Oversight committees

Yung di mo matiis din yung patience na ninunurture ng technology, yung instant: insant messaging apps, yung culture ng likes and validation na mabilis, mabilis na internet...May effect siya sa patience natin eh, so yung culture din natin, lalong pinapalala. Napakaimportante yung mga habits natin na di natin inaamin or di man natin napapansin. So feeling ko na importante rin yun sa pagadopt ng sustainable living, which is very slow. I mean slow production, ethical production ng manufacturing kahit ng damit...Yung slow living in general, sobrang against yung technologies natin kasi gusto niya addicted ka sa kanya. Nagbabangga yung dalawang yun, yung future na gusto mong sustainable which is inherently slow sa technologies that we have that we actually need. We need this technology...[pero] magagaling yung mga gumagawa at nagdedesign niyan, ginagawa tayong hindi patient.

...[M]aybe social media websites and platforms would just be more conscious of their platforms' effects towards our health and our relationships. [Features] like...screen time for like phones...something that tells you like to get out, or like has...a calming ring tone or dial, or like changes the brightness of your screen once you hit like a certain amount, or they kick you out or something once you hit your daily screen limit, like not...just like put the button there...it actually kicks you out, or like technology that encourages you to go out and exercise.

...[B]y year 2040, may social media pa rin, pero may massive oversight na. So it’s still privately owned, pero yung mga gobyerno...major non-profit...mga major religious institutions at...[ang mga] humanitarian institutions...serve as an oversight committee na on what happens on social media...[A]lthough mahihirapan yung advertisers and data gatherers in gathering data about our data sa social media, it would still happen, pero social media would be less used...so magdodownsize yung mga companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Pero it’s okay kasi dahil scaled down na sila, yung current na namamahala sa mga social media na yun is mas meron na silang personal na oversight din doon sa mga tao. So it would still be tricky on how the C-levels would handle business interests...pero I think it would be a little bit better kasi mas enhanced na yung understanding natin ng privacy, ng community standards...mas sophisticated na. Mas sophisticated na rin yung how we make people on social media legally accountable, tapos magkakaroon ng more sophisticated way on how people of various creeds would enforce a near-universal code of morality sa tao. So yung social media experience mo, siguro nandoon pa rin yung infinite scroll, pero...mas maraming magandang balita na yung makikita mo, mas maraming wholesome na...Less ads, more wholesome news, yung journalism would once again be responsible, tapos meron ding mga mechanisms such as...do you feel unsafe with this particular person? Block, pwede mong ipablotter sa pulis...[F]or example, [if] you feel unsafe with this particular person, punta ka sa barangay, punta ka sa pulis. Submit mo yung FB niyo, submit mo yung conversation niyo tapos maaactionan siya...

...[W]e see that the current e-commerce industry has  flourished a lot, but not without any negative or bad side effects...From a financial standpoint,  spending money is now easier than ever...you can do it with just a few clicks. And for those who may be unaware of their financial spending, that's going to be very bad for them...Shopee and Lazada...often have unregulated items. Basically, there are cheats in marketing their product[s]. They can do fake markups and then say, “oh, it's X percent off for this specific time” and then it just turns out that it's a way to get customers hooked...I’d say that in my experience, a big chunk, let's say 60 to 70% of items sold, and these e-commerce websites have fake markups to seem that they are indeed on sale, whereas that's actual the price. So stuff like that where the idea of people is to make profit --although it is a business and that is a goal-- people go beyond it to a point where it makes the human experience worse than it should be… [T]hey take advantage of technology to  get the advantage over other people, which I believe should not be the case...I hope that by then, [all] these stores will be regulated, these fake markups will be gone, and then there will be an honest to goodness, overview for the people that “Hey, you are shopping. Be careful with your money”, and there won't be scams.  I've had my personal experience with the scam, I've lost a bit of money, and it got me pretty mad way back then, and I do regret that it happened, but I guess that would not have been possible, if not for tech right? So I hope by then none of these things would have happened, and...as society as a whole, we would not have this negative outlook towards technology that “Oh, it's dangerous. Shopping could be dangerous. You shouldn't shop online”...[I]f I were to spend a sizable amount on...buying a new device, I should not have to worry and say “Hala, baka manakaw!”, where [the] product could be fake...

I hope fast fashion...won't really be a thing anymore, even if I do love H&M...I'm trying to not love it as much, because...I hope that people, just the general population, would be in a good space financially to afford quality clothing that doesn't rely too much on viral trends to sell itself,  using cheap materials. Like people would buy clothes...that would last longer, so [that] we don't feed overconsumption...I guess it's basically toning down our consumption, and...living more in harmony with the natural environment.

