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IBM's Ridiculous Opportunism: Sells Out Section 230 To Sell More Filters

from the go-away dept

This perhaps isn’t a huge surprise, but IBM is being disdainful of the wider tech ecosystem, yet again. It has an incredibly long history of this kind of activity — mostly in the patent space, where it is the world’s foremost patent bully. The company gleefully announces each and every year that it gets the most patents of any company in the US. It has done this (no joke) for 26 straight years. Of course, given how many patents it gets, if patents actually were a marker for innovation, you’d think that IBM would still be putting out all sorts of innovative new products all the time. Right? Except, of course, it is not. Instead, it uses the patents to shake down companies who actually do innovate. The most famous of these stories is the one about IBM and Sun in its early days, in which IBM showed up at Sun’s offices with threats of patent infringement:

My own introduction to the realities of the patent system came in the 1980s, when my client, Sun Microsystems–then a small company–was accused by IBM of patent infringement. Threatening a massive lawsuit, IBM demanded a meeting to present its claims. Fourteen IBM lawyers and their assistants, all clad in the requisite dark blue suits, crowded into the largest conference room Sun had.

The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed, the most prominent of which was IBM’s notorious “fat lines” patent: To turn a thin line on a computer screen into a broad line, you go up and down an equal distance from the ends of the thin line and then connect the four points. You probably learned this technique for turning a line into a rectangle in seventh-grade geometry, and, doubtless, you believe it was devised by Euclid or some such 3,000-year-old thinker. Not according to the examiners of the USPTO, who awarded IBM a patent on the process.

After IBM’s presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues–all of whom had both engineering and law degrees–took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM’s claims. We used phrases like: “You must be kidding,” and “You ought to be ashamed.” But the IBM team showed no emotion, save outright indifference. Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun’s technology infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. “OK,” he said, “maybe you don’t infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?”

After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

This kind of negotiation is a standard part of IBM’s business practices these days. Just recently it was shaking down Groupon. And a few years ago, we wrote about the similar shakedown of Twitter, with the threat coming on the eve of Twitter’s IPO — timed perfectly to scare off investors. Left with little choice, Twitter caved, even though the patents were bogus, and paid IBM $36 million.

Back in 2013, when IBM first went after Twitter, I highlighted how it was an example of how older tech companies focus on litigation when they have no innovation left. In the comments, a few people challenged that claim, saying that IBM was innovative. “Just look at Watson,” the company’s big AI project, they all said. So, about that:

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. And of course, in a post-Alice world, where the Supreme Court has made it clear that most software doesn’t deserve a patent, IBM is losing its ability to prop up its businesses with the patent shakedown game as well. Indeed, EFF even shamed the company into dropping one of its truly stupid patents.

So what’s a giant tech company that hasn’t been innovative in years, and can’t rely on shaking down actually innovative companies with bogus patents, to do? Well, how about using some other methods of gaming the regulatory system? Last year, IBM made it quite clear that it wanted to fuck up the internet, when it came out in favor of FOSTA (and at the same time, against inserting intermediary liability protections, like Section 230 of the CDA, into trade agreements).

Now, incredibly, just at the time when there are bipartisan attacks on Section 230, IBM has decided to support gutting Section 230 with a truly malicious and ill-informed statement arguing that 230 protections should be “earned” based on an impossible “reasonable” standard.

In the United States, precision regulation means taking a fresh look at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230). As currently written, CDA 230 grants an expansive liability shield to any provider of an ?interactive computer service? for the actions that occur on their platform, regardless of whether the platform turns a blind eye to illegal activity. Courts have found companies that knowingly host illegal content to be exempt from legal liability based on the broad protection that CDA 230 provides. But a measure designed nearly a quarter-century ago to foster an infant internet needs to keep pace with the enormous social, economic, and even political power that the online world today commands.

Instead of holding all online platforms exempt from liability by default, IBM believes that the exemption should be conditioned on companies applying a standard of ?reasonable care? and taking actions and preventative measures to curb unlawful uses of their service.

We just recently discussed how this is a completely unworkable standard. First of all, a reasonable care standard would mean widespread censorship, because what internet company wants to risk going to court over all of this? If “conservatives” think they’re getting banned too frequently from social media today, just wait until those platforms face real liability for leaving content up too much.

