Dear Editor:
Collin Yeo’s most excellently written “Computer World” (June 19) damnation of AI resonated with me. I had a very similar, but not as well worded, email discussion on the topic this past week. My correspondent replied with an option that has altered my perspective: His friend’s son, a longtime activist/co-founder of Occupy Wallstreet, has developed a “social justice mentor” AI called Outcry.
I visited Outcryai.com and was pleased to discover a resource designed to capture a positive use of AI. The site has a quote about “harnessing” AI for social transformation, which is, of course, applicable to all ideologies, oppressive or otherwise. I think progressives have lagged behind in the use of AI, and that underscores why we are now scrambling to resist an ugly and brutal authoritarian federal government.
Outcry is an AI resource designed to help create positive change; it inspires and delineates what is possible. This constructive use of what I had perceived as an inevitable evil gives us the tools, support and ideas to carry with us in the pursuit of social justice. Using their own product to our advantage is how we resist the “tech creeps”!
Sheila Evans, Eureka
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This article appears in The Man Who Unsolved a Murder.