...[When it comes to automated] jobs...there still has to be like a supervisor...or...a QA person for those things...[I]deally speaking pa lang, you'll be more adjacent to the work, but you'd still be an expert in knowing...[T]hat's also the problem with ChatGPT right now...it's giving you the answers, but you still have to countercheck it eh...[U]ntil the margin of error is like completely solved, you still have to check for those things. So...you're thinking about QA, safety...and all of that.

There was a recent issue about media disappearing because...[big companies wanted] tax write-offs like with...Warner Bros...they've been deleting stuff from streaming cause it's not profitable for them, so the concept of that...is prioritized over the accessibility of the media...[A]nd of course, [fair] compensation of workers...It's hard to say how technology would do that, but like, I don't know why it got in the way...diba, when you think about it, it...streaming is supposed to be...[about the ability to] access everything. So...there needs to be a correction there, somehow. So that's what I'm thinking in terms of entertainment: democratization of media, fair compensation of artists...Facilitating, humanizing, and strengthening the workers' side, not just the ones who reside in all that...

I hope there will be better constraints for [entertainment services like streaming platforms and video games] in the future, where … [people] will be actively warned or prevented by these services themselves that, “Hey, you seem to be spending too much time here.” For instance, if a person pays like 8 hours of video games a day or watches 8 hours worth of shows a day. By then, I hope that that would not be a normalized thing to do. That's not something these entertainment and tech companies would want you to do. But rather, they keep an eye on it...[valuing]...moderation...Just basically getting rid of trying to see humans as cash cows...but rather seeing them as humans...In a hundred years’ time, I do believe that we will look down on social media...the same way we looked down [on the] medical benefits of cigarettes [50 or 70 years ago, I forgot]. But ergo, you know that story that cigarettes were marketed this healthy during the release of tobacco? They...said, “Oh, do this! Good for your health!”. And then, right now we realize...that's stupid.” So I hope by then, in a couple of decades, we see that: “...[W]hat we're doing in social media...was stupid. You shouldn't do that.”...

...[W]e have a lot of technically literate people [here in the Philippines]. Some people in the US joke that: "Why is it that every time it's nighttime in the Philippines, their AI apps don't work?". So yeah, we have a lot of latent talent in the Philippines, and I think we just need to point them in the right direction...[So] I do think we [Filipinos] have a real shot at actually contributing to making AI systems safer. And the reason for that is well, there's a lot of research that still needs to be done. [And] it doesn't involve a lot of computing. When I say that, it means that it doesn't involve hundreds of millions of dollars for running these data centers all day and all night. If you're willing and able, you can just get some laptop or PC, and then actually work on these things.

...[Let's look at,] for example, voice generative models. So you can take 20 minutes of someone's voice and then generate arbitrary sentences, using it like an arbitrary script. Imagine, if you can just create an entire interview of some politician; it's all fake, but it looks so real — at least real enough to be real to more than half of our voting population...I'm not even talking about something that is not yet here — it is already a thing. If anyone has paid attention in the past couple of months, we are already living in that reality....Right now, companies are using it for games and and whatnot, but it only takes a bunch of malicious actors to to adapt that system to political purposes. So yeah, I have no idea how to even begin mitigating that or solving that. But that's why we also need to invest a lot of resources in like figuring out AI governance, and just preventing all these things from getting out of hand.

Ang best case scenario is that yung AI tool, mas magiging efficient siya not only in my own work but also in kung paano magaral yung anak ko, yung mga magiging anak ko. Kung paano sila magaral yung tipong maasahan mo yung mga AI tools...kasi hindi lang siya sophisticated, but also because...may oversight na siya sa mga various groups, humanitarian groups and so on. Less na yung misinformation...[at] yung fake news so medyo panatag na yung loob ko bilang magulang.

