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Fake Voices: The Ethics of Deepfakes
(MIT App Inventor)
"In this unit, students explore synthetic media by creating a smartphone app that can speak in different voices by changing the rate and pitch of the speech. Students work in groups to present arguments about the possible future impacts of various types of media, including ones in commerce and assistive technology as well as those used in crime.

Educators can use this lesson to introduce students to , provide a basic understanding of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and prompt students to predict the possible future use and abuse of synthetic media in society."
appinventor.mit.edu/explore/re
@edutooters

@MrsDi @edutooters

Far too many of our engineers, computer programmers, and people and social media have never taken courses in philosophy and ethics. They don't have a rabbi or priest to serve as a spiritual guide. So they are ethically rudderless - I'm actually meeting people who argue that "If it's possible for us to do, and it is legal, then it must be okay" which is the attitude that has led to every human rights abuse and atrocity. Being legal doesn't make it right, being illegal doesn't make it wrong. Being possible doesn't make it wise.

The amount of good that this technology can do vanishes in comparison to the vast amount of harm, humiliation, and potential suicides that this technology will result in. I'm deeply distressed at how people from now on can have their lives or careers destroyed in an instant by deep fake videos and audio.

@KaiserScience @MrsDi @edutooters A 'move fast & break things' ethos is very purposeful - consider who benefits, upstream & downstream.

@KaiserScience @MrsDi @edutooters how do you reasonably expect to unopen the Pandora's Box that this represents? Claiming without evidence that this will costs the lives of people is inflammatory. Bring something other than an appeal to our lizard brains if you'd like to actually engage on this.

@KaiserScience @MrsDi @edutooters

Vanishes? If you look around, do you see humanity worse off for technology, at this moment, right now? If it vanishes in the future, that will be because of our bad choices today (and yesterday).

The impact of this tech is up to us. We have a poor track record of managing/regulating our tech, but not a hopeless one. The EU does better than the US.

This MIT course is at least something; it will get kids considering some of the issues. Judging by the Teacher Guide it won't do much to educate about ethics, however.

@KaiserScience @MrsDi @edutooters Gartner presented a talk at a conference a few years back on the topic of ethics and “Digital Humanism”. The takeaway for me was that there are two different approaches: A “Digital Machinist” says “If it can be done, we should do it.” The Digital Humanist says “Yes, it CAN be done, but I’d it the right thing to do?”

Seems like the Digital Machinists are winning the ethics war…

@tx_tartan @KaiserScience @edutooters
I read that only 1 school in the US is teaching AI literacy. Even if it’s more, it isn’t a lot. I’m searching for how to learn it myself, true AI literacy, and to then bring to faculty as a start. Slim pickings. We are so far behind and our overall social culture leans easily in the opposite direction. Bit of an uphill climb right now.

@tx_tartan @KaiserScience @edutooters
I found the article that mentions "Seckinger is apparently the only high school in the country dedicated to teaching AI as part of its curriculum, not just as an elective class, according to CSforAll, a nonprofit group dedicated to expanding computer science education in schools across the country."

@MrsDi @edutooters The greatest improvement in life will be to replace telephone robocalls into AI scam artists. :)

@MrsDi @edutooters Thanks for sharing this!

I was actually going to do a mini-unit with my AP CSP students after winter break about AI and Machine Learning. I am also trying to work more AI lessons into my introductory and security classes too.

These resources will certainly help!

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