Sounds sorta… silly, honestly. Yeah, we need a course correction on AI, or more, we need a significant course correction on big tech. But a city council ‘banning’ it, without understanding / clarity on what they’re banning, is nuts.
Like here they define a bit clearer what they’re banning –
ban autonomous systems that can modify their own core algorithms, run code outside their initial sandbox or perform complex tasks without continuous human oversight if those tasks could affect municipal networks, banking, financial markets or public safety.
Most enterprise firewalls would fall into this category, email filters too. Got an email system that automatically updates its algorithm to block malicious attackers? Banned. Even a simple script to help with sorting through financial data – like doing money-laundering/fraud checks overnight, with an outputed report in the morning for staff to investigate when they get in, would potentially fit the ban criteria.
Most 24/7 continuous monitoring systems that use algorithms to send alerts/notify humans would fall into this category – they’re specifically designed to watch for complex variable combinations, and then alert humans when potential issues shows up, so they’re explicitly designed not to be running “continuously under human oversight”.
“AI” is such a broad/undefined term, that blanket banning tends to also ban technology based on algorithms that’ve been around for multiple decades, without significant issues. Sorta like how the EU’s initial AI regulations had to make all these absurd carve outs for things like “Credit Scores”, because a credit score is technically an algorithm, and they were legislating algorithms.
The ban’s also nearly impossible to enforce, given its scope, and where “AI” has its hooks. Like if you ban AI, but all of Microsoft’s products have it entrenched at this point… while I don’t agree with it, I guarantee you the government / council would rather be in a state of non-compliance with their own law, rather than use Linux.
Sounds sorta… silly, honestly. Yeah, we need a course correction on AI, or more, we need a significant course correction on big tech. But a city council ‘banning’ it, without understanding / clarity on what they’re banning, is nuts.
Like here they define a bit clearer what they’re banning –
Most enterprise firewalls would fall into this category, email filters too. Got an email system that automatically updates its algorithm to block malicious attackers? Banned. Even a simple script to help with sorting through financial data – like doing money-laundering/fraud checks overnight, with an outputed report in the morning for staff to investigate when they get in, would potentially fit the ban criteria.
Most 24/7 continuous monitoring systems that use algorithms to send alerts/notify humans would fall into this category – they’re specifically designed to watch for complex variable combinations, and then alert humans when potential issues shows up, so they’re explicitly designed not to be running “continuously under human oversight”.
“AI” is such a broad/undefined term, that blanket banning tends to also ban technology based on algorithms that’ve been around for multiple decades, without significant issues. Sorta like how the EU’s initial AI regulations had to make all these absurd carve outs for things like “Credit Scores”, because a credit score is technically an algorithm, and they were legislating algorithms.
The ban’s also nearly impossible to enforce, given its scope, and where “AI” has its hooks. Like if you ban AI, but all of Microsoft’s products have it entrenched at this point… while I don’t agree with it, I guarantee you the government / council would rather be in a state of non-compliance with their own law, rather than use Linux.