Second, “reasonable care” will have to be proven in court — meaning that the procedural benefits of Section 230 get tossed out the window (rather than being able to get a case tossed at an early stage on 230 grounds, companies will have to go through the expensive and time-consuming process of “proving” to a court that they’ve taken “reasonable care”).

Of course, IBM doesn’t give a shit about the open internet. To them, killing Section 230 opens up all sorts of neat possibilities. First off, IBM doesn’t host any significant online services that rely on Section 230 protections, so it doesn’t increase its own liability. Second, it handicaps the companies who actually have been innovating in AI technology, like Google and Microsoft. Third — and this is the key — you can bet that one way that many companies will try to prove “reasonable care” would be to purchase an expensive filtering technology. Perhaps one based on… Watson? IBM gets to salvage its junk technology and have the government create a market for it. Bonus.

The rest of IBM’s post is incredibly disingenuous:

The ?reasonable care? standard would provide strong incentives for companies to limit illegal and illicit behavior online, while also being flexible enough to promote continued online innovation and fairly easy adaptation to different online business models.

The companies already have plenty of incentives to “limit illegal and illicit behavior online” — because when they don’t, they get a ton of shit for it in the press and from politicians. Establishing a new bullshit level of liability will only lead to much greater censorship, including of perfectly legal content. This is something IBM doesn’t even acknowledge.

In fact, IBM tries to rewrite what happened with FOSTA:

Around the same time, IBM played a key role in promoting passage of U.S. legislation to crackdown on the spread of online content with a truly horrific purpose: trafficking children for sexual exploitation. We saw this legislation, known as SESTA/FOSTA, as an important step in a broader global effort to stop criminals from using digital platforms for clearly illegal behavior.

And what has happened since then? FOSTA has failed in every measure. More women and children have been put at risk thanks to FOSTA. For IBM to be taking a victory lap on that is truly fucked up.

Then IBM pushes out this complete nonsense:

Reasonable care does not mean eliminating entirely the intermediary liability protections of CDA 230, or comparable laws in Europe and elsewhere. Nor are we calling for amending the ?Good Samaritan? provision of CDA 230, which limits the liability of companies that take voluntary actions to stop bad actors. We simply believe companies should also be held legally responsible to use reasonable, common-sense care when it comes to moderating online content. This means, for example, quickly identifying and deleting content focused on child pornography, violence on child-oriented sites, or online content promoting acts of mass violence, suicide, or the sale of illegal drugs. A reasonable care standard in CDA 230 would add a measure of legal responsibility to what many platforms are already doing voluntarily.

Note the many, many contradictions in just this paragraph alone. The “Good Samaritan” provision of Section 230 is what encourages companies to take down that content already. Adding legal liability absolutely does remove the very mechanism that the Good Samaritan provision provides. Second, if (as the paragraph notes) the internet platforms are already doing this voluntarily, why do we need to add legal liability to hold them responsible? And that’s not even mentioning the fact that the post conflates a bunch of different content — ignoring how difficult some of it is to recognize (compared to others that are easy to recognize). There is not a single serious internet company that is allowing child pornography on its platform. They all ban it. They all remove it as soon as they’re aware of it. They all tap into the giant NCMEC database of hashes. And they do that because they don’t face liability.

IBM has long been a black hole for actual innovation. Now it wants to suck down the open internet with it. Don’t let it.

Filed Under: cda 230, filters, liability, patents, reasonable care, section 230, watson
Companies: ibm

Here Come The AIs To Make Office Workers Superfluous

from the are-you-next? dept

Stories about robots and their impressive capabilities are starting to crop up fairly often these days. It’s no secret that they will soon be capable of replacing humans for many manual jobs, as they already do in some manufacturing industries. But so far, artificial intelligence (AI) has been viewed as more of a blue-sky area — fascinating and exciting, but still the realm of research rather than the real world. Although AI certainly raises important questions for the future, not least philosophical and ethical ones, its impact on job security has not been at the forefront of concerns. But a recent decision by a Japanese insurance company to replace several dozen of its employees with an AI system suggests maybe it should be:

Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes [its move] will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (?1m) a year after the 200m yen (?1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (?100k) a year.

