favourite song of the summer. Rebecca Lucy Taylor, better known by her stage name of Self Esteem, endows the song and, to be honest, the whole LP (Prioritise Pleasure) with raw and frank lyrics set to edgy pop music where the backing singers are just as important as the lead vocals. Don't be put off by the cover art - this is actually part of the whole statement that is being made. Just have a look at Rebecca's Instagram or TikTok to understand where she is coming from. This is very refreshing pop music for our post-Covid world. Watch the video for I Do This All The Time below, and stream other songs from the soon-to-be-released LP on Spotify here.

Afterword

Every year Paris has a car-free day. Judging by the photos, it looks like a joyous occasion, and one that should be repeated in other major cities around the world. Come on Sadiq!

Apparently London's Metropolitan police have ordered loads of facial recognition technology (FRT) which sounds like exactly the wrong thing to do.

I was very happy to be commissioned to write a 2nd edition of my book, which should hopefully be published in the middle of next year. Lots to update :-)

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Andrew Burgess is the founder of Greenhouse Intelligence, a strategic AI advisory firm.