A thread about a transparency search engine: 🧵 1/11: Lately, it’s all about AI and its applications like ChatGPT and CoPilot. Imagine if you could type in the name of any public figure and instantly have access to everything that person has ever said on a particular topic. What if there was a search engine that allowed us to do that?

🧵 2/11: Over the last few lunches at work, we’ve been talking more and more about ChatGPT and co. With all the discussions today, we somehow came up with the idea of a “transparency search engine”.

🧵 3/11; The technology would allow us to retrieve a complete record on a person and get information on any topic. One could track a person’s political views throughout their online career and assess the accuracy of their predictions over time.

🧵 4/11: However, the technology could also be used to attack individuals, examine their contributions and create remarkable representations of their development as a person over time. Especially in the early stages, it is likely to be used to expose people.

🧵 5/11: “The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’-which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants-becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.” // Paul Krugman, 1998

🧵 6/11: At the time, the impact of the Internet was completely underestimated and its rapid development took everyone by surprise. It has brought about a revolutionary change in the economy, society and culture. Today, most people can access more information via the internet than ever before. Moreover, there are now opportunities for collaboration that were unthinkable a few years ago.

🧵 7/11: If we had such a transparency search engine back then, we could have checked the reliability and accuracy of statements to gain trust.

🧵 8/11: But the real value of this technology is in creating transparency. With AI, we can access all available information on a topic and ask targeted questions, leading to previously undiscovered insights and knowledge.

🧵 9/11: There is also a concern that AI could be used to publicly expose and take down people. That’s why it’s important to be careful with the information gained through AI. We should not simply believe everything the data tells us, but critically examine and analyse it.

🧵 10/11: Moreover, we need to be aware that the technology is not perfect and there can still be limitations and biases. We should use it as a tool to improve our understanding rather than using it as the sole basis for our decisions.

🧵 11/11: Overall, the technology of such a transparency search engine can help us get more information about public figures and combine them. But we must be careful to use it responsibly, respecting the values of privacy, fairness and ethics. Only then can we ensure that AI technology helps to improve our society and culture.