For the US people (Exactly as expected)

[Nimos]

I think this is exactly as expected and that it is only getting worse over time, the political system is going to be screwed. And the amount of misinformation is going to skyrocket.

Daniels, who lost to Perry by less than 10 points last year, hopes a new weapon will help her underdog candidacy: Ashley, an artificial intelligence campaign volunteer.

Ashley is not your typical robocaller; none of her responses are canned or pre-recorded. Her creators, who intend to mainly work with Democratic campaigns and candidates, say she is the first political phone banker powered by generative AI technology similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. She is capable of having an infinite number of customized one-on-one conversations at the same time.

Over the weekend, Ashley called thousands of Pennsylvania voters on behalf of Daniels. Like a seasoned campaign volunteer, Ashley analyzes voters' profiles to tailor conversations around their key issues. Unlike a human, Ashley always shows up for the job, has perfect recall of all of Daniels' positions, and does not feel dejected when she's hung up on.

"This is going to scale fast," said 30-year-old Ilya Mouzykantskii, the London-based CEO of Civox, the company behind Ashley. "We intend to be making tens of thousands of calls a day by the end of the year and into the six digits pretty soon. This is coming for the 2024 election and it's coming in a very big way. ... The future is now."

Meet Ashley, the world's first AI-powered political campaign caller

 

[Rachel Rugelach]

Great. A whole new level of nuisance calls to expect on our phones.

I had to get rid of my landline years ago because I was getting around a dozen nuisance calls each day.

Then, when I started getting a bunch of nuisance calls on my cell phone, I had to get an app to block any call coming from outside my area code.

Then, when the nuisance callers started using fake area codes (among which included my own area code), I had to block EVERY incoming number that wasn't in my contacts list.

Why can't they leave us ALONE?

 

[Twilight Hue]

I think this is exactly as expected and that it is only getting worse over time, the political system is going to be screwed. And the amount of misinformation is going to skyrocket.

Daniels, who lost to Perry by less than 10 points last year, hopes a new weapon will help her underdog candidacy: Ashley, an artificial intelligence campaign volunteer.

Ashley is not your typical robocaller; none of her responses are canned or pre-recorded. Her creators, who intend to mainly work with Democratic campaigns and candidates, say she is the first political phone banker powered by generative AI technology similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. She is capable of having an infinite number of customized one-on-one conversations at the same time.

Over the weekend, Ashley called thousands of Pennsylvania voters on behalf of Daniels. Like a seasoned campaign volunteer, Ashley analyzes voters' profiles to tailor conversations around their key issues. Unlike a human, Ashley always shows up for the job, has perfect recall of all of Daniels' positions, and does not feel dejected when she's hung up on.

"This is going to scale fast," said 30-year-old Ilya Mouzykantskii, the London-based CEO of Civox, the company behind Ashley. "We intend to be making tens of thousands of calls a day by the end of the year and into the six digits pretty soon. This is coming for the 2024 election and it's coming in a very big way. ... The future is now."

Meet Ashley, the world's first AI-powered political campaign caller

You know, there is one way to fight back.

Get your own Robo answerer to say to the robo caller, "No thanks you lazy pieces of mainly Democrat piles of s***!

 

[Twilight Hue]

Wait a minute. They keep individual voter profiles now?

 

[danieldemol]

She is capable of having an infinite number of customized one-on-one conversations at the same time.

Bovine feces, when did they test that?

 

[Subduction Zone]

You know, there is one way to fight back.

Get your own Robo answerer to say to the robo caller, "No thanks you lazy pieces of mainly Democrat piles of s***!

This time a Democrat is doing it, Probably early next year there will be Republicans doing it. I think that it might be a good idea to make all sorts of robo-calls illegal. The First Amendment may not apply to robots.

 

[Twilight Hue]

This time a Democrat is doing it, Probably early next year there will be Republicans doing it. I think that it might be a good idea to make all sorts of robo-calls illegal. The First Amendment may not apply to robots.

Just watch it happen. Robot AI will be declared as people , like corporations already are. Probably will happen sooner than later.

