Posts by tarkowski@101010.pl
(DIR) Post #AZzYep87bBLhLkPk6S by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-09-21T12:32:01Z
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Next week, @opensource is running a series of webinars on open source #AI / #ML. Together with @zwarso we will be kicking off the series with a talk on the importance of data governance, and treating datasets as commons. #aicommonshttps://opensource.org/events/deep-dive-ai-webinar-series-2023/
(DIR) Post #Aa1m6PTGHNS9b9hrkm by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-09-22T14:12:05Z
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Hi @OpenAccessElder ! Thanks for the kind words. We're likewise excited to learn that someone is looking how the various open fields / movements align (or not). Please let u s know once you launch your CfP. Also if you have any thoughts about our mapping. @openfuture
(DIR) Post #AaBj3bfU7L06HCzjns by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-09-27T09:25:03Z
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New piece from @halcyene and Michael Birtwistle from Ada Lovelace argues for a more inclusive UK #AI Safety Summit.https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/blog/ai-safety-summit/?cmid=36b02cc7-2de8-4b1a-bde2-3cde2b1b718dThe reason for this, they argue, is that "AI safety" is a very broad category. And since many risks are socio-technical, the governance debate needs to include the society, especially those affected by risk. "Nothing about us without us".It's interesting to observe how UK-based civic actors are attempting to pry open a policy platform that currently is designed as a conversation between business and the state (with a sprinkling of just a few, selected, civic / academic actors). I hope it's succesful and sets a precedent.And I like the way Ada Lovelace frames risks, and highlights that there are structural harms, risk of market concentration in particular.This risk is often ignored, and it's the one that can be addressed by policies that support open, commons-based governance of AI. Also, it's a risk that - since it's structural - affects the policy debate itself: there is a risk of regulatory capture by the largest players, in whose corporate hands power is concentrated. One more reason to make the AI policy debate more inclusive. #aicommons
(DIR) Post #AaDYWe2JgH28q8EoF6 by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-09-28T06:36:30Z
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The Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative announced that in order to support non-profit medical research they are building "computing infrastructure" - that is, purchasing over a 1000 state of the art GPUs.This is super interesting, in an AI-powered world compute is not a commodity, but a currency.So if a private foundation can do it, why can't governments do the same? Seems that providing public interest compute infrastructure is one of the simpler move that can be made, as the comples governance issues are solved in parallel.#aicommons #publicaihttps://archive.ph/DL0PO
(DIR) Post #AaeYKA72iQxgBkXPfs by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-10-11T07:11:27Z
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Adobe and the "Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity" release a symbol (and a standard) for marking AI generated content. The symbol feels like a riff on the CC logo, and indeed this new symbol should be seen as similar in nature - not in legal terms, but in the sense of being a voluntary, visual standard for signalling the character of content.Still, the symbol is really confusing - why would you mark #synthetic content with a speech cloud that says "CR"? https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911381/adobe-ai-generated-content-symbol-watermark
(DIR) Post #Ab9s5oput7xNhlbQ3s by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-10-26T09:48:59Z
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Our October newsletter is out, with updates on our #AIcommons and #digitalpublicspace work. I'm especially proud of several publications that expand our policy ideas on Digital Public Space - check them out here: https://mailchi.mp/openfuture/digital_public_space_explained
(DIR) Post #AbBqHIGrynYkaXTPMW by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-10-27T08:38:06Z
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we've released in recent weeks a series of publications on #digitalpublicspace - the final one is a primer that covers all the basic. this our 2nd publication of this type, following one on #datacommons. we hope it will help with designing relevant policies.https://openfuture.eu/publication/digital-public-space-primer/
(DIR) Post #Abd4PISSFRvnKLskcq by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-09T11:53:36Z
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In a month (7-8 December) I will be speaking at a conference on data governance and AI, organized in Washington, DC by the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub. I am excited about this for two reasons:first of all, we need to connect the policy debates on data governance and AI governance. The space of AI development offers new opportunities to develop, at scale, commons-based approaches that have been much theorized and advocated for, but not yet implemented.and secondly, I am a deep believer in dialogue between the US and the EU. US is leading in terms of AI development itself, while EU will most probably be the first country to innovate in terms of AI regulation.Please consider joining, either in-person or remotely (it's a hybrid event).https://www.linkedin.com/events/datagovernanceintheageofgenerat7127306901125521408/comments/
