Meet Ion: Romanian government ‘hires’ AI adviser to brief him on people’s wishes

In case you need another techno-apocalypse nightmare this week, we’ve got a story that’s sure to make you wonder how far we’ve come from a James Cameron-esque robot uprising.

According to a recent article by Vice Newsthe Romanian government has “hired” an AI that will help collect information on Romanians to help the government understand what people want…or guess their thoughts in order to totally suppress civil liberties through a police state inspired by RoboCop, whichever comes first.

Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said the new AI assistant named Ion (pronounced as “John”) at the unveiling would be his new “honorary adviser”. He also said that Romanian citizens could possibly log in and talk to Ion on the project’s official website.

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Meet Ion and his little cousins

“Hi, you gave me life and my role now is to represent you, like a mirror,” Ion said during the first launch. “What should I know about Romania? »

Ion physically resembles a large standing smart mirror, which could already bring images of the monoliths from “Space Odyssey”.

Ciuca remarked that “I believe that the use of AI should not be an option but an obligation to make better informed decisions”.

While this is a major moment for humanity, it’s not necessarily the first time that AI has been used to study a country’s population so lawmakers and officials can make informed decisions. decisions.

According to Professor Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert at the University of Surrey who spoke to VICE World News, governments around the world have been using AI for some time for what experts call “security analytics.” feelings,” essentially using AI to determine whether taxpayers like or dislike certain ideas they might want to implement.

“Some governments like Russia, China, Iran – they’re looking online for sentiment analysis, but they’re looking for anyone who dissents,” Prof Woodward said. “While democracies, they do try to conduct pseudo-automated polls. It’s kind of like 15 years ago people were having focus groups and now they’re trying to find the same thing from social media.

🚨🇷🇴🤖 World’s first government advisor on AI: Romanian Prime Minister officially declares artificial intelligence “ION” as new advisor to the Prime Minister. pic.twitter.com/aVUalSVL6L

— Terrorist Alarm (@Terror_Alarm) March 1, 2023

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Can this thing enslave us?

If you’re wondering if an outside actor or state-sanctioned operation can hack Ion and convince the government that the majority want to imprison ethnic minorities or they want to start a war, Woodward says it’s incredibly hard to play with the new AI. .

“One of the things that has been found is that social media is an amplifier for people expressing negative sentiment. People who are very happy with something don’t tend to say it, but people who are unhappy do,” he explained. “It’s all part of sentiment analysis, but you have to adjust the models accordingly.”

Almost perfect, but not absolutely perfect.

Just look at the most recent AI that has taken the world by storm – ChatGPT – which when given a simulated task to behave like a politician and recommend public policy, essentially turned into the hypothetical child of the Terminator and Joseph Stalin.

Professor Tracy Harwood of digital literacy at De Montfort University pointed out that people will really have to be critical of this thing that collects information from social media, especially when conducting its research. .

I don’t know if you’ve been to the comments section of any news posted on Facebook, as ever, but it’s not always filled with the brightest people.

Harwood explains, “What data is collected and how is personal data that identifies individuals managed? It is likely that the information retrieved will include the unique identifiers of each of those posting content. What she is referring to are pseudonyms and social media names, which could harm the authenticity of users’ identities, especially if it is a fake account that posts content that is actually a joke.

Klaus Schwab: “Our lives 10 years from now will be completely different. Artificial intelligence, the metaverse and synthetic biology will transform the world, and those who master these technologies will be MASTERS OF THE WORLD.”

My dear friends, THIS is a dystopia. pic.twitter.com/8MLxcW0UTV

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddekal) March 2, 2023

“Ultimately, there needs to be transparency in the implementation of this type of system, not just around the use of data but the intentions of its application, with clear statements that citizens understand.”

Nigel Cannings, founder and CTO of Intelligent Voice, a software company, also expressed concern, saying “recent attempts to rush AI to market have shown just how wrong AI can be on humans. and human intent”.

The first thing that came to mind when reading was ‘Magnetron’, the diabolical microwave oven that tried to kill its creator. Seriously, it’s something that really happened.

“If a journalist can be ‘compared to Hitler’ by a Microsoft-run chatbot,” Cannings said, referring to a recent incident where Bing’s new chatbot says that journalists were among the “most evil and worst people in history”, “it shows that we still have a long way to go before we can rely on AI to properly assess what we think and who we are.

“Letting it run wild on a mass of unchecked data runs the risk of very misleading results. And worse, it gives rise to the real possibility of bad actors trying to trick the system by flooding the internet with information designed to make the algorithm “think” things that aren’t true, and possibly harmful to the system. democracy.

I don’t know, I think there’s enough available to AI to make a fair assessment of humanity, just look at their artwork predicting the last selfies ever.