AI Censorship

Extracted Attributes

• Key Risks

  Accidental business censorship, suppression of free speech, digital authoritarianism, and biased AI-generated results.

• Definition

  The restriction, monitoring, or algorithmic suppression of AI-generated outputs, or the deployment of AI systems to automate the censorship of public speech.

• Primary Drivers

  Corporate brand protection, safety guardrails, government regulations, and political control.

• Alternative Approaches

  Adopting open-source AI models, running models locally on hardware like Apple Silicon, and utilizing basic KYC/AML checks instead of opaque algorithmic downgrading.

Timeline

• Freedom House releases its 'Freedom on the Net 2023' report, detailing how governments in at least 22 countries mandate the use of automated AI systems for content moderation and political censorship. (Source: Web Search: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence - Freedom House)

  2023-10-04

• The US House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government release an interim report titled 'Censorship's Next Frontier: The Federal Government's Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech'. (Source: Web Search: Report: The Federal Government's Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech)

  2024-12-18

AI safety

AI safety is an interdisciplinary field focused on preventing accidents, misuse, or other harmful consequences arising from artificial intelligence systems. It encompasses AI alignment (which aims to ensure AI systems behave as intended), monitoring AI systems for risks, and enhancing their robustness. The field is particularly concerned with existential risks posed by advanced AI models. Beyond technical research, AI safety involves developing norms and policies that promote safety, including advocacy for regulations at different levels of government. The field gained significant popularity in 2023, with rapid progress in generative AI and public concerns voiced by researchers and CEOs about potential dangers. During the 2023 AI Safety Summit, the United States and the United Kingdom both established their own AI Safety Institute. However, researchers have expressed concern that AI safety measures are not keeping pace with the rapid development of AI capabilities.

Web Search Results

• The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence - Freedom House

  As some governments are moving to restrict access to generative AI or control its outputs, many are also forcing companies to use AI to remove content from their platforms at a speed and scale that would be impossible for human censors or less sophisticated technical methods. These censorship requirements tend to concentrate on content that is deemed illegal under local law—a category that, in many countries, includes expression on political, social, or religious topics that should be protected under international human rights standards. Innovations in the AI field have allowed governments to carry out more precise censorship that is less detectable, minimizing public backlash and reducing the political cost to those in power. [...] In at least 22 countries, social media companies were required—either explicitly or indirectly through the imposition of tight deadlines for the removal of banned material—to use automated systems for content moderation. While such systems are used by social media platforms around the world, the laws in many countries prohibit forms of political, social, and religious speech that should be protected under international human rights standards. By obliging platforms to use machine learning to comply with censorship rules, governments are effectively forcing them to detect and remove banned speech more efficiently. This use of AI also masks the role of the state in censorship and may ease the so-called digital dictator’s dilemma, in which undemocratic leaders must weigh the benefits of [...] Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have incorporated censorship, including the use of automated systems, into the country’s legal framework. The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules require large social media platforms to use AI-based moderation tools for broadly defined types of content—such as speech that could undermine public order, decency, morality, or the country’s sovereignty, integrity, and security, or content that officials had previously ordered removed. For instance, in early 2023, authorities ordered YouTube and Twitter to restrict access within India to a British Broadcasting Corporation documentary about communal violence during Modi’s tenure as chief minister of the state of

• Report: The Federal Government's Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech | House Judiciary Committee Republicans

  AI offers government bureaucrats and government-partnered intermediaries the ability to mass monitor and mass censor speech at unprecedented speed and scale. Government censorship of AI training data, algorithms, and outputs can lead to woke, biased, and inaccurate AI-generated results. Regulations limiting private expressive uses of AI will impair AI development. The Biden-Harris Administration is coercing AI developers to censor new models and funding AI-powered censorship tools. Some American policymakers want to copy the European Union's onerous AI regulations. [...] By rejecting censorship and embracing open, decentralized AI innovation, the United States can encourage AI development in a way that respects the First Amendment. The report recommends that Congress follow four principles to protect Americans' right to free expression: No government involvement in private algorithm or dataset decisions on so-called "misinformation" or "bias." No funding for censorship-related research. No foreign collaboration on AI censorship regulation. Avoid needless AI regulation that gives the government coercive leverage. Read the full interim staff report here. ### [...] # Report: The Federal Government's Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech December 18, 2024 Press Release WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim report titled, "Censorship's Next Frontier: The Federal Government's Attempt to Control Artificial Intelligence to Suppress Free Speech." The interim report details threats to the free and open development of AI and identifies the free speech risks associated with the federal government's current involvement in AI development. Key findings from the Committee and Select Subcommittee's investigation include:

