Citizen Scientists Bad for AI Driverless Cars, Tinkering Into Trouble

Dr. Lance B. Eliot, AI Insider

Everyday people might try to tinker with their AI driverless cars, danger afoot

Have you ever heard of the phrase “citizen scientists”?

The phrases first entered into our lexicon in the mid-1990’s, and generally refers to the notion that ordinary everyday people can potentially contribute to the work of science, in spite of the fact that they aren’t professional scientists. We usually have some disdain for amateurs or non-professionals that try to enter into a professional realm, and we tend to denigrate whatever kind of contribution they might try to make. What do they know about real science, some ask. They are prone to fake science, some accuse.

The word “citizen” in this context is meant to suggest the lay public. In more recent times, we’ve generally seen that the word “crowd” has perhaps overtaken the now quainter use of the word citizen.

We have crowd sourcing, and many refer nowadays to the “wisdom of the crowd” whenever we see lots of people band together on social media such as Facebook or Twitter. The crowd has become the plural version of the citizen, suggesting that with the crowd we have large numbers of contributors, while the word “citizen” can refer to just one person or possibly many such citizens contributing either individually or possibly banding together as a collective.