The Guardian article quoted above gives a few more details:

The system is based on IBM’s Watson Explorer, which, according to the tech firm, possesses “cognitive technology that can think like a human?, enabling it to ?analyse and interpret all of your data, including unstructured text, images, audio and video”.

The technology will be able to read tens of thousands of medical certificates and factor in the length of hospital stays, medical histories and any surgical procedures before calculating payouts

It’s noteworthy that IBM’s Watson Explorer is being used by the insurance company in this way barely a year after the head of the Watson project stated flatly that his system wouldn’t be replacing humans any time soon. That’s a reflection of just how fast this sector is moving. Now would be a good time to check whether your job might be next.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: ai, future of work, japan, jobs, robots, watson, white collar workers

DailyDirt: Jocks Versus Nerds

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The rise of fantasy sports and realistic video games for every major sport has expanded the audience and engagement incredibly. Even if you can’t throw a spiral, you can still manage a fantasy football team. Sabermetrics changed baseball, and deep learning algorithms are about to change how a lot of other sports are played. Computers aren’t just going to beat people at chess and Go. They might become better talent scouts and strategists for every major sport.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ai, algorithms, analytics, artificial intelligence, basketball, cognitive computing, data, football, moneyball, sabermetrics, simulations, sports, toronto raptors, watson
Companies: ibm, nba, nfl

DailyDirt: Open Source Artificial Intelligence Is Smart

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The importance of machine learning is becoming clearer as vast amounts of valuable data accumulates and human minds are looking ill-equipped to try to parse all of it. Sure, humans seem to be better at deciphering our own handwriting and voices, but artificial intelligence (AI) might be a tad better at predicting long-term weather patterns or imminent economic instabilities. We’ve already seen AI that can beat the best of us at Jeopardy! and chess. Here are just a few open source projects that could help achieve the next milestones of AI and machine learning.

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take 10% off any $50+ order from our Daily Deals using the promo code DAILYDIRT.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, big sur hardware, darpa, deep learning, deepdive, elon musk, machine learning, oaqa, open compute, open source, openai, opencog, tensorflow, uima, watson
Companies: amazon, facebook, google, ibm, microsoft

DailyDirt: Recipes Analyzed By Algorithms

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Algorithms are data mining every aspect of our lives and the world around us — to pull out interesting bits of information that we should act on. Companies like Google and Facebook come up with algorithms to figure out when to put ads in front of our eyes and how to display pertinent information (sometimes at the same time). Other algorithms are apparently watching what we eat, and trying to highlight what makes food taste good for us or how to formulate the “perfect Pepsis” or find unexpected recipes or flavor combinations. Here are just a few examples of software-based culinary art.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, algorithms, artificial intelligence, cognitive computing, cognitive cooking, cuisine, data mining, flavors, food, recipes, watson
Companies: ibm

DailyDirt: Technology For Lawyers

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Every profession faces some disruption with technological improvements. Robots have slowly been taking over dangerous and labor-intensive jobs in manufacturing for decades, but advanced algorithms are starting to creep into careers that were previously safe from automation. Sure, translation software has provided some hilarious examples of how bad they are, but the first chess programs weren’t so good, either. Lawyers could outlaw their robotic replacements, but they might have to act fast. Here are just a few links on technology getting into the field of law.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, automation, blockchain, cognitive computing, science fiction, smart contracts, tools, watson
Companies: ibm

DailyDirt: How Do You Teach A Computer To Learn Like A Baby?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We don’t know a whole lot about how our own brains learn or even store/retrieve information, so it seems a bit difficult to expect anyone to build a computer that copies human cognitive functions with any degree of reliability. Still, researchers are trying to build computer models of human brains and brain functions, and if they do figure it out (and learn more about how human intelligence works along the way), we could see some real advances in artificial intelligence. Some of these efforts have been going on for decades, so hopefully, some new angles on machine learning will pan out.

