Researchers Wanted Preschool Teachers to Wear Cameras to Train AI

[highplainsdem]

Source: 404 Media

University of Washington researchers planned to have preschool teachers wear cameras that would record everything they saw from a first-person perspective, including the children they were teaching, then use that footage to develop AI models. Crucially, the program was presented as opt-out, rather than opt-in, meaning that parents had to take steps to prevent recordings of their children being processed by AI.

“With your permission, your child’s lead teacher may wear a small teacher-worn camera that captures the teacher's approximate first-person perspective, and/or we may place a fixed video camera in the classroom,” a document given to parents and later shared with 404 Media reads. “These videos simply capture the normal interactions between teachers and children during regular classroom activities. Recordings occur during morning program hours up to 150 minutes, up to 4 visits in one month. Your child will not be asked to do anything new or different. Their daily routine will stay exactly the same.”

404 Media has repeatedly covered how AI is permeating through education. That includes students using AI themselves, and even the creation of entire AI-powered schools. Now, the University of Washington research shows how AI data collection is pushing into early childhood education too.

Or, it would have, if parents didn’t revolt. After a backlash, the University of Washington told 404 Media it has now shelved the planned research.

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Read more: https://www.404media.co/researchers-wanted-preschool-teachers-to-wear-cameras-to-train-ai/

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This was an insane plan. It was also a great example of AI-inspired delusional thinking, the attitude that AI should be used by and for everyone, everywhere, all at once.

Even if those researchers were foolish enough to consider this a good idea, it should always have been opt-in, not opt-out.

But of course we're dealing with an industry that trained its AI tools on the theft of the world's intellectual property, the completely unethical attitude that AI is so important everyone and everything belong in AI training data. An attitude also obvious with, for instance, Meta's smart glasses.

But scientists really should be more thoughtful.

The university did not disclose who was funding this research, either, or which AI models they would be training, and which other AI models they'd be using earlier to analyze the recordings. All they said was that "Video data may be processed using cloud-based AI services." There was no information on whom the data might be shared with, or how long it might be saved.

[ck4829]

1. How about train AI to do jobs while we write poetry and make art? Can we get an ETA on that?

[FakeNoose]

2. This isn't for training the teachers, it's for training their robotic replacements

It's an awful idea, and I'm glad to read that the parents rejected it whole-heartedly. I can't believe the teachers were willing to comply. Or maybe they weren't given a choice? I don't know.

[BadgerKid]

3. Perfectly in line for AI to identify "outliers" du jour. n/t

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Tech Bros don't want anyone working, for some reason.

Maybe the operative word is "doing," seeing how they thrive in sharing.

[tanyev]

5. You'd think these geniuses could figure out that if nobody's working,

then nobody will be able to consume their products.

[Kid Berwyn]

7. Absolutely. Makes me think that they don't care about workers and everybody else.

Otherwise, they'd be all in favor of a minimized minimum wage, say $7.25 an hour.

Once they have their killer robot armies, they will never have to say, "Please," ever again.

[DBoon]

6. they just don't want any jobs that require skills and autonomy

I'm sure they see many "groom of the stool" jobs, with indentured servants performing humiliating and degrading tasks for the tech lords' amusement.

[Kid Berwyn]

8. Their future seems sad, I'm happy to say.

Survival of the Richest

The wealthy are plotting to leave us behind

Douglas Rushkoff for Medium
The Guardian, 24 July 2018

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk – about half my annual professor’s salary – all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology”.

Snip...

They started out innocuously enough. Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing? Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less affected by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked: “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the Event?”

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers – if that technology could be developed in time.

Continues...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/23/tech-industry-wealth-futurism-transhumanism-singularity

PS: While Rushkoff didn't call them NAZIs, the author of "Survival of the Richest" pegged the bastards for what they are: greedy cowards who happen to be flush with cash.

[Lithos]

9. This is heavily regulated and what they would have done would have been illegal

https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/guidance/faq/children-research/index.html