AI industry insiders launch site to poison the data that feeds them (www.theregister.com)

In a bold move, a group of AI industry insiders has launched the Poison Fountain initiative, aimed at undermining artificial intelligence systems by deliberately poisoning the data that feeds them. By encouraging website operators to link to sources containing flawed training data, they aim to disrupt the training processes of AI models that currently rely on scraped online information for accuracy. This effort arises from growing concerns about the potential dangers of AI, as articulated by figures like Geoffrey Hinton, and seeks to inform the public about the vulnerabilities inherent in AI systems. The significance of this initiative lies in its potential to expose a critical weakness in AI development: the ease with which models can be compromised through data poisoning. This project highlights the ongoing debate regarding AI regulation and ethical considerations, positing that traditional measures are inadequate given the pervasive nature of the technology. Poison Fountain's advocates, consisting of anonymous participants from notable tech companies, argue that poisoning AI models could serve as a necessary counteraction against what they perceive as a threatening and unregulated landscape in AI technology. They view this approach as a form of resistance against the expansion of AI’s influence, advocating for the creation of "information weapons" to combat the advancements in machine intelligence.