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AI at Google: our principles

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Re: AI at Google: our principles

#371

Post by ilikehurdles »

sametmax wrote: post #312
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.

Given how a lot of people don't hold Microsoft accountable for past misdeeds (the 4 last posts about github acquisition are endless arguments about it), there is few reasons to believe it's going to be different with google. For them, it's always better to benefit from screwing up. If you don't get caught, yay ! If you do, apologize, wait a bit, and send your PR team go their magic. Bim, you are green again. Why woul…

Perhaps another good example closer to what google is doing is Cisco providing to China the means to build their great firewall. They got some criticism of it for a bit of time but China's censorship regime has since become the "new normal" and has clawed its way into western media via heavy investment into Hollywood studios by the country.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#372

Post by sametmax »

dalore wrote: post #358
sametmax wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how a lot of people don't hold Microsoft accountable for past misdeeds (the 4 last posts about github acquisition are endless arguments about it), there is few reasons to believe it's going to be different with google. For them, it's always better to benefit from screwing up. If you don't get caught, yay ! If you do, apologize, wait a bit, and send your PR team go their magic. Bim, you are green again. Why woul…

If people are complaining about Microsoft acquiring GitHub then is that not people trying to hold Microsoft accountable? If Microsoft's sins were truly forgiven or forgotten, people wouldn't be complaining about the acquisition.

You missed the numerous HN comments defending microsoft.

You missed people on reddit or imgur singing glory to microsoft.

They now have a fan base.

A fan base.

That's not something I would have ever imagined in the 90'.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#373

Post by aurailious »

giobox wrote: post #197
ISL wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Japanese were hardly already defeated. Had the bombs not been dropped, the United States would have invaded Japan directly, island by island, until the country surrendered. The loss of life on both sides would have been tremendous. Source: My grandfather had orders to go and do exactly that when the dropping of the bombs ended the war.

This is of course one of the justifications American leaders used, and as always the victor gets to set the perceived historical narrative. Politically it was extremely important for the US to believe the bomb materially shortened the war given the huge amount of resources the Manhattan Project had consumed that otherwise could have been invested elsewhere in the war effort, especially when the military had to justif…

> there was almost nothing left worth hitting in strategic terms.

The bombing campaign leading up to the atom bombs specifically left about 5-6 cities relatively untouched. There were still major strategic targets left in August. They did this to test their effectiveness on cities, as a demonstration to the soviets, and to destroy morale.

Demonstrating their effectiveness to the soviets is why they didn't drop them in Tokyo bay.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#374

Post by aurailious »

mattlondon wrote: post #350
t1lthesky wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on are you really making this argument? That we cant know if it was better for the USA or Nazi Germany to have nuclear weapons? Like, say you have to go back in time and give nuclear weapons to Nazi Germany or the USA during ww2.. you would throw up your hands and say we can't know who the weapons should go to?

I am saying that we cant know what Nazi Germany would have done with them - i.e. we cant know if they'd have been "good" or "bad" with them. Anything we think now is merely conjecture and speculation. We have to take a step back and really examine and question our own beliefs and biases. How much of what I am thinking is actually legit, and how much is affected by what I've seen at the movies/been told by teachers/re…

We absolutely know the Nazis would have at least use atom bombs on the Eastern front. Whether they would use them on the UK could be up for debate, but arguably they would have used them there as well.

Regardless, the atom bombs were certainly not the worst things any country did in WWII. The US firebombing was far worse. Everyone did bad things in that war.

Stop using your modern sensibilities to judge them.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#375

Post by fixermark »

thisrod wrote: post #271
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'd put this another way. Here is the CEO of Google laying down the law. And the first question to ask, before you bother reading or discussing any law, is what redress you have when someone breaks it. If Google does start building weapons, you can always turn up with a sledgehammer. How do these principles reduce the need for you to do that?

If Google starts building weapons, wouldn't one want to turn up with something a bit more effective than a sledgehammer?

