Standardizing...
Pretend offense, benchmarks, and responsibility
The British Imperial standards are the oldest known standard still in widespread use today having originated in 1824. Yet, two-hundred years later the British Imperial system hangs on strongest in the former colonies of America. In the UK some measures, those Imperial measures which have culturally significant associations such as the pint and mile, continue whereas most have been supplanted by the metric system. Whereas, in the United States the metric system has only the slightest purchase on our shores. Mostly in scientific uses or as an accessory label on international products. However knowledgeable I may be about the system, or how rational it is, when I sit down to eat, its not a 200g fillet that I imagine, or 50ml of gin. Instead it is 8oz of beef and 1oz of gin. Which, makes absolutely no sense as one is a weight the other a volume. If you really want to have fun with this try arguing it with a TSA employee about the amount of toothpaste you can board a plane with.
Touring the Macedonian countryside and seeing the ruins I recall my earliest recognition of a standard. In the marble slab were divots with small holes in the middle. These were the ancient measuring cups for olive oil. Small, medium, and large quantities, to be filled to the brim so you were confident you were getting a consistent amount from a vendor. By doing so, you became a customer who could feel comfortable repeatedly purchasing from them. Fascinating really and what an enabler those divots were. From this it isn’t difficult to scale this idea forward, to an area, a region, or the world. We are a species that creates tools and damn, we are good at it. We create tools for all sorts of activities. Some help us to move, to produce food, to aid in providing us shelter and clothing, to see better, and even to destroy each other.
The lack of an accepted standard for detecting under-ground atomic detonations led to the massive build-up of nuclear weapons in the world. The Fournier transforms which ultimately proved successful in determining the difference between earthquakes and under-ground nuclear explosions became the foundation for nearly all digital communications.
From a production and consumption of Ai, where might standards help and harm? Copyright seems to be the most prevalent existing standard that the development of large-scale Ai systems has seen fit to completely usurp. Prior to that, the transition from physical to digital records has a long track record of neglect for protecting identity and privacy. This leads one to wonder if there any value in regulation when there seems to be relative impunity to those who make immense profits by ‘moving fast and breaking things’ only to lawyer up and We’ve long had laws protecting personal information, which seem to be routinely broken and the same of Ai, Privacy, and Copyright specifically, where is the role for standards today? Where are they missing? Would they be helpful or harmful?
When you see the co-founder of Anthropic standing next to the Pope and talking about the threat of AI to humanity you should wonder how much influence these companies are exerting on global policy and theocracy. One thing is for sure, when the foxes start participating in discussing the rules for the hen house, the hens should be very worried.