Letters: AI, Video Games, Security, and Predators

Hi, I'm Jordan, and I want to tell you something about myself. Ever since I was a kid I've been struck by the breadth of human experience largely invisible to me. This is because we can't read each other's thoughts (yet), and I'm likely to only ever know a very small fraction of the billions of people alive on Earth, even with Facebook, and Twitter, and Peach, and, and, and…

The point is we all have rich and endlessly diffuse inner lives. I don't even have to know you, dear reader, to say with a degree of certainty that you are one sick puppy. Now, think: everyone on Earth has ideas that are as disturbing, strange, stupid, smart and funny as you do. Yes, even the ones you hate and dismiss.

Welcome to Motherboard's weekly edition of our "letters to the editor" segment, where we peel back the tincan top of our editor's inbox and revel in the rich, er, perfume of the marvelous cross-section of humanity that's been fermenting for the week.

Even though we're still shaking off the slumber hangover from our January theme week, You'll Sleep When You're Dead, we announced the launch of our upcoming theme week on AI, In Our Image, last Wednesday. This yielded some interesting tidbits of speculation from our readers this week. We also interviewed a former sumo wrestling champ who went viral at the Oregon occupation, recapped the most insane moments from the life of disgraced Silk Road investigator Shaun Bridges, and found out that ravens, somewhat terrifyingly, can be paranoid.

But enough bragging, right? Here's some of the best emails we got from our readers this week.

Why Are So Many Scientists Harassing Their Students?

Kaleigh,

Thank you for the article. I would just like to point out the additional prominence of non-sexual harassment and intimidation that exists between PIs and their students.

Graduate student researchers often straddle the blurred line between student and paid professional. As such, my alma mater conveniently applies the title of either student or professional in whichever way is most convenient for a given situation. For example, reports of mistreatment from students garner little attention of department and college heads, whereas similar mistreatment behavior within a corporate lifestyle is intolerable. My only conclusion is that universities (or at least mine) feel comfortable viewing grad students solely as students in terms of providing friendly workplace environment. Alternately, grad students are expected to bear such abuses and maintain professional propriety lest their careers be forever sidetracked by a bad relationship with their advisor, who may double as their dementor. I have seen countless professors push countless more students to their limits through verbal abuse and social intimidation. Unfortunately, a research degree program is not one that can be quit, unless one is comfortable forfeiting years of progress. Perhaps the system needs to be remodeled into something more portable from PI to PI and university to university.

Thanks again, I hope the above thoughts are not a total waste, but some food for thought about the irresponsibility of those in charge of the direction of our country's massive research and funding system.

- Adam

Hi Kaleigh,

I just read your article "Why are so Many Scientists Harassing Their Students?"

I'm a grad student in chemistry, I'm not aware of being harassed sexually. Mostly, I'm troubled by others unconscious biases.

I've read some of the following book, which I think is interesting and relevant. It uses empirical data to formulate some interesting hypothesis on several topics. I think the sexual harassment issue is a continuation of many of the things Martin has identified in his book.

http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/98tk/

I enjoyed your article. - Anonymous

Weezer's Bizarre Copyright Crackdown on 'Hash Pipe'

Pretty sure they can't monetize "Hash Pipe" because they got caught using
The Shods music in it and are secretly paying them now or something. That's my
guess.

http://www.weezerpedia.com/wiki/index.php?title=Ha…

"The guitar riff was at least partially inspired by the "Theme From Peter
Gunn", the theme music for an old, cops-and-robbers style tv show, and
composed by Henry Mancini. The theme has proven to be much more endurable than
the show, and has appeared in many TV shows and films, both in its origina
recording as well as cover versions. Rivers has stated in several interviews
at the time of the single's release that he stole the riff from Spy Hunter, a
popular arcade video game from the 80s which featured a digitized version of
the Peter Gunn theme.

It's also been said that the riff may have been "borrowed" from The Shod's
song "He Shot Himself Up". Cuomo is friends with Shods member Kevin Stevenson,
and was said to be listening heavily to The Shods and this song in particular
in 1998, two years before "Hash Pipe" was written."

