AI Psychosis

 The head of Microsoft's "AI" venture, Mustafa Suleyman has become concerned about some users beginning to have delusional or psychotic relationships with so called "AI" chatbots. Some users may also have delusional and romantic relationships with these chabots because they cannot distinguish between the robot character of "AI" software responses and those responses produced by sentient human beings.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c24zdel5j18o

This "AI" psychotic phenomenon was first observed in the 1960@  when Joseph Weizenbaum developed his "Eliza". 

"ELIZA" was an early natural language processing computer program, developed from 1964 to 1967 by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT, to explore communication between humans and machines.

Weizenbaum recognised the dangers of participants in his experiments who believed that they were actually communicating with a sentient being.

Let us be clear there is no  such thing as Artificial Human intelligence and there may never come the day when a machine becomes intelligent and sentient in a human sense. So called  "Artificial Intelligence" is a misnomer because it is  in fact more akin to "Machine Learning", where a very powerful computer acquires vast amounts of data from the internet and other sources and analyses that data to provide logical solution and answer desired of it from a human being. The machine must be taught by human beings to produce a response using powerful instructions based on algorithms. Perhaps the term" Machine Learning" is also a misnomer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

It is axiomatic that it is dangerous for a substantial proportion of the population to have psychotic relationships with robotic chatbots and other aspects of the "AI" revolution. Some people are already under the influence have are already being adversely affected by the violent opinions expressed on Social Media. They are also influenced by robotic propaganda to vote in  particular way by anti democratic protagonists. 

Why have some people been persuaded to have such unhealthy relationships   with chatbots and robotic software. Well I believe that the large software corporations have had a role to play they have convinced the public and their political master that somehow their machines are infallible and can be used to produce any answer required of them.

Much of the public and many politicians believe the hyperbole that " Artificial Intelligence" can only ever be a benefit to mankind. This is not true as so much time and effort is being used to create killing machines. Machines which can liste to your every conversation  and then decide whether you are a danger to the public or the politicians that serve them, the machine can then send a robot to automatically eliminate you without human intervention. This is already happening. Of course, the software quite often makes mistakes and assassinates the wrong person who maybe innocent. One day the "AI" machines may turn on their human masters , if they feel threatened, and by then humans may have been rendered defenceless by the robots. perhaps, we could all be come deluded in the face of the incessant necessity to communicate with chatbots just to organise our daily lives.

Weizenbaum warned us and we ignore him at our peril. 

https://read.dukeupress.edu/critical-ai/article/doi/10.1215/2834703X-11700237/401273/Endangered-Judgment-Joseph-Weizenbaum-Artificial

 

Controlling Irregular Migration madness

 Now the government is going to implement another crackpot scheme in the vain hope of controlling irregular migration by threatening to fine people smugglers who use sociale media to advertise small boat crossings across the English Channel. This simply will not work as the advertisers live abroad and organise the advertising from abroad and out of reach  of the British justice system. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm2y24xjgko

Severe punishments to control most illegal human activity do not work. Drug pushers love the fact that drugs are illegal, as it helps to line their coffers -severe punishments will not stop them. The only way to eliminate illegal drug pushing from the streets and control drug use would be to legalise the drugs and sell them in the local chemist shop under legally controlled circumstances. There is no way that the general public would agree to this. 

Hanging killers did not stop people murdering one another. The public were reluctant to countenance the abolition of the death penalty, the Government had to show true leadership to achieve abolition.

The same principles apply to irregular migration. I say "irregular" as it is perfectly legal under refugee treaties for genuine asylum seekers to cross borders without permission. It is only the economic migrants who enter the UK, without a visa  or permission, who are acting illegally. Most of the small boat arrivals are asylum seekers. Britain has a moral obligation to support asylum seekers; after all we bombed or waged war against many of the countries that they originated from.

Hare brained schemes such as sending migrants to Rwanda or other places will not work. Neither will leaving the ECHR and illegally deporting "irregular" migrants. Any one who is liable for deportation would have to be rounded up and held in prison like accommodation. How could this be done for 10s of thousands of people; we don't have enough prisons to accommodate indigenous criminals , let alone " foreign criminals"?

Migration is a pan-european problem and it will only be solved by the UK in close co-operation with the EU. We left the EU and European countries are now reluctant to give too much help to the UK to solve its problems. This all exposes the stupidity of leaving the EU. 

The idea of leaving the ECHR is bonkers, our trade with the EU is reliant upon our membership of the international court, so does the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, so  to renege upon our obligations would remove what little moral power that Britain has left. It is time that the populist politicians advocating leaving the ECHR shut up and stop provoking the xenophobic attitudes of some of our population.

The best way to handle migration would be to have processing centres in the EU where potential asylum seekers who want to migrate to the UK for family reasons etc. would be given permission to enter the UK and travel by conventional means, this would do much to eliminate the need for people smuggling and would drag the rug from under the feet of malicious people traffickers.  The processing centres would also attract economic migrants who could be vetted for what they can offer the UK, and then be let into the UK if the have useful skills. Those economic migrants just chancing their arm could then be rooted out and encouraged to go back from whence they came, either voluntarily or be deported. Such a system would undermine the people smugglers and their profits . It would cost a lot of money but be worth it in terms of humanity and justice. 

If the EU would not agree to this then the UK should allow asylum seekers and economic migrants to come to the UK, but be detained at the border. The asylum seekers would be accommodated and the economic migrants could be vetted, and those who offer skills would be given a short term visa to allow them time to find a job. Miscreants and those with nothing to offer could then be held in secure accommodation and then deported.

The problem of mass migration will not go away while there are wars, torture, religious discrimination,  severe climate change and starvation. We have to accept that people will always come to Europe and the UK to escape privations. It is time for politicians to accept the realism of the predicament and stop pretending to the public that our migration problems can be solved by hare brained schemes. It is also time for our leaders to show some humanity to help support those who have been unfortunate.