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AI at Google: our principles

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Re: AI at Google: our principles

#141

Post by EpicEng »

killjoywashere wrote: post #95
EpicEng wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However a good thing done for the wrong reasons is still a good thing. Agreed, and I try not to be too hard on them. I don't think it's a black and white issue personally, the only issue I have is how this implies Google always wants to do the right thing from the get go, which very much seems to not be the case here.

You should read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It's not possible to make all the right policy decisions that are right in hindsight and before a sentinal event occurs. Hindsight bias is always 20/20. Anyone making real decisions of consequence will eventually curse hindsight.

Well Google is now framing this as a moral issue, so did morality change significantly between when they accepted this project and today?

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#142

Post by exabrial »

CydeWeys wrote: post #122
exabrial wrote: post #115

Google: We take Pentagon contracts to track people's location with our AI. That's so bad. Also Google: We will totally use our AI to 'legally' track a single mom that clicked a fine print EULA once while signing into our app. That's totally fine. It's different mmk?

This comment comes off as intentionally disingenuous to me. In the latter case, it's about serving up ads. In the former case, it's literally about assassinating people from the sky. They really are different.

Both can be used for malicious prosecution.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#143

Post by randcraw »

rmk wrote: post #103
finnthehuman wrote: post #18

>2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias. They DO realize that the YouTube recommendation algorithm is a political bias reinforcement machine, right? Like, I think it’s fun to talk trash on google because they’re in an increably powerful position, but this one isn’t even banter.

I'm convinced that Google is touting its' 'principles' with a hackneyed blog post probably written by some PR flack. As an American, I'm disappointed, and positively enraged by the hubris on display here. A bunch of (non-US) employees have pressured Google and therefore compromised the national interests of the United States. See this for an alternative viewpoint: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary…

Maybe. But it takes guts to draw any line in the sand, when none of your rivals has been willing to do it.

Sure, it'd be nice if Google tightened up their rhetoric a bit, or proposed concrete ways they intend to act deliberately and publicly to enforce these bylaws.

But this is a start, and reveals a willingness to speak out both to their employees and the public at large that company policy disallows some future lines of business, especially building weapons and surveillance tech.

IMHO, this is a positive step in the right direction.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#144

Post by hueving »

MarkMMullin wrote: post #85
leereeves wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia reportedly has armed robots capable of operating autonomously and they preemptively refused to honor any ban, and other nations are developing their own. As terrifying as the prospect is, it's already happening.

Yes. I can only refuse to play and hope the Russians et al come to their senses, the United Nations starts to work better, etc. If we go down that road, it will be the end of most of us, if not all of us. We really have no chance against a machine that's decided to shoot us. As a species we need to have zero tolerance for it - we won't be rendered extinct by snazzy terminators, we'll be killed by the 21st century ver…

This is a bit dramatic though because these robots can't reload themselves. Automated targeting for a single area is miles away from planning strategy, deploying battle groups, etc.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#145

Post by thanatropism »

debt wrote: post #127
EpicEng wrote: post #55

So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it. Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there…

I noticed there was one particularly phrase missing from Apple's WWDC this year: artificial intelligence. It wasn't mentioned one time. Never in the presentations, none of the talk titles had it included either. Machine Learning was mentioned and Apple also released many updates related to it, but never did they call it artificially intelligent, or use the phrase artificial intelligence. Not a single time. Go ahead a…

Impending AI Winter poised to make a lot of people look like fools?

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#146

Post by qbaqbaqba »

philwelch wrote: post #98
staticassertion wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't make it ok to be the one to fill it.

On a geopolitical level, it does. It's far better for the world that the United States developed atomic weapons before either Germany or the Soviets did.

The US were the only one to use atomic weapons on a already defeated enemy/at all.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#147

Post by randcraw »

foobaw wrote: post #23
finnthehuman wrote: post #18

>2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias. They DO realize that the YouTube recommendation algorithm is a political bias reinforcement machine, right? Like, I think it’s fun to talk trash on google because they’re in an increably powerful position, but this one isn’t even banter.

They circumvent this by using the word "avoid." Avoiding and not doing are two different things.

I don't know how you do something and avoid doing something at the same time.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#148

Post by TaylorAlexander »

rmk wrote: post #133
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly many US employees were against it. Also Google is a global organization. I don’t believe that corporations should primarily serve the interests of their government, they should serve their users and reflect the attitudes of their employees.

I'm sure many US employees were against it, and they were rightfully exercising their voice. Google may have offices all over the world, but it's an American company, and like people (Corporations are like people, no?), it must be held responsible for its actions. I would argue that the public should be especially wary of 'global' corporations such as these (Facebook is another one) that suddenly grow a conscience wh…

The whole idea of “protecting the national insterests” of the US creeps me out, as that to me usually means oppressing others, interfering with democracy in foreign countries, and generally sacrificing people outside the US to maintain the global hegemony we promote.

I can tell you see it differently, but I hope you see that not all people see promoting “US government interests” as an automatically good thing, given what that phrase has meant historically.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#150

Post by usrusr »

ksk wrote: post #72
themacguffinman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that Google spelling out their moral stance is intended to convince you right away that they're all good now. It's a public standard that they're setting for themselves. If you think their actions don't match their words, you now have concrete terms and principles to critique and compare with. It's a benchmark to which employees and the public can hold them accountable.

Historically has anyone succeeded in holding such giant firms accountable to their own stated principles? At the moment, I like those principles more than I like Google.

Look at it from the other side: with those principles written down, executives will at least have the option to adhere to them, something to point at when they do. Without, shareholders might give them a very hard time for every not strictly illegal profit opportunity they preferred to skip.

Google might be in a position to not get bullied around much by investors though, so that line of thought might be slightly off topic here.

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