I’m smashblogging on a Saturday because I came across this story on FedScoop, which discusses the Biden Administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy’s launch of a public request for comment on their upcoming AI policy work. I wanted to Say A Few Words.
The story does not contain a link to the actual request itself.
So unnamed senior government sources that I angrytexted (they also noted the complexity of finding this) found this link here.
Oh, says I. So intuitive. So clear to all Americans that obviously some place called Federal Register is where that request for public comment would be. So I check it out, and actually, there’s a link in that document that says I have to go to regulations.gov. I hit that link and guess what: it takes me to regulations.gov. No link to the actual thing I’m looking for. But there’s a search bar. Masochistically, I type in “ai” which, obviously, nets me literally-literally 51,704 results.
Tarah eventually tracks down the actual link by searching for the document number, but notes that trying to search for it almost any other way would fail.
But could I have found it another way? Normal humans might try searching “ai” or “artificial intelligence”; what would their experience be like?
Maybe after searching “ai” the “Only show documents open for comment” checkbox filter will get me somewhere?
Ooo, the top result looks promising; looks like the NTIA wants some AI accountability. Cool, but that’s not what I’m looking for.
This is… bad. It’s bad government. It’s bad technology. It’s bad as a way of asking for help. Yes, the government is often slow and not great in its adoption of new technology, but at this point there’s no excuse for not having a system like this just work.
Still, just for fun, I figured I’d ask an AI to help me find it. I started with Bing… and it did not point me to the right place (it also found that NTIA comment request, but not the OSTP one):
Google Bard was, well, worse, telling me it “can’t assist with that.” Thanks for nothing, bot.
So then I tried another AI powered answerbot, Perplexity, and got the following:
The beginning (and the Perkins Coie) link is again about the NTIA, but the second link (huzzah!) is actually a PDF at Whitehouse.gov talking about about the actual OSTP request. But it’s just a PDF version of the link that a fed person sent Tarah which… again… doesn’t have the link to where to actually provide the comment.
This comment has been deemed funny by the community.
Anonymous Cowardsays:
I’m sorry, Mike, I can’t let you post this thread.
KineticGothicsays:
Amusing AI responses aside, how did you get to the point where are you reporting on Government Policy, if you don’t know that the Federal Register is where the Government publishes ALL of it’s notices including calls for comments? It’s the first place anyone looking into federal agency activities should be looking.
Anonymous Cowardsays:
AI powered search: Even less helpful than regular search, but now with a giant wall of text. Fantastic!
Anonymous Cowardsays:
Ask ChatGPT to draft an antitrust lawsuit against OpenAI!
Anonymous Cowardsays:
It is too bad that, instead of being a filter against trite public comments (only the most determined find the right place to send the comment), this instead is a landing spot for auto-generated spam (a determined lobbyist finds the link, and points their spam engine at it).
micksays:
All about "I"
I’m smashblogging on a Saturday because I came across
So unnamed senior government sources that I angrytexted
The need for people to put themselves at the center of their commentary, and cutesy made-up verbs like these, are why, despite finding the messages useful, many of us find the messengers insufferable.
This is why I had to drop following Wheeler and Popehat everywhere: Commentary ABOUT their commentary is more informative and less off-puttingly “NOTICE ME!!!1!” than the commentary itself.
Anonymous Cowardsays:
Re:
The need for people to put themselves at the center of their commentary, and cutesy made-up verbs like these
You’re reading too much into the casual tone. I hope your day gets better.
Commentary ABOUT their commentary is more informative and less off-puttingly “NOTICE ME!!!1!” than the commentary itself.
I hope you don’t go out of your way to find people complaining about the way other people speak.
Anonymous Cowardsays:
Re: Re:
Previous commenter here. Imagine forgetting quote marks two days in a row. Couldn’t be me.
sabronisays:
Re: cutesy made-up words
Your a bit up yourself mate, that’s a cute made up adjective. Trying to draw attention to yourself?
Anonymous Cowardsays:
this kind of crap reminds me of Douglas Adams’s vogons.
“There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning
department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start
making a fuss about it now.”
Our pretend representives in our democracy need pretend open commmunication channels so that they can continue to pretend to represent us…
Comments on “White House Wants Your Comments On AI Policy, But Doesn’t Want You To Find Out How”
I’m sorry, Mike, I can’t let you post this thread.
Amusing AI responses aside, how did you get to the point where are you reporting on Government Policy, if you don’t know that the Federal Register is where the Government publishes ALL of it’s notices including calls for comments? It’s the first place anyone looking into federal agency activities should be looking.
AI powered search: Even less helpful than regular search, but now with a giant wall of text. Fantastic!
Ask ChatGPT to draft an antitrust lawsuit against OpenAI!
It is too bad that, instead of being a filter against trite public comments (only the most determined find the right place to send the comment), this instead is a landing spot for auto-generated spam (a determined lobbyist finds the link, and points their spam engine at it).
All about "I"
The need for people to put themselves at the center of their commentary, and cutesy made-up verbs like these, are why, despite finding the messages useful, many of us find the messengers insufferable.
This is why I had to drop following Wheeler and Popehat everywhere: Commentary ABOUT their commentary is more informative and less off-puttingly “NOTICE ME!!!1!” than the commentary itself.
Re:
You’re reading too much into the casual tone. I hope your day gets better.
Commentary ABOUT their commentary is more informative and less off-puttingly “NOTICE ME!!!1!” than the commentary itself.
I hope you don’t go out of your way to find people complaining about the way other people speak.
Re: Re:
Previous commenter here. Imagine forgetting quote marks two days in a row. Couldn’t be me.
Re: cutesy made-up words
Your a bit up yourself mate, that’s a cute made up adjective. Trying to draw attention to yourself?
this kind of crap reminds me of Douglas Adams’s vogons.
“There’s no point acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning
department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start
making a fuss about it now.”
Our pretend representives in our democracy need pretend open commmunication channels so that they can continue to pretend to represent us…
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That can’t be good – half of em are probably from here.