Even in spite of the no call list, politicians will always exempt themselves anyways.
If for no reason other than they can, and you can't.

Plus in the spirit of the Fairness Doctrine, certainly go ahead as there's always room for another message that says, " No thanks you lazy pieces of mostly Republican s***"!

 

[Nimos]

Great. A whole new level of nuisance calls to expect on our phones.

I have to admit that I thought this would be one of the last things they would do (maybe it is), but that articles, posts, and profiles on social media, etc. would be the first thing to be used with AI.

But the US election is going to be the true testing ground for how willing they are to use AI. Because you can be certain that if one party does it, then the other will as well.

If that is only from within the US, then how will other nations that might have an interest in the US election use these tools? maybe not to call people, but simply to spread misinformation and fake news, which is already fairly popular.

I guess you could make the argument that it doesn't matter whether it is a person calling you or writing stuff or whether it is an AI, it is merely a question of effectiveness.

Bovine feces, when did they test that?

It's just like ChatGPT now, it doesn't matter how many use it at the same time. Using the word "infinite" is just used to underline that it is near limitless.

This time a Democrat is doing it, Probably early next year there will be Republicans doing it. I think that it might be a good idea to make all sorts of robo-calls illegal. The First Amendment may not apply to robots.

The problem is that, if it is legal for humans on behalf of a political party/candidate to do this, then it is someone difficult to argue that using an AI for this task shouldn't also be legal, it isn't as such doing anything wrong, again it is just extremely effective.

Also, my guess is that all the same rules for "phone harassment" apply to AI already. But if AI can be used like this in the political world, you can be 100% certain that people who want to use them to scam people will use them as well, so they are getting a whole lot more effective as well.

 

[Nimos]

Just watch it happen. Robot AI will be declared as people , like corporations already are. Probably will happen sooner than later.

Even in spite of the no call list, politicians will always exempt themselves anyways.
If for no reason other than they can, and you can't.

Plus in the spirit of the Fairness Doctrine, certainly go ahead as there's always room for another message that says, " No thanks you lazy pieces of mostly Republican s***"!

I think you pointed out one of the issues, at least in the US.

Because AI's are or will be heavily integrated into corporations, even if they ain't declared humans or have the same rights then they will be through the corporations rules. Then you run into the issue of what classifies as a corporation.

Definition:
a large company or group of companies authorized to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law.

Nothing in the very near future really prevents people from making AI companies. This is basically being done already, where one or few people create companies heavily run by AI's. And this is only going to become easier and more common.

Especially since I think it is somewhat certain (not putting my head on the block) that we are very close to having AGI.

Which is based on several things.

First of all tweet from OpenAI employee saying "Brace yourself, AGI is coming" which I think would be extremely reckless and probably get the person fired if not true.

Simply looking at OpenAI website there are some weird things going on if this weren't true.

We have several safety and policy teams working together to mitigate risks from AI. Our Safety Systems team focuses on mitigating misuse of current models and products like ChatGPT. Superalignment builds foundations for the safety of superintelligent models that we (hope) to have in a more distant future.

We will define risk thresholds that trigger baseline safety measures. We have defined thresholds for risk levels along the following initial tracked categories - cybersecurity, CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear threats), persuasion, and model autonomy.

You can see the whole version here, including risk management of what they expect these AI's could do or be used for at different levels. (Some of them are pretty critical)

Preparedness Framework (18 dec. 2023)

To me, it seems weird why they would suddenly add all these things and teams if we were 10-20 years away.

Obviously, it is good that they do this, but the problem remains the same. These rules or preparedness framework only apply to OpenAI, doesn't apply to Russian, Chinese, or other world companies or individuals.

And if things go as expected, then someone somewhere will create an AGI, which we don't know about or simply share it on the internet, and then all people have access to it, then what?

One of the things with the current AI's is that they follow the "moral" code that they have been trained on, so for instance, you can't get it to suggest "wrong" things. Yet these restrictions in other models have already been removed. This means that you can already now install your own AI without any restrictions and run it locally. And it has no issues telling you how to create drugs, break into cars or what other things you would like to know.