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, babyx, cyc, machine learning, opencyc, robo brain, toddler simulation, watson
Companies: ibm

DailyDirt: High-Tech Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

From the farm/factory/lab to the plate/tray/takeout container, technology is constantly changing the things we do with food every step of the way. Here are three recent intersections of food and tech that range from the novel to the potentially revolutionary:

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, food, toaster, watson

IBM Researcher Feeds Watson Supercomputer The 'Urban Dictionary'; Very Quickly Regrets It

from the hateful-day-when-I-received-life-you-only-live-once-smh-and-etc. dept

As a parent, some of your proudest moments occur when your children begin to talk. After several months of ear-shredding cries and indistinguishable babble, they finally begin to communicate in a language you can understand. A first word is an indescribable joy, whether it's “mama,” “dada” or “roku.” The future now seems to be an amazing place where you and your child will strive towards excellence together, culminating in a comfortable retirement in which you live off their immense earnings as a person of brilliance.

Shortly thereafter, you begin to rue the day they ever learned the (now) cursed language of their ancestors.

It starts with the incessant barrage of questions in a meandering quest for knowledge, followed by the barrage of questions (mainly, “Why?”) that greet every suggestion, criticism or direct order. Shortly thereafter, it's followed by questions directed at your parenting skills, cultural tastes, archaic slang use, rhetorical devices and sense of direction. At the point where you're wishing their language development had followed Charlie Gordon's “learning curve,” you're asked to make a surprise appearance at the school administrator's office to explain a sudden outburst of particularly inventive cursing from your former “pride and joy.”

So it is also with artificial life.

Watson, IBM's Jeopardy-contestant supercomputer, showed the world that, with the right programming, any puny human could be bested in a mildly snooty game show that handed out answers and asked for questions. However, the quest for true artificial intelligence is still ongoing.

So, in the interest of science, the whole of human knowledge (Internet Edition™) was dropped into Watson's brain and then… the problems began.

Two years ago, Brown attempted to teach Watson the Urban Dictionary. The popular website contains definitions for terms ranging from Internet abbreviations like OMG, short for “Oh, my God,” to slang such as “hot mess.”

But Watson couldn't distinguish between polite language and profanity — which the Urban Dictionary is full of. Watson picked up some bad habits from reading Wikipedia as well. In tests it even used the word “bullshit” in an answer to a researcher's query.

Well, it appears that every teacher's distrust of the internet in general is well-earned. It's nothing but quasi-facts dressed up in four-letter words, like a World Book Encyclopedia annotated by 4chan's /b/ board. (I'm not going to link to it. I won't have your misclicks weighing on my soul.) Still, it's disheartening to know that the use of the word “bullshit” (even correctly) is not considered a sign of intelligence, artificial or otherwise. Sure, the word itself may be inappropriate, but under certain circumstances, it is by far the most appropriate answer.

Fortunately for Watson's team, they had the option to remove all this useful knowledge before it offended other researchers who weren't as used to being coldly called on their bullshit.

Ultimately, Brown's 35-person team developed a filter to keep Watson from swearing and scraped the Urban Dictionary from its memory. But the trial proves just how thorny it will be to get artificial intelligence to communicate naturally.

It also shows that artificial intelligence has one huge advantage over regular intelligence: the ability to permanently forget. We lowly humans are stuck with a brain that constantly reminds us (especially if we spend much time at places like the aforementioned /b/ board) that what is seen, cannot be unseen.

Watson, having been de-swearified and brainwashed, is now headed to a better place.

Brown is now training Watson as a diagnostic tool for hospitals.

There it will be able to use its acquired knowledge to battle health issues like cancer, AIDS, diabetes and Dissociative Facebook Identity Disorder.

Filed Under: artificial intelligence, curses, profanity, urban dictionary, watson
Companies: ibm

Finally Found: A Human That Can Beat Watson… And It Turns Out To Be Rep. Rush Holt

from the bow-down-to-the-superior-mind dept

While IBM’s Watson obviously got a ton of attention for winning its big national TV challenge against two Jeopardy stars, apparently, IBM is taking the Jeopardy playing machine on tour, with a key stop being Congress. It got to play against a group of our elected officials… and one of them actually beat Watson. Say hello to Rep. Rush Holt — who was a bit of a ringer, since he’s actually a five-time Jeopardy champion. Holt apparently outscored Watson 8,600to8,600 to 8,600to6,200, though all the other Congressional Reps who went up against Watson were unable to master the computer. I guess this means that we should make Rep. Holt our new leader when the machines come to try to enslave us.

Filed Under: ai, computers, game algorithms, jeopardy, rush holt, watson
Companies: ibm