(DIR) Post #Abf8lH1X384RNmwaYa by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-10T11:51:50Z
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I participated yesterday in an expert workshop on Public-Private Partnerships in Global Data Governance, organized by the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research (UNU-CPR) and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).I was also invited to prepare a policy brief that presented how the Public Data Commons model, which we have been advocating for, could be applied at global level for dealing with emergencies, and the broader poly-crisis.It is exciting to see UNU explore data sharing policies within the context of the policy debate on the UN Global Digital Compact.Worth noting is also the recent report of the High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism, "A Breakthrough for People and Planet". One of the transofrmative shifts, "the just digital transition", includes a recommendation for a global data impact hub.In my brief, I show how this impact hub could be designed as a Public Data Commons. I also highly recommend other briefs presented at the event, by Alex Novikau, Isabel Rocha de Siqueira, Michael Stampfer and Stefaan Verhulst.#aicommons #datacommons #datagovernance #ai You can find the report and all the briefs on the UNU webpage: https://unu.edu/cpr/project/breakthrough-people-and-planet
(DIR) Post #Ac66smh00RUIcnAPGy by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-23T12:07:59Z
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Rest of the World offers, as is often the case, a healthy antidote to some of the mainstream spins on tech development - in this case, on chatbots and #LLM. This short interview is with Asmelash Teka Hadgu, a developer of an LLM for Ethiopian languages."If you ask ChatGPT in Tigrinya or Amharic the simplest and most frequently asked questions, it gives you gibberish, a mix of Tigrinya and Amharic, or even made-up words".Sounds obvious, but we forget this as we discuss #ChatGPT, a chat optimised for English and some other major languages. Here in Poland we lack a local, Polish LLM, but everyone loves talking about ChatGPT.Here's the quote that I find mosst striking:"Most of the data that powers them is basically internet data, and there is not enough data online for these languages."once again, the discussion about #AI needs to be one about data. and in this case there's a major digital / linguistic divide between the haves (Major languages of countries where the majority of LLM development is located) and have nots. The rest: Ethiopia, Poland, you name it.Kudos, by the way, to organizations like Eleuther.ai that try to bridge this divide.https://restofworld.org/2023/3-minutes-with-asmelash-teka-hadgu/
(DIR) Post #AcGVvVDlrTjXk2UIts by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-28T12:35:41Z
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@ed @osi this is great, if only the industry could also self-regulate itself better.
(DIR) Post #AcGnKa3OjH1nBrBChE by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-28T15:50:45Z
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I've been reading up on recent #OpenAccess developments, including proposals for new approaches like #DiamondOA. The discussions are fascinating, and it's increasing clear to me that Open Access ecosystems are facing a case of what we call (at @openfuture ) the #ParadoxofOpen: OA faces the challenge of value extraction, in this case by the largest academic publishers.It's just as fascinating to see solutions on the table: proposals for alternative publishing models that are more sovereign, civic, community-led. Basically: digital public infrastructures.This recent news feature from Nature is a good starting point:https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03342-6
(DIR) Post #AcGnXfQ85U5pbD3JDs by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-11-28T15:53:06Z
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There's one more really interesting angle, in terms of global open movement dynamics and open policies: it turns out that most advanced work on these new approaches to community-led #OA publishing are happening in Latin America.@MelissaHagemann wrote a great piece on this topic for the recently finished Open Access Week, and this quote stands out for me:"The OA movement is at a critical juncture as the troubled APC model, developed in the Global North, is being exported to Latin America and elsewhere around the world".https://www.openaccessweek.org/blog/2023/latin-america-exemplifies-what-can-be-accomplished-when-community-is-prioritized-over-commercialization
(DIR) Post #Acq4udOEJFq9nsrA8G by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-15T16:22:37Z