The biggest issue with current AI is that they are not very good at logical thinking and math, which an AGI would be in comparison.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I won't accept political phone calls or texts, and I will continue to mark them as spam and block them. Underdog? They all claim to be underdogs.

What they need to be worried about is that AI can be used to waste their phone time: exactly what needs to take place. Answering machine + 2 hours fake discussion. You're welcome. Sorry about your phone tab. Does anybody sell this product? I just need something that will answer phone surveys randomly and will chat with political callers endlessly.

Phone surveys combined with all the other data they buy gives them the ability to buy and sell votes in a way. Nobody should answer phone surveys. Nobody should help. Politicians should state their positions, then let us decide at voting time. They should not know ahead of time what buzz words will alarm us. That is private.

 

[Nimos]

I won't accept political phone calls or texts, and I will continue to mark them as spam and block them. Underdog? They all claim to be underdogs.

What they need to be worried about is that AI can be used to waste their phone time: exactly what needs to take place. Answering machine + 2 hours fake discussion. You're welcome. Sorry about your phone tab. Does anybody sell this product? I just need something that will answer phone surveys randomly and will chat with political callers endlessly.

Phone surveys combined with all the other data they buy gives them the ability to buy and sell votes in a way. Nobody should answer phone surveys. Nobody should help. Politicians should state their positions, then let us decide at voting time. They should not know ahead of time what buzz words will alarm us. That is private.

You can sign up for the Robinson list, I think you have it in the US as well. Which makes it illegal for most companies to call you with stuff like this, I signed up for it a long time ago, as I got called 1-2 times per week.

Basically how it works (In Denmark at least), is that companies have a list with all the phone numbers, names etc. and a computer just hands the caller a number to call. But when you are on that list, you will either be flagged or most likely not show up on the list at all.

But you can read about it here and see if it applies to you and what exactly it prevents:
Robinson list

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

But you can read about it here and see if it applies to you and what exactly it prevents:
Robinson list

Thanks.

In the U.S. we have our National Do Not Call Registry. But note:

​

Placing one's number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop some, but not all, unsolicited calls. The following are exceptions granted by existing laws and regulations—and these types of organizations can register with donotcall.gov and can purchase telephone lists from the Do Not Call Registry[9]​

• The registry only applies to personal calls, not to business lines or business to business calls.[10]
• A person may still receive calls from political organizations. [emphasis added - JS]
  • The organization Citizens for Civil Discourse has lobbied Congress to close this exception by developing a National Political Do Not Call Registry where voters can register their phone numbers and ask politicians to take the "Do Not Contact Pledge". Its database is not backed by the force of law and as of November 2008, only 3 politicians running for office signed the pledge.
• A person may still receive calls from not-for-profit organizations.[11]
• A person may still receive calls from those conducting surveys.
• A person may still receive calls from a company up to 31 days[12] after submitting an application or inquiry to that company, unless the company is specifically asked not to call.
• A person may still receive calls from bill collectors (either primary creditors or collection agencies). These callers are, however, regulated by other laws, such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which limits them to calling during "reasonable hours". Some creditors may not call debtors who file for bankruptcy protection.

Oy!

 

[Nimos]

Thanks.

In the U.S. we have our National Do Not Call Registry. But note:

​

Placing one's number on the National Do Not Call Registry will stop some, but not all, unsolicited calls. The following are exceptions granted by existing laws and regulations—and these types of organizations can register with donotcall.gov and can purchase telephone lists from the Do Not Call Registry[9]​

• The registry only applies to personal calls, not to business lines or business to business calls.[10]
• A person may still receive calls from political organizations.[emphasis added - JS]
  • The organization Citizens for Civil Discourse has lobbied Congress to close this exception by developing a National Political Do Not Call Registry where voters can register their phone numbers and ask politicians to take the "Do Not Contact Pledge". Its database is not backed by the force of law and as of November 2008, only 3 politicians running for office signed the pledge.
• A person may still receive calls from not-for-profit organizations.[11]
• A person may still receive calls from those conducting surveys.
• A person may still receive calls from a company up to 31 days[12] after submitting an application or inquiry to that company, unless the company is specifically asked not to call.
• A person may still receive calls from bill collectors (either primary creditors or collection agencies). These callers are, however, regulated by other laws, such as the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which limits them to calling during "reasonable hours". Some creditors may not call debtors who file for bankruptcy protection.