- Anonymous

YouTube Personalities Use 'Minecraft' to Prey on Underage Fans

Hi, I read your article about the Minecraft Youtubers today and it really struck me how little Youtube seems to do about this. I've been close to a similar situation involving YouTube personalities before, and as somebody who grew up with a pretty heavily invested "online life," I think it's absolutely ridiculous that YouTube, which has a massive community of young people consuming content, has no safeguarding restrictions in place. I've worked with young people in my local community and I know how easily they will share things, YouTube must know this too. I don't have a real suggestion, and I don't think it's my place to put forward one as I've only been on the receiving end of CRB checks, but I feel that YouTube needs to work more closely with the authorities maybe. In real life (for want of a better word) there are stringent safeguarding checks in place to protect young people from potential risks, but it seems that many YouTube communities (and other online communities, I guess, but time and again it's Youtube) blur the lines between a content creator and consumer in a way that leaves young people incredibly vulnerable.

- Dylan

In Our Image: Pitch Us Your Stories on the Future of AI

Thought I'd drop you my thoughts on the future of AI—it's admittedly something that absorbs quite a lot of my thinking time!

Anyways, here goes:

- AI's never quite reach the sci-fi holy grail; instead they always seem to fall short and for years every 'new best AI that is just like a human' turns out to be a hoax or a poorly executed test

- AI's just become a mass of independent programs or computers that each tackle a single task

- We become incredibly reliant on them for everything mundane or routine (e.g. data entry tasks, stock control, etc) but can't really trust them for critical tasks

- Companies and people also become concerned about their AI's running on shared platforms, so we wind up with massive warehouses full of independent supercomputers running their own programs; this is partly driven by massive cyber attacks on the 'internet of things' and companies / industries

- It all winds up a bit like those massive drab offices you typically see in films in New York / America (e.g. start of The Matrix) - lots of cubicles, each with a baby supercomputer and a technician / minder to setup and look after it (and do some beneficial, human analysis on the results)

- People get bored of yet another tech revolution that never really changes society and just becomes part of daily life

Reading that back, it appears I have a rather bland outlook on the future. Regardless, looking forward to seeing other people's ideas!

- Jake Hadley

'The Witness' Is the First Video Game I've Ever Played and I Love It

In my opinion, your site has gone downhill over the last year. For example, as a guy who plays video games, why the hell would I give a shit about a video game review by someone who's NEVER PLAYED VIDEO GAMES?!?! Yeah, it's novel, but seriously, WTF.

A review implies that the reviewer has some breadth of experience with which to judge the experience and recommend or not recommend that experience to other people. Why the hell would I care about a movie review by someone who's never seen a single movie? Or someone who gives 5 stars to the first restaurant they eat at in their entire life?

I don't want to be a jerk, but I just don't read your site much anymore, and I used to all the time. I'm no longer impressed.

- Mark Speckman

Hey Mark, did you read the story? The entire point of the story is that The Witness is sucking new people into gaming because of how engaging it is. A traditional video game reviewer couldn't make that point because they already play games. If you don't see that, then there's not much I can do for you.

- Derek Mead

Google Will Soon Shame All Websites That are Unencrypted

Hi, I quoted from your article in an e-mail group and got a reply from Chris Palmer saying that the paragraph I quoted from your article is inaccurate. I'm giving you heads up in case you'd want to address that.

- Jirka Daněk

Thanks for the feedback Jirka. I have corrected the article. I wasn't present at the conference, and following it on Twitter I got confused and mistakenly thought that a Google employee was giving the presentation. I regret the error.

- Lorenzo Francesci-Bicchierai

Dear Lorenzo,

Please tell Google that there is no earthly reason why my own website (http://ve3oat.ca) should be using https.

My visitors and I don't do any "commerce", there is nothing to "download" except the pages themselves and a few pictures and diagrams, and there is only a simple script so they can send me an e-mail ("Contact"). The site is only for information.

My ISP tells me that it will cost me almost 4 dollars per month to have https and that is almost as much as I pay for hosting. I support privacy (I'm a member of EFF) and I agree that it would be nice to offer an https connection, and even "cool" to do so, but is it really necessary for me to have https just to satisfy some arbitrary Google requirement?

Https is a very good idea but is it necessary for everyone??

- Martin Potter

Dear Martin,

I totally understand your concerns. Yet, you have to take into account that if a non HTTPS-website opens up the door for hackers on the same network as the user to impersonate that site, by intercepting the users connection. Moreover, government hackers such as the NSA or China have take advantage of HTTP websites to inject malicious code and infect targets.

Also, there are now a few ways to get your website an SSL certificate for free. On my site, for example, I used CloudFlare (https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/). And there's also Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org/)

I believe that in the future, most sites will be over HTTPS, and it's starting to look like there will be no good reason *not* to be.

Thanks for the note,

- Lorenzo Francesci-Bicchierai