Re: The Art Of Poison-Pilling Music Files

I'm not going to tag this off topic as we regularly discuss how
allegations of copyright infringement thwart creativity.

shawn <nanoflower@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:

This is both great and scary. The idea is that you can encode messages
into music or other sounds that an AI can pick up that no human would
notice. In this video the designer goes into how he introduces the
poison pills that do things like tell Alexa or Siri to do things while
sounding perfectly normal to us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMYm2d9bmEA
The Art Of Poison-Pilling Music Files

He has an example of what sounds like a simple song from someone
playing a piano. Nothing at all unusual in how it sounds. Yet the AI
picks up a series of instructions and pops up a video. As he points
out this could easily be an instruction to unlock all your doors.

I'm not going to panic. I'm not blaming the fact of AI. I'm blaming the
consumer for having purchased "Internet of things" without considering
unintended consequences. Without considering sabotage via AI, ANY
connected device relies upon regular software upgrades plus the ability
to interact with the server. Well, the manufacturer cannot be required
to provide support beyond the warranty period, or stay in that line of
business in which they even have the ability to provide support.

A famous example was OnStar technology in GM vehicles. That relied upon
a satellite. At some point, either the satellite was decommissioned or
GM didn't renew its contract.

Anybody could find himself subject to failure of mission-critical
technology in a scenario without a way to override manually. AI
introduces all new unfortunate circumstances, but the moment technology
is networks, the genie has already been let out of the bottle.

As far as embedding code, that's been done ever since the invention of
the written word. People want to communicate privately and would attempt
to encode messages into writing that on its face appears to be something
else. Music itself has been useful for broadcast of encoded messages
that only those who know what to look for would notice.

In his case, as a musician, he wants to stop AI companies from using
his and others music without proper compensation. Hence the idea of
introducing a "poison pill" into their music that will corrupt the AI
data bases if they use that music, and yet will sound perfectly normal
to any human.

That's nice. What if a music historian uses AI to analyze the music he
composed to identify each and every chord change and harmonic
progression he "borrowed" from existing music? You can find anything in
a Gregorian chant or Bach.

Fuck him. He didn't pay any royalties. By his own logic, he should be
put out of business.