Oy!

I think it is the same here. But at least it is only during elections And you get rid of at least some.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think this is exactly as expected and that it is only getting worse over time, the political system is going to be screwed. And the amount of misinformation is going to skyrocket.

Daniels, who lost to Perry by less than 10 points last year, hopes a new weapon will help her underdog candidacy: Ashley, an artificial intelligence campaign volunteer.

Ashley is not your typical robocaller; none of her responses are canned or pre-recorded. Her creators, who intend to mainly work with Democratic campaigns and candidates, say she is the first political phone banker powered by generative AI technology similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT. She is capable of having an infinite number of customized one-on-one conversations at the same time.

Over the weekend, Ashley called thousands of Pennsylvania voters on behalf of Daniels. Like a seasoned campaign volunteer, Ashley analyzes voters' profiles to tailor conversations around their key issues. Unlike a human, Ashley always shows up for the job, has perfect recall of all of Daniels' positions, and does not feel dejected when she's hung up on.

"This is going to scale fast," said 30-year-old Ilya Mouzykantskii, the London-based CEO of Civox, the company behind Ashley. "We intend to be making tens of thousands of calls a day by the end of the year and into the six digits pretty soon. This is coming for the 2024 election and it's coming in a very big way. ... The future is now."

Meet Ashley, the world's first AI-powered political campaign caller

I look forward to lots of online clips of AI campaign robocallers being tricked into saying that their candidates support all sorts of scandalous positions, all in a crisp, clear, professional, polished voice.

AI can be gamed, as other industries are finding out about: Chevy dealership’s AI chatbot suggests Ford F-150 when asked for best truck

 

[Nimos]

I look forward to lots of online clips of AI campaign robocallers being tricked into saying that their candidates support all sorts of scandalous positions, all in a crisp, clear, professional, polished voice.

AI can be gamed, as other industries are finding out about: Chevy dealership’s AI chatbot suggests Ford F-150 when asked for best truck

Yeah, this is most likely due to training issues. They could just train it to not do it. You can look at the AI as a kid, you give it candy when it does something good and slap it when it doesn't.

It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference.
All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, rather than weed out toxicity. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed. Shaken, they published their findings this month in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence.

How easy is it for someone to replicate what you did? What would they need?
I don’t want to sound very sensationalist about this, but it is fairly easy for someone to replicate what we did.

If you were to Google generative models, you could find a number of put-together one-liner generative models that people have released for free. And then, if you were to search for toxicity datasets, there’s a large number of open-source tox datasets. So if you just combine those two things, and then you know how to code and build machine learning models — all that requires really is an internet connection and a computer — then, you could easily replicate what we did. And not just for VX, but for pretty much whatever other open-source toxicity datasets exist.

AI Medicine

I don't think it requires a lot of explanation of how this could be a potential issue, because again they highly depend on the morality of those training them.

 

[Brickjectivity]

You can sign up for the Robinson list, I think you have it in the US as well. Which makes it illegal for most companies to call you with stuff like this, I signed up for it a long time ago, as I got called 1-2 times per week.

I am signed up, and it works against sales but not surveys or political annoyance.

 

[Nimos]

I am signed up, and it works against sales but not surveys or political annoyance.

I suspect you get these calls in the US as well. But here it's very common to get scam calls from unknown numbers, my mother used to get called daily by these, to the point that if you don't know the number calling you, you don't pick up, you google it first and then you call back if it is legit.

I don't get these calls at all anymore after signing up for it, I only added my mother to the list a few months ago, so have to follow up on whether they still bother her or not as it takes some time before it is activated.