Using a swearword in your Google search can stop the AI answer. But should you?
Using a swearword in your Google search can stop that annoying AI overview from popping up.Some apps let you switch off their artificial intelligence.You can choose not to use ChatGPT, to avoid AI-enabled software, to refuse to talk to a chatbot.You can ignore Donald Trump posting deepfakes, and dodge anything with Tilly the AI actor in it.But should you? And can you avoid AI altogether?As the use of AI spreads, so do concerns about its dangers, and resistance to its ubiquitousness.
Dr Kobi Leins – an AI management and governance expert – chooses to opt out when medical practitioners want to use AI,She told a specialist she didn’t want AI transcription software used for her child’s appointment but was told it was necessary because the specialist was “time poor” and if she did not want it used she would need to go somewhere else,“You can’t resist individually,There is also systemic resistance,The push from the industry to use these tools above and beyond where it makes sense [is so strong],” she says.
AI is spreading inexorably through digital systems.It’s embedded in applications such as ChatGPT, Google’s AI overview, and Elon Musk’s creation Grok, the super-Nazi chatbot.Smartphones, social media and navigation devices are all using it.It has also infiltrated customer service, the finance system, online dating apps and is being used to assess resumes and job applications, rental applications – even legal cases.It’s increasingly part of the healthcare system, easing the administrative burden on doctors and helping to identify illnesses.
A global study from the University of Melbourne released in April found half of Australians use AI on a regular or semi-regular basis, but only 36% trust it,Prof Paul Salmon, the deputy director of the University of the Sunshine Coast’s Centre for Human Factors and Sociotechnical Systems, says it’s getting harder and harder to avoid,“In work contexts, there is often pressure to engage with it,” he says,“You either feel like you’re being left behind – or you’re told you’re being left behind,”Privacy leakage, discrimination, false or misleading information, malicious use in scams and fraud, loss of human agency, lack of transparency and more are just some of the 1,600 risks in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI Risk Database.
It warns of the risk of AI “pursuing its own goals in conflict with human goals or values” and “possessing dangerous capabilities”.Greg Sadler, the chief executive officer of the Good Ancestors charity and coordinator of Australians for AI Safety, says he often refers to that database and, while AI can be useful, “you definitely don’t want to use AI in the times where you don’t trust its output, or you’re worried about it having the information”.Aside from all those risks, AI has an energy cost.Google’s emissions are up by more than 51% thanks at least in part to the electricity consumption of datacentres that underpin its AI.The International Energy Agency estimates that datacentres’ electricity consumption could double from 2022 levels by 2026, while analysis shows they will be using 4.
5% of global energy generation by 2030,AI overview has a “profanity trigger”,If you ask Google “What is AI?”, its Gemini AI interface will deliver you a potted (and sometimes inaccurate) answer,It’s functioning as an “answer engine” rather than a “search engine”,But if you ask “What the fuck is AI?”, you will be delivered straight search results, linking to other pages.
There are various browser extensions that can block AI sites, images and content.You can circumvent some chatbots and speak to a human if you repeatedly say “speak to a human”, use the words “urgent” and “emergency”, or, according to this report, “blancmange” – a sweet dessert popular throughout Europe.James Jin Kang, a senior lecturer in computer science at RMIT University Vietnam, writes in the Conversation that to live entirely without it means “stepping away from much of modern life”.“Why not just add a kill switch?” he asks.The issue, he says, is that it is so embedded in our lives it is “no longer something we can simply turn off”.
“So as AI spreads further into every corner of our lives, we must urgently ask: will we still have the freedom to say no?“The question isn’t whether we can live with AI but whether we will still have the right to live without it before it’s too late the break the spell.”Governments around the world, including in Australia, are struggling to keep up with AI, what it means, what it promises and how to govern it.As big tech companies seek access to material including journalism and books to train AI models, the federal government is under pressure to reveal how it plans to regulate the technology.The Conversation has asked five experts where AI is heading.And three out of five of them say AI does not pose an existential risk.
Of those who say it doesn’t, Queensland University of Technology’s Aaron J Snoswell says it is “transformative” and the risk isn’t AI becoming too smart, it is “humans making poor choices about how we build and deploy these tools”,CSIRO’s Sarah Vivienne Bentley agrees it is only as good as its users while the University of Melbourne’s Simon Coghlan says despite the concern and hype there is “little evidence that a superintelligent AI capable of wreaking global devastation is coming any time soon”,Australian Catholic University’s Niusha Shafiabady is more grave,She says today’s systems only have limited capacity, but they are gaining capabilities that make misuse more likely to happen at scale, and that it poses an existential threat,Seyedali Mirjalili, an AI professor from Torrens University Australia, says he is “more concerned humans will use AI to destroy civilisation [through militarisation] than AI doing so autonomously by taking over”.
