Re: SocialWeb CG Feb 7, 2025 call - possible agenda item

I had a long 2 hour 20 minute talk with Amelia about the idea of forming a
SWICG Community Task Force for this and what it came down to was what would
come out of this in terms of tangible deliverables we both came to
concordance on that twice in the conversation. However I do really feel we
do need to have a wider remit and scope and for the group to at least have
enough of a handle on both the pros and cons of what AI is going to bring
both positively and negatively to the ActivityPub and ActivityStreams based
communities. I think we should at least have a side meeting or series of
meetings that hash out what everyone brings to the table with all
interested parties so we can discuss it in earnest. There's a lot for all
of us to learn from each other in this area and the possibility of
integration of standards and the cross space needs to be understood and
explored whether it's within the SWICG or outside and could possibly bring
in a wider community.

Kind regards,

Aaron

On Sat, 8 Feb 2025, 17:45 Melvin Carvalho, <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> pá 7. 2. 2025 v 12:58 odesílatel Aaron Gray <aaronngray@gmail.com> napsal:
>
>> Hi Group,
>>
>> I would like to briefly bring up in todays meeting an agenda item
>> concerning the idea of possibly creating an AI, robots, and Agents CG
>> possibly as a Task Force or longer lived "Agentic Social Group" to use
>> Melvin's term. This was triggered by Bob's recent post on ActivityPub and
>> AI.
>>
>> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-swicg/2025Feb/0000.html
>>
>> This would be to look at the possible benefits and also the impacts of AI
>> on ActivityPub and ActivityStreams ecosystems and into mitigation and usage
>> in terms of moderation and also the wider implications socially and
>> technically.
>>
>> I know there are cross cutting concerns with moderation and The
>> ActivityPub Trust and Safety Taskforce. I do feel this is a separate
>> parallel, much wider area that needs to be looked at in its own merit as
>> well as in connection with the moderation, security and safety issues.
>>
>> We need to establish the knowledge, insight, and people in order to guide
>> SWICG, ActivityPub and Activity Streams through these technological
>> developments we find ourselves with, including possible effects on the
>> protocols from issues like such as AI fuzzing attempts, to social
>> engineering by AI's, through to how we deal with and approach and
>> facilitate Avatars and Agents.
>>
>> I have to say unfortunately at this point I would not want or be able to
>> head this group but really feel it needs to be put in place. This is due to
>> my absence of experience in leading such a group and also due to other
>> duties and current projects, such as studying AI. But, given my existing
>> knowledge and insights into the impact of AI I would love to be a
>> contributributing member and to see this happen.
>>
>
> Hi Aaron
>
> Thanks for bringing this up.  I like the direction this is going.  Just
> wanted to do a radar check for the w3c webagents group:
>
> https://www.w3.org/community/webagents/
>
> They are a great group, active, and may have some intersection with what
> you are suggesting.
>
> Best
> Melvin
>
>
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Aaron
>> --
>> Aaron Gray - @AaronNGray@fosstodon.org | @aaronngray@threads.net |
>> @AaronNGray@Twitter.com
>>
>> Independent Open Source Software Engineer, Computer Language Researcher
>> and Designer, Amateur Type Theorist, Amateur Computer Scientist,
>> Environmentalist and Climate Science Researcher and Disseminator.
>>
>>