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[Making progress with AI can be like a Faustian bargain].[It] can give us a lot of things...Imagine a superhuman doctor or...cancer researcher. Imagine every disease cured, [or] all social problems. Pick [any] problem...all of [its solutions would be] finally within reach. Which is kind of wild to [think about]. And you know that that we get to live through this. But also, it is also up to us to ensure that this future where humanity flourishes is the one that we get — not one of those dystopian features where a superhuman doctor can also be a superhuman torturer, for example. I don't know if you've ever watched The Good Place, but it's kind of like that. We want a good Janet (informational assistant), right? We want a good Janet — that's the best possible thing that we can that can happen to us. We don't want to be in The Bad Place. And the trouble is there by default. We are in The Bad Place. It takes work, actually. Just like it takes work to be a good person. It takes work to develop these things, to care about the tinier things that we care about. There are more things that are chaotic and out of order in  the universe. There are only a handful of things that we care about, like beauty, art, and being good to our fellow people...very high level stuff. But now, it's an engineering problem. We have a real problem on our hands. I guess we just have to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

[One way the Philippines can become more ready for AI is through] Enforcement. I used to be in risk management, when I was working in banking. So I have a lot of…expertise on writing policies and...restrictions and incentives. So that's where my work in AAP (The Analytics Association of the Philippines) is becoming relevant. I try to lobby for proactive policies. Like right now, we don't have any data specific policies other than the Data Privacy Act and the Cybercrime Law. But those laws are reactive — you have to commit a crime first before those laws are actually useful. Why don't we have more proactive laws and policies to encourage innovation...[and] investment[?] And then...[another way we can work towards regulation is through] Ethics. I think we need to take ethics out of the classroom. We need to take it out of law, because that’s like the implication — you have to be ethical, [and] you have to be legal. [This is] because compliance is only one vertical in ethics. There are many others. Risk management is also part of ethics. You wanna do something that benefits people, more than [it] harms them...Ethics is also about values. And I feel...that’s where my time in Ateneo actually made a difference, because you have some form of grounding to Ignatian formation. And that doesn’t mean everyone has to be religious. [It’s actually] far from it, right. Maybe it’s more of [that] you have to have a good sense of moral codes — you need to know right and wrong...My best example is family code. The legal age to get married is 18 [years old]. So when you’re 18 [and then] you get married, compliance check. But would you...? Maybe risk-wise, no. Values-wise, probably not. So that’s what I mean. Ethics is not just following the law. If it’s following the law, [then] let’s all just get married at 18, right?

...[A meaningful interaction] prioritizes privacy over...[popularity]...[It proritizes] security...over...followers... etc...[A]s opposed...to like algorithmic feeds that are driven by...fun...[ideal social platforms are not] gonna be FOMO or controversy driven....[P]eople...[will no longer be] duped and psychologically tricked into...[seeking] dopamine [for themselves]...

By then I hope technology would have advanced that, a couple of things: scams and things like that won't happen as much, or I hope they won't happen at all, because  an entire life could be ruined because of a big scam, and  there should be guardrails preventing that. For instance, now GCash, it's a bad move. GCash added this feature where before you have to send you have to check: "I confirm everything is correct, and it is non-refundable." Why would the blame be put on the user for being a possible victim? Although, yes, it's a shared responsibility. It could be your fault that you got scammed, but also it could be the site's fault for tolerating these and not being able to track. You know how like if you make a big transfer in banks, it will have to be processed for a while, and then, the receiver, their identification, everything would be tracked. Whereas in these mobile wallets GCash, you can send it to someone without a valid ID, they could cash it out,  then the money's gone, and you won't be able to track them. So I hope by then we won't have these issues.

...[T]hat's [the] sort of the dilemma right now in finance and banks...How can I make a financial institution that is secure, while also not so hard to use to attract users. There are cons to that, let's say, BPI, BDO,, these banks are secure, but they are rather difficult to get into. You're gonna need a couple of documents. You're gonna have to have a visit, stuff like that. On the other hand, GCash is very easy to do. You just need to provide to an ID. I don't know if they have checking, but that could be fake. But they are on the opposite ends. BPI is safe, banks are safe and secure, but are hard to get into. Mobile wallets are not so safe, but are easy to get into, so I hope they can converge into something in the future where your date, your data is safe, your privacy is safe, your you won't get scammed. But in the meantime it's it's still very easy to use, and it can be inclusive of everyone that may be able to benefit.

Actually, [the Philippines is] quite suited for [biotechnology], because we have a pretty good number of biology research labs, in particular agricultural labs. But I'm assuming that there's a bunch of other places where we also have an advantage there. So a lot of people are burned out about pandemic prevention, but I think it's going to be a way more important problem in the future. And the reason for that is if you have access to ChatGPT 4 or some other open source large language model, there are ways to get them to tell you how to how to engineer certain types of viruses or how to evolve antibiotic resistant bacteria on your own, in the comfort of your own home. The bottleneck to that kind of risk is knowledge and not really resources. So imagine if everyone in the world can do that without any sort of checks and balances. That's not gonna be a very safe world to live in. At the very least, I don't want us to suffer again; I don't want us to be locked down again for years at a time, and for many people to to die without really having a say in it.