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#376

Post by fixermark »

zaphar wrote: post #181
the-pigeon wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But Google has no intention of doing the right thing anymore than Microsoft or Disney does. These are corporations and their executives HAVE to do what they think will be best for the corporation. Not what they think is best for mankind. This is how for profit businesses currently work. And PR saying anything to the contrary is simply not true.

This is a gross generalization that people trot out as if it were unassailable but never back it up with any support. Corporations are run by people with a complex set of motivations and constraints in which they make decisions. Some of them make decisions with intent to harm. Some make decisions with intent to help. No one person is automatically turned into a ruthless amoral person just be being employed at a corpo…

... and most make decisions in a space where (local) zero-sum games mean there is no option available that uniformly helps or harms.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#377

Post by rmk »

brandonsometig wrote: post #335
rmk wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what other industries does the government require companies to develop military technology? The canonical example is the early days of aerospace, where for all practical purposes you were developing military technology. > So you're saying that if I found a company that is based on internet-related technologies, it is reasonable to at some point in the future compel me (or compel me to pay for someone else) to wo…

> BTW, Cisco and a few others have been forced to develop 'lawful intercept' technologies on their routers for the three-letter agencies for years, I think. There was a big controversy about this a few years ago. And you seem to be arguing that this is a good thing? Surely any company (filled with people) should be free to work on whatever technologies that those people feel is ethically right.

> And you seem to be arguing that this is a good thing? Surely any company (filled with people) should be free to work on whatever technologies that those people feel is ethically right.

I'm arguing that it's not a cut-and-dry thing. Clearly it's susceptible to abuse, but on the other hand it is vital to the long-term security interests of the United States. In any case, there is more accountability than Google or Cisco 'self-regulating' themselves. These companies can't massively leverage military research and then turn back and say they have no obligation whatsoever. They can choose to do no business with the federal government, but that's clearly not the case. In fact, the opposite is true.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#378

Post by fixermark »

zoltaan wrote: post #322
ehsankia wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you rather use Google self-driving car, or one made by a random hacker start-up[0]? Similarly, would you rather your military use AI from a low tier company? https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/7/15933554/george-hotz-hacki...

I don't get it. Do you suggest that Google or big players make things better than anyone else? Or other way around, small startups cannot make good products? I believe if it was so then only companies starting with 1000+ people could do anything useful, small startups were doomed to fail, also big player could never do wrong. Sounds a bit simplistic and contrary to countless examples from life.

In the specific space of machine learning in life-critical applications, I generally prefer product from established companies with reputation to sub-1000 startups.

The incentives to cut corners and go to market are much higher for small startups with short runways. I don't want corners cut when lives are on the line.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#379

Post by fixermark »

UncleEntity wrote: post #287
rmk wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please, keep drinking that Kool-Aid of American exceptionalism. Apart from the British, which other country has contributed to more invasions in foreign countries for the sake of purely economic interests? I will! Which country came to the aid of Britain, and all those Western European nations when they were faced with the existential threat of Nazism? Which country has provided refuge and solace to more oppressed…

Well, technically, we didn't fight a violent war to rid ourselves of slavery -- as hard as the history book try to push that view. Slavery died out pretty much everywhere else in the world without bloodshed so it's pretty safe to assume the US wouldn't have been different in that regard, the freeing of the slaves was more of a punitive action against the seceding states than anything else. Anyhoo, my point being that…

Worth remembering: slavery was outlawed in the United States after it was outlawed in Great Britain.

In the long-view, the whole American Experiment may not have been a net positive for slaves and their descendants relative to a hypothetical alternate history where the Revolutionary War failed and the US was just more British Empire. Nearly impossible to say with certainty, of course, because a Britain that included the US may have had different incentives to push it away from ending slavery.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#380

Post by jimbofisher1 »

ta0982357 wrote: post #116
rmk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> and therefore compromised the national interests of the United States. Did I miss something? Was the Selective Service Act amended to extend to corporations, too? Was Google drafted? Last I checked, cooperation with the United States military has been purely on a volunteer basis since Vietnam.

The supreme court has ruled that Corporations are people. So why wouldn't it extend to corporations?
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