Ask a Data Ethicist:
At a recent presentation for a local post-secondary institution, I fielded a number of questions related to the use of language, primarily English language texts, as training data for generative AI. There were questions around cultural impacts and related ethical concerns. These queries were more nuanced than the usual ones I get around copyright or france whatsapp number data data reuse, which we tackled in last month’s column. So, I did a little research to help better understand:
What happens when language becomes AI training data and what are some of the concerns that arise from this process?
We Are Creatures of Language
In one of those down-the-rabbit-hole internet journeys that we all take from time to time, I landed on an old blog by author and activist, Tom Athanasiou. He was talking about AI pioneer Terry Winograd, who received a letter from an unnamed author, that said:
“From my point of view natural language processing is unethical, for one main reason. It plays on the central position which language holds in human behavior. I suggest that the deep involvement Wiezenbaum found some people have with ELIZA [a program which imitates a Rogerian therapist] is due to the intensity with which most people react to language in any form. When a person receives a linguistic utterance in any form, the person reacts much as a dog reacts to an odor. We are creatures of language.”