AI and the Raid at Habbo Hotel

 

Habbo Hotel is an online site where users create an avatar and live in a virtual world with other players. It’s sort of a mini-world where people can interact online and do things together. It’s supposed to be a nice comfortable non-threatening place.

In 2006 the online group Anonymous decided that they wanted to get involved in Habbo. Many of them joined, creating their avatars in the same style, with black skin, a business suit, and afro hair. They started blocking entry to the virtual pool, saying “pool’s closed due to AIDS.” They would find an open space in the virtual world and line up in the shape of a swastika. In other words, they created unexpected havoc.

Artificial Intelligence is a huge software endeavor to create a sort of Big Brain that people will pay to use. The goal is to make life better for humans by doing thinking faster and better than humans can. With this, science will grow, medicine will find new cures, and peoples’ lives will be better. At least, this is the promise.

But even this promise has been shattered with many revelations about AI. It is a black box of inner working where even the creators don’t know what’s happening inside. It is a water, electricity, and CPU hog, sucking these resources from other uses. It has shown to be unpredictable and often incorrect in its results.

The aspect of AI that scares me, however, is not knowing what kind of safeguards there are to prevent havoc from unexpected places. In other words, can AI be used for nefarious purposes? What safeguards are being built into the system? Will we wake up one day and discover several AI agents blocking access to our banking accounts? Will Meta’s Muse decide that the nasty email I got from a previous friend means it should anonymously harass that previous friend online for me? When I give my AI agent access to my diary, will I find it one day that it’s now at my boss’s inbox, since the agent thought it would help me get a raise?

The Tech Bros are promising us an incredible future with AI, where we won’t even have to work. But looking back on the wonderful virtual world of Habbo Hotel and the raids there, I can see ahead that unexpected actions by should-be-expected bad actors will make our promised future into a chaotic mess. That is, if the Tech Bros aren’t careful, and we’re dumb enough to buy into their Big Brain.

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