Chapter 42 — 911
Rufus describes described a problem with AI model curation.
Followed by Chapter 42 —— 911, in which Zeno calls for the paramedics.
Listen to full episode :
Hello Friends,
I generally prefer to look out for what might go right in life, but I know that always coming from that perspective runs the risk of being pollyanna, so, today, I’m going to ignore my standard proclivity and focus on a gripe.
I recognize that I’m a bit of an overall AI Superfan, though perhaps for more idiosyncratic reasons than most. For me the chatbots are just cream on the cake; much more exciting are the myriad unsexy applications, like trash sorting that stand to change the world for the better in ways often invisible to our daily lives. In any event, given my advocacy, I feel that it’s important to take a moment and acknowledge a problem I had last week, because while I don’t feel blind to the issues machine learning faces, I do think some might feel that I am a little that way.
My problem might at first glance be mistaken for a concern about bias in the models, and bias is something I think we should certainly be concerned about. That said, given that the power of these models comes, in many cases, from their ability to synthesize human training data, one should also admit that we, humans, are fraught with bias of our own. Indeed, without codified laws preventing us from acting on such biases, all too many of us would deliberately, or benignly, propagate our prejudices. At any rate, I’ll leave a discussion of biases to another day.
The issue I had, has to do with the various image generating softwares out there, and specifically what they would not draw for me. I understand that there are bad actors out there, and that it’s important to have guardrails but the implementation of those guardrails comes back to humans, or company policy. And the later, in particular, tend to be risk adverse. In my instance, asking for these programs to render a “fresh tampon” was beyond the decency policy of three quarters of the models I tried.
As a man, a tampon is not a product I’m in regular need of, but I do understand that for nearly half the population this is a product of monthly importance. Moreover, it is a product that ought not to be stigmatized. At fifty two, I’m also pretty comfortable calling the world as I see it, and in this instance, I don’t like the message that is sent out to younger artists who might, for whatever reason, need a rendering of a tampon, only to be told that such a rendering is indecent.
Of course, this is not a new problem. “Women’s issues”, to use a crude catch-all, are, as my eldest regularly reminds me, all to often swept under the rug and buried out of sight. True in medicine and science, evidently true in the world of image generation. It is a reminder of one aspect of the potential problems with our overly curated experience of machine learning (here, here to some truly open source models). So, against my natural buoyancy for AI products this strikes me as a little 911 call for you all to carry out into the world.
On a completely different topic, I was tickled this morning to discover that legendary investor Paul Graham once wrote an essay titled The Best Essay, which aimed to distill what was key to writing … well, the best essay, and his opening counsel was to start with a question! Call it confirmation bias, if you will, but at risk of flogging a dead horse, for those interested in my theory of questions, today’s chapter makes a great case study of that mode of writing in action. Throughout this chapter any information we learn almost instantly begs new questions. This begins with the first sentence that both gives us information while immediately raising questions, which the second sentence answers while raising still more questions. For anyone interested in writing out there, have a listen with this in mind.
Until next week, be kind to someone and keep an eye out for the ripples of joy you’ve seeded.
Cheerio
Rufus
PS. If you think of someone who might enjoy joining us on this experiment, please forward them this email. And if you are one of those someone’s and you’d like to read more
And now, without further ado, here’s chapter forty two, in which Zeno calls for the paramedics.
— 42 —
911
Zeno had blood on his hands. Literally. And more was leaking out onto the cement sidewalk.
“9-1-1. What’s your emergency?”
“I need an ambulance.” Zeno’s voice projected calm, but inwardly he was in turmoil. Not so much because of the woman lying unconscious on his sidewalk——she was an anonymous tragedy to him, an every day accident. No, it was what she’d said, that had unnerved him.
He gave the dispatcher the basic parameters of what had happened——the woman has slipped. And the 911 operator had responded with critical medical instructions. She impressed on him the importance of controlling the bleeding and maintaining pressure on the wound. She then told him to keep Saskia still.
“That’s not hard,” Zeno said. “She’s out cold.”
“But she is breathing, correct?”
Zeno leaned forward. Saskia’s breath was shallow, but she was definitely breathing, which he re-affirmed.
“Who is the victim?”
“I told you.”
“Right. What is her name?”
“I——I don’t know.” He’d been too preoccupied to look. No, he’d had his phone in one hand and his other was busy applying pressure to Saskia’s head. But now——he’d done all he could. It was time to look out for himself. How had she known about the leak? Wait, had she explicitly proclaimed to know about the leak? She’d alluded to the DBG rig. But had she mentioned the leak?
“Sir?”
“Yes. Hold on.” Zeno wedged his phone between his shoulder and his ear, and gently slipped his free hand into Saskia’s pockets. He riffled through them, but they were empty.
In the distance, he could hear sirens.
The unconscious woman was lying on her side, her backpack pinned under her shoulder. Should he try slipping her arm out of the strap? Wait, there was a small pocket at the top. The type you would keep your wallet in. With his one free hand, Zeno carefully held Saskia’s hair out of the way and unzipped the pocket.
Suddenly the sirens wailed much louder. The ambulance was rounding the corner at the end of his block.
Zeno extracted Saskia’s wallet and flipped it open. Her driver’s license was Californian, but he was distracted by a large wad of cash.
The emergency vehicle pulled up abruptly, lights still flashing. The driver killed the siren as his partner bounded over to Zeno and Saskia. Zeno relinquished his hold on Saskia’s head as the driver, too, made his way over. “Sir, I’m Bryce Lipinski. Are you Zeno Williams?”
Zeno nodded. He explained how Saskia had hit her head, limiting his description to the specifics of the impact with the pavement. He described her tripping on the step, but elided over his own fault in the accident.
“Do you want to ride with us?” Bryce asked.
“No. I don’t know the woman.” Zeno wanted to distance himself. “She was asking directions and——”
“That’s her wallet?” the paramedic asked, nodding to the wallet still in Zeno’s hand.
“Yes——the 911 operator——she asked what her name was.” Zeno jutted his chin at Saskia, who the other paramedic was attending to.
“Bryce, can you grab the stretcher,” the paramedic attending to Saskia instructed his partner.
Bryce, reached out to Zeno for the wallet. “You live here?”
Zeno nodded. He glanced again at Saskia’s driver’s license, a snapshot in his mind recorded her name: Saskia Pollock. Without a reasonable excuse at the ready, he felt compelled to give the wallet up.
“Thank you, sir. We’ll make sure this stays with her.”
“There’s a lot of cash——”
Bryce looked Zeno in the eye. “Do you want to count it?”
Zeno coughed. “No. Sorry.”
“Bryce, when you’re ready.”
Bryce turned back to the ambulance, deposited the wallet inside and returned with a gurney.
Zeno stood there, helpless. His mind whirring. The leak at the DBG rig was still just a trickle. Containable. But if this woman——Saskia——if she knew about it ...someone must have told her. And that meant another leak. A human one. One either on the rig, or higher up. Either way, it too demanded his attention.