• Freedom of the media and artificial intelligence

  AI’s potential to facilitate surveillance and censorship for both economic and political reasons poses a threat to the right to seek and receive information, as well as to media pluralism. The power and influence of a few intermediaries, as well as the fact that most AI tools operate opaquely with little regulation or oversight, exacerbates this threat. [...] Some states deploy AI to unlawfully surveil citizens and control public communication in ways inconsistent with international human rights law. Enabling unparalleled possibilities for surveillance, AI can facilitate censorship and means to suppress dissent and independent journalism, both online and offline. Consequently, some states use AI to coerce the press and, ultimately, to tighten digital authoritarianism.Footnote 5 [...] Any intentional use of AI to interfere with independent reporting—be it through targeted censoring, pervasive surveillance of investigative journalists or using AI-driven bots to attack and silence individual journalists—is a serious threat to media freedom.Footnote 18 Even without bad faith, however, the overall use of AI to monitor speech to restrict certain content or disseminate information entails profound risks. While many of the core questions around content removals and curation are not unique to AI, using AI to shape and moderate information at scale exacerbates many existing challenges and gives rise to new ones. The following sections explore the deployment of AI in content moderation and curation, including its potential effects on free speech and media freedom.

• Why is AI censored so much? : r/aiwars

  the business behind it wants to maintain a certain image an attempt to avoid a tay situation again it's actually not censored, but it doesn't line up with someone's version of reality and they perceive that as censorship 2 more replies 2 more replies 2 more replies Image 22: u/Spra991 avatar Spra991 •1y ago Companies care that they are presented positively in media. The media instantly jumps on every little thing that goes wrong with AI, even if it was explicitly requested by the user. Thus we get this overbearing censorship that avoids going anywhere near controversial output. I consider that quite problematic, as it gives the public a very whitewashed and unrealistic idea of what AI is capable off. []( Image 23: u/BrowserChoice avataru/BrowserChoice•Promoted[]( [...] No-Opportunity5353 •1y ago Image 19: Profile Badge for the Achievement Top 1% CommenterTop 1% Commenter Seems to be censored. Image 20: Comment Image 4 more replies 4 more replies 4 more repliesMore replies []( UncleRonnyJ •1y ago They have your chat history Jimmy, they know all about you boy. 1 more reply 1 more reply 1 more reply []( mobileJay77 •1y ago Microsoft Copilot censors quite a lot. I guess, they don't like headlines like. "Microsoft told my underage kid anything remotely sex related " "Microsoft told my son about weed" "Copilot interferes with the election" []( Dimencia •1y ago Image 21: Comment Image This is why []( emi89ro •1y ago That depends a lot based on what you feel is being censored. Generally the censorship is because:

• How does censorship work in an LLM (like ChatGPT)? - Artificial Intelligence Stack Exchange

  `$` Question: Does the censorship come from within the transformer or after it? (and, if it comes after, why did my attempt to bypass it fail?) foreverska's user avatar Wolphram jonny's user avatar ## 1 Answer 1 Censorship in OpenAI's GPT models is implemented at the post-processing stage, after the model has generated its response. The censorship policies and criteria are defined by OpenAI, and they are applied to the output of the model before it is displayed to the user. The policies and criteria are designed to prevent the generation of harmful, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate content. The exact details of how censorship is implemented and enforced by OpenAI are proprietary and not publicly disclosed. Andrea Ianni's user avatar ## You must log in to answer this question.