Snippets about: Human Rights
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The Silencing Of Critical Voices
When Timnit Gebru and colleagues wrote 'Stochastic Parrots,' a paper warning about the dangers of large language models, Google forced her to retract it. The paper highlighted environmental costs, discriminatory outputs, and the risk of people mistaking statistical patterns for real intelligence.
Gebru's firing on Thanksgiving weekend 2020 sparked massive protests and marked a turning point. It normalized corporate censorship of critical AI research and showed how concentrated industry power could silence accountability. After ChatGPT, transparency norms collapsed further - OpenAI largely stopped publishing at conferences, and companies hid technical details as proprietary secrets.
Section: 2, Chapter: 7
Book: Empire of AI
Author: Karen Hao
Freedom Demands Civic Courage - We Must Take Responsibility
Lesson 20: Be as courageous as you can: Stand up for your convictions even in the face of fear and intimidation.
We face a dangerous moment when the future of freedom is in doubt. It's easy to grow cynical or paralyzed. But as Snyder argues, the lesson of the 20th century is that individual citizens have more power than they realize.
Ultimately, tyranny prevails only when the people acquiesce to it. So we all share responsibility to muster our courage and fight for democracy. This takes many forms - participating in politics, defending dissent, standing up to oppression in our daily lives. As Snyder poignantly observes, "If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die under tyranny." The stakes are high, but so is our duty. We must practice the "corporeal politics" of showing up in person and putting our bodies on the line when called to do so.
Section: 1, Chapter: 20
Book: On Tyranny
Author: Timothy Snyder
The Long Arc of Changing Attitudes Toward Gay Rights
In the early 1980s, when Evan Wolfson wrote his law school thesis making the case for same-sex marriage, the idea was so far outside the mainstream that he couldn't find a professor willing to serve as his advisor. Popular culture, exemplified by the 1969 bestseller Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), portrayed gay men as promiscuous, maladjusted, and incapable of stable relationships.
The AIDS crisis further stigmatized gay life in the public imagination. In 2004, a majority of Americans supported amending the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage.
Yet by 2012, the tide had dramatically turned, with a rapid cascade of states legalizing same-sex marriage and polls registering solid majority support. Once considered an impossibility, gay marriage became the norm in a historical blink of an eye. Understanding this dizzying transformation requires looking beyond politics to the realm of popular culture.
Section: 3, Chapter: 8
Book: Revenge of the Tipping Point
Author: Malcolm Gladwell
The Venezuela Gold Rush
As Venezuela's economy collapsed with hyperinflation reaching 10 million percent, hundreds of thousands turned to data annotation platforms for survival. Scale AI and others discovered a 'freak coincidence' - educated populations in crisis would work for astonishingly low wages.
Oskarina Fuentes, a Venezuelan refugee and engineering graduate, epitomizes this hidden workforce. Working on Appen, she earned pennies per task, stopped leaving home except for 30-minute weekend outings, and slept with her computer at maximum volume to catch middle-of-night tasks. The cruel irony: She needed $10 minimum to withdraw earnings, sometimes taking weeks to accumulate that much.
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Book: Empire of AI
Author: Karen Hao
The Exploitation Playbook
Scale AI perfected the crisis capitalism model for data annotation. When Venezuela's economy collapsed with 10 million percent hyperinflation, Scale aggressively recruited desperate Venezuelans with promises of good wages through 'Remotasks Plus.' Once dominant, Scale slashed pay from $40/week to under $6/week.
The playbook: Target countries in economic crisis with educated populations and good internet. Promise high earnings to attract workers. Once established, throttle earnings through 'optimization.' When workers complain or organize, ban them and move to the next crisis zone. This pattern repeated across Kenya, North Africa, and other vulnerable regions.
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Book: Empire of AI
Author: Karen Hao
The Autocratic Assault On The Language Of Human Rights
Autocracies are systematically working to purge the world's guiding institutions of references to human rights and democracy. Their replacement vocabulary:
- "Right to development" - a metrics for well-being defined by states, not universal principles
- "Sovereignty" - code for governments' impunity within their borders
- "Win-win cooperation" - mutual agreement not to criticize each other's political systems
- "Mutual respect" - non-interference in others' "internal affairs"
Section: 1, Chapter: 4
Book: Autocracy, Inc
Author: Anne Applebaum
The Hidden Army Of Data Workers
Behind ChatGPT's polished interface lies a hidden workforce performing brutal content moderation. OpenAI contracted Sama, a firm in Kenya, to have workers read and categorize hundreds of thousands of violent and sexually explicit texts for $1.46-$3.74 per hour.
Mophat Okinyi, one of these workers, spent months reviewing descriptions of child sexual abuse, incest, and extreme violence. The work destroyed his mental health and his relationship. Meanwhile, his brother Albert, a writer, watched his freelance contracts disappear as ChatGPT automated away his profession. The tragic irony: Those who build the technology lose their livelihoods to it.
Section: 2, Chapter: 9
Book: Empire of AI
Author: Karen Hao