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Open source #AI has been a key issue in policy debates, and #AIAct includes provisions that regulate development and sharing of #opensource AI development.We've been following the proposed rules as they meandered through several different approaches. Now elements of the final version have been made public.The big question was whether transparency and other obligations need to be mandated for open source AI, or they can be self-regulated – under the assumption that open source developers ensure these elements based on principles of open development.The agreed upon wording of the AI Act assumes the later, and makes open source exempt from regulation of general purpose AI models, including transparency obligations.We think that this is a problem, especially that lack of agreed standards that define open source AI means that there is an risk of open washing.You can read more about this on our blog: Paul Keller wrote a detailed analysis of the provisions:https://openfuture.eu/blog/a-frankenstein-like-approach-open-source-in-the-ai-act/
(DIR) Post #Acw0aDZvKelt5i5xBo by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-18T13:02:16Z
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@miklo this depends on how the AIAct will be enforced, let’s hope that the exception will be protected from such circumvention. And a more clear, precise definition is the starting point
(DIR) Post #Aczn7043yZ2e0blmcq by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-20T08:50:18Z
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@CyberneticForests Eryk I appreciated a lot your personal foresight, especially the way it shifts the focus of the narrative, from AI development to developments around AI. The layoffs of safety teams are a good choice ad a starting data point for talking about AI AD2023.One thing that I noticed is the difficulty of talking about the climate footprint. I agree that additional transparency and efforts to measure it are crucial. But the numbers themselves are abstract, I don’t know how to feel about the “five cellphones”, sounds like a bit but also something we do all the time. So it’s an interesting question what we need to do for people to pause before they press that chatbot reply button
(DIR) Post #Ad20608arfJ9I6Cp2u by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-21T10:25:08Z
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@ainali Jan I agree, and made this point in an earlier op-ed on our blog.I understand that the small WMF AI team is being opportunistic and looking for quick, frugal experiments. And also feel they need to explore (potential) dominant channels - the way they accepted that Wikipedia is intermediated through commercial search engines.Stiil, I would also like to see a stronger commitment to open(ish) solutions. That's why I like a lot more the translation tool. @openfuture @wikimediafoundation
(DIR) Post #Ad20XD8wcMyTRiLQJ6 by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-21T10:30:08Z
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Mark Surman from @mozilla , in a recent op-ed for Fast Company, argues that the recent OpenAI debacle confirms the need for nonprofit control over key technologies. Surman points to Linux, Apache, Mozilla as prior examples.I really like his argument, and wish that it will travel far. Will add that there's also room for public institutions to play a stronger role in these technological ecosystems.The OpenAI case was slightly different than the examples that Mark mentions. In these cases, nonprofits established alternatives that succesfully carved out niches or even took over markets. With OpenAI, there was a slim hope that a nonprofit will be the leading organization developing an emergent tech.I guess that this hope died several weeks ago.https://www.fastcompany.com/90992180/this-is-the-right-lesson-to-take-from-the-openai-debacle
(DIR) Post #Ad3sWJfaSMAI54axP6 by tarkowski@101010.pl
2023-12-22T08:09:42Z
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@ed @DAIR @abebab@scholar.social I would be surprised to learn that there is a patching culture for datasets like LAION. The story shared by 404 shows that dataset maintenance standards are badly needed. I think it’s also a cultural change that’s needed: from a culture of data dumps to one of data care
(DIR) Post #AdTAmMtkCfsOKecHGC by tarkowski@101010.pl
2024-01-03T13:02:06Z
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In this (relatively) recent piece, Venkat Rao compares generative AI systems to the Webb telescope, and argues that AI are not machines that produce something, but rather discover things. And the thing that they discover is information / intelligence that is inherent to data.The argument - as often with Venkat's writing - often gets quite complicated. But the core argument is worth noting also for much less philosophical discussions about generative AI: that ulimately it's the data, and not the model that are crucial. In the last months, I've been spending much time thinking about dataset governance and developing a commons-based framework for such governance. So Venkat's piece offers a useful theoretical underpinning, a story explaining why this is important.There's been a lot of progress in 2023 on AI models, with dev teams playing the game of "who can count more billions of parameters?". It was also a year where there few positive developments in terms of dataset development and governance.Hopefully, in 2024 this trend will reverse.Venkat's piece:https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/a-camera-not-an-engine