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| Image from Pixabay |
Are you a good artist? Great. Then draw me a picture with two flags, each on a short pole, that make a 45 degree angle with each other.
Not
that difficult, right, this assignment? However, ask ChatGPT for this and there
is no way you can get that angle in there. You do get two sticks next to each
other, which in the best case are intertwined. On one side there is a flag that
waves to the left, on the other side one that waves to the right. If you ask
specifically for that angle again, the flags are extended and folded, indeed at
an angle of 45 degrees. But those sticks, they remain stoically parallel to
each other.
What about
this so-called artificial intelligence? Admittedly, I could never draw those
flags that neatly and quickly myself. For the rest, after such a
disappointment, I rather think that the thing is artificially stupid. I don’t easily
stick labels on something, but if you brag about your intelligence and then
don’t understand what every freshman with a set square does understand, then
you’re done for.
A
much smarter – but also reprehensible – application of AI is scamming people. I
had barely started writing this blog when a radio conversation started about
gullible people who had been scammed by criminals posing as René Froger, Max
Verstappen, Mark Rutte or André Rieu on a dating site (René Froger is a
well-known Dutch singer, and you know the others, I presume). Each and every
one of them people who were well off. And yet, after some flirting back and
forth, they begged for money, supposedly because theirs was temporarily unavailable,
for example due to problems with their manager. One victim had even transferred
thirty thousand euros (well over 31k USD) to “René Froger”.
According
to the guest on the radio show, slightly more women than men fall for these
kinds of tricks, and especially those of slightly older age – people who don't
necessarily know what normal online behavior is. And if one of them receives a
personal voice message from their idol, via a dating site, they must be in
seventh heaven, right?
Now
you might wonder what these people are doing on a dating site (well, maybe
apart from Mark Rutte, who is single). Unmasking this kind of scam works with
flags; the more flags, the more likely it is bad business. Celebrity on a
dating site: big red flag. Celebrity who starts chatting with you? Huge red
flag. Famous or not famous person who asks for money after a few nice chats: enormous
red flag. Three red flags in a row? Sound the alarm!
But
yes, that voice message, right? That sounds really convincing. And if you don't
know anything about deepfakes, that is, artificial intelligence is used to make
a voice say anything you want, then I can hardly accuse you of natural
stupidity. Let's agree that from now on you think of those red flags when you
come across something improbable. Maybe it will help you not to fall for it.
Back
to those crossed flags (because that whole story about flirting celebrities
just happened to creep in because I was listening to the radio with half an
ear). That picture I wanted was for private use. For my work as a Dutch civil
servant, I should not have used such an AI tool. In official terms: the use of
non-contracted AI is not permitted, in principle. I prefer to turn this rule
around: for your work, you may only use AI that we have purchased. Why is that
better? Because then there is a contract in which the rights and obligations of
both parties are described. This ensures that our data cannot simply be
included in a large artificial brain and that the owner of that brain cannot
use it for his own purposes. You might see the contract as a green flag.
And in the big bad world…
- We are not allowed to use DeepSeek at all. [DUTCH]
- DeepSeek brings with it quite a few security and privacy issues.
- Meta trains its AI with illegally obtained books.
- it is high time for our own Dutch cloud (under the name Cloud Kootwijk). [DUTCH]
- Banks want to be able to check with telecom providers whether you are making phone calls while transferring money. [DUTCH]
- Some banks do this in a roundabout way (because the above is not yet allowed). [DUTCH]
- You can silence criminals by turning off their power and internet.
- Elon Musk’s office combs through federal databases as if there were no security and privacy regulations.
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