AI counterfeit people
The moment has arrived to insist on making anybody who even thinks of counterfeiting people feel ashamed-and duly deterred from committing such an antisocial act of vandalism. - Daniel C. Dennett 🔗
By allowing the most economically and politically powerful people, corporations, and governments to control our attention, these rules will control us. Counterfeit people, by distracting and confusing us and by exploiting our most irresistible fears and anxieties, will lead us into temptation and, from there, into acquiescing to our own subjugation. The counterfeit people will talk us into adopting policies and convictions that will make us vulnerable to still more manipulation. Or we will simply turn off our attention and become passive and ignorant pawns. This is a terrifying prospect. - Daniel C. Dennett 🔗
Independence of clones criterion
A classic result in voting theory is Arrow's Impossibility theorem:
Arrow showed that no such rule can satisfy all of a certain set of seemingly simple and reasonable conditions that include independence of irrelevant alternatives, the principle that a choice between two alternatives A and B should not depend on the quality of some third, unrelated option C. - Wikipedia 🔗
The non-existence of a voting rule to satisfy simple conditions, including independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA), should be deeply concerning. The result extends beyond the strict interpretation that there does not exist a plainly fair voting rule. The result demonstrates that there is does not exist a plainly fair way for people, generally, to come together and make decisions.
The independence of clones criterion is a weaker version of IIA. It says that the outcome of a voting rule should not be effected by adding clones (effectively identical copies of existing alternatives). However, most voting rules do not even satisify this criterion as seen in the following table.
You would think that this would be a simple rule to satisfy. But it isn't. Most voting rules do not satisfy this.
Clone connection
The unsatisfiability of the independence of irrelevant alternative (Arrow's Theorem) and the fact that nearly all of the prominent voting rules (many of which are practically in use) do not satisfy the independence of clones criterion should give us deep concern. The problems with "counterfeit people" describe by Dennett cannot be waved away as minor issues or simply humdrum technological adaptations. They are deep problems rooted in unsettling mathematical truths.
Do not think of voting as literally just voting in an election. Voting is also like algorithms deciding what news articles to promote. Officals polling the literature to decide on government policies. People decided what to buy in crowded online marketplaces and retail shelves.
We will need to account for clones at every step of the way. Clones that "pass the Turing Test". Clones that can be spun out with the press of a button. Instantly, over and over again.
This is the true threat of Generative AI.
Aside: STAR WARS clones and collusion
The other issue, which is somewhat separate, is regarding the participation of clones not as alternatives (which is consider above) but rather as participants.
Clones as blunt participants are not as scary. We can imagine blocking or otherwise filtering them out.
What is concerning is the fact that clones can be made to act independently and then suddenly open the control of a central apparatus. Just ask the Jedi after Order 66. Clones are dangerous.