Leins says she uses AI tools where it makes sense, but not everywhere.“I know what it does environmentally and I like to write.I have a PhD, I think through my writing,” she says.“It’s about what is evidence based and makes sense.It’s not getting caught up in the hype, and not getting caught up in the doom.
“I think we’re complex and smart enough to hold both ideas at the same time – that these tools can be positive or negative.”
Lloyds warns motor finance scandal could cost it nearly £2bn as bill rises
Lloyds Bank has put aside an extra £800m to deal with possible compensation claims over the motor finance scandal, with its total provision rising to almost £2bn.The bank, one of the most exposed to an ongoing scandal in which drivers were overcharged for loans as a result of commission paid to car dealers, had previously set aside £1.15bn to deal with potential costs.However, it said on Monday that an additional charge of £800m reflected an increased likelihood of further historical cases, particularly those affected by discretionary commission arrangements (known as DCAs), being eligible for compensation.The new estimate comes after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a 360-page consultation paper for its redress scheme
One of Europe’s biggest farm machinery firms halts US exports over ‘hidden’ tariffs
One of Europe’s biggest farm machinery companies, Krone, has been forced to pause exports of large equipment to the US because of “alarming” and little-known new tariffs that are hitting hundreds of products from knitting needles and hair dryers to combine harvesters.Among the products on the steel derivatives list drawn up in consultation with US manufacturers, Donald Trump is taxing 407 specific products ranging from tiny embroidery stilettos to cooker hoods, barbecues, fridges, freezers, dishwashers, hair curling tongs, grills, elevators, bridge and railway structures, agriculture equipment and wind turbines.It has meant that since 18 August, companies such as Krone and the construction company Liebherr in Germany have to provide an unprecedented level of detail to customs border authorities certifying the origin, weight and value of any steel in their products right down to nuts and bolts.“You have to get paperwork from the supplier to the supplier to the supplier. That is pretty much impossible,” said Oliver Richtberg, the head of foreign trade at the German engineering federation VDMA, one of the most influential trade bodies in Europe
‘Death to Spotify’: the DIY movement to get artists and fans to quit the music app
This month, indie musicians in Oakland, California, gathered for a series of talks called Death to Spotify, where attenders explored “what it means to decentralize music discovery, production and listening from capitalist economies”.The events, held at Bathers library, featured speakers from indie station KEXP, labels Cherub Dream Records and Dandy Boy Records, and DJ collectives No Bias and Amor Digital. What began as a small run of talks quickly sold out and drew international interest. People as far away as Barcelona and Bengaluru emailed the organizers asking how to host similar events.The talks come as the global movement against Spotify edges into the mainstream
Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people
A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests.Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement.Since his appointment, Starbuck has baselessly claimed that individual shooters in the US were motivated by leftist ideology, described faith-based protest groups as communists, and without evidence tied Democratic lawmakers to murders.Starbuck’s online posts have not changed in tenor since the “anti-DEI agitator” was brought into the Meta fold, and his Trump administration connections raise broader questions about the extent to which corporate America has capitulated to the Maga movement.The Guardian repeatedly contacted Meta for comment on Starbuck’s role, and his rhetoric online, but received no response
Has Drake Maye ended the Patriots’ painful Tom Brady hangover?
Plenty of franchises spend decades looking for a star quarterback. New England appear to have found one after a few short years in the wildernessYou have to feel for the Browns, Jets, and Bears. Those franchises have spent decades in quarterback purgatory, rotating through prospects and placeholders. Meanwhile, after just five years of searching, the Patriots – the post-Tom Brady Patriots – appear to have found the guy.Five years
Norris as Senna and Piastri as Prost? No, but McLaren must hope title is settled on track | Giles Richards
McLaren and Formula One could do with anything decisive in the championship battle between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri being decided on the track and without reference to the pit wall as the title run-in begins at the Circuit of the Americas on Friday.With the Singapore Grand Prix’s doubtless extensive and tense debriefs dealt with, McLaren will be hoping for a reset. Norris was almost certainly more than aware of the historical context of his riposte to his aggrieved teammate at the last grand prix weekend. In a fiercely contested title fight with the Australian, that Norris invoked one of Ayrton Senna’s most famous sentiments was lost on no one but the incident that provoked his comment was of an entirely different nature to those that defined the Brazilian’s great rivalries.“If you fault me for just going on the inside of a big gap then you should not be in Formula One,” Norris said of his opening-lap attempt to pass that led to the cars colliding
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