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Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

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Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#91

For those interested in watching the video without feeding into Brietbart's ad/engagement numbers, I've mirrored it here: https://yossarian.net/google.mp4

Here's an alternate mirror as well.

[link removed]

Edit: I'm removing my own copy, since I just realized I didn't set up a contact for that site, and I'd rather play it safe than sorry. Others have mirrored it, and one's on YouTube at present:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5gPdrlyc84

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#92
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I value political neutrality in the workplace, so I have a lot of in-principle issues with what is being shown here right from the get-go. I didn't wind the video back to find the exact quote, but we now have publicised evidence of senior leadership at Google who stood up and said 'obviously our values are not the same as a big chunk of Americans'. Clearly a lot of them are specific Hillary supporters, a candidate so…

I'm interested in why you believe it shouldn't be acceptable for leadership to express "dismay at the outcome of a democratic process." I assume you feel it is appropriate for leadership to express dismay about some things, so what makes democratic processes special?

Well, my position on the subject is complicated and it is a struggle to condense it down into something reasonable.

Basically, there is no way whatsoever that being a capable and talented corporate leader makes your opinion somehow right. If anything, the comforts of great wealth and power make it less likely that their opinion actually represents the best interests of ordinary folk. So my starting point is that the opinion of Google's leaders is not more valid than anyone else's.

Then the second aspect is that they are on that stage in official capacities as leadership of Google. So they are representing the company's views to their employees.

Combining those two, why should republican voters in Google have to experience what is basically a public condemning of their vote? It isn't professional to publicly condemn the views of half your customers and potentially a large percentage of your workforce for no legitimate business reason.

Obviously, the concerns about possible immigration issues I would accept as completely relevant. I'm not sure if that has actually affected Google's business operations - but that aspect wasn't the main focus of the all-hands. The focus of the all-hands was clearly dismay that an unpopular Republican candidate had taken office. It wouldn't have happened had the alternative, an unpopular Democratic candidate, taken office.

So with these thoughts in mind, I don't think it is an acceptable situation. If this were a more traditional public company I'd like to believe professionalism would have been maintained.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#94
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're doing meaningful work, you're changing things in the world. I don't accept that as a truism; most work is maintaining the historically unprecedented comfort that we enjoy as a society and I think that is meaningful. Providing food is meaningful, providing shelter is meaningful, extracting raw resources is meaningful, taxation and welfare are meaningful, taxation and government services are meaningful. I c…

the open source technologies they have created, Map/Reduce, Tensorflow... they essentially invented large scale cheap computing. This has had massive effect on the technology industry and the world.

Do you feel that Map/Reduce or Tensorflow are somehow tools of some sort of convoluted leftist, rightist or centerist agenda? Do the communists have an ideological position on large scale cheap computing?

Those technologies do not require Google to be politically active in any way. Saying they are inherently political is like saying a supermarket is inherently political. Might be true in some technical sense, but practically most people are happy to call it a public good.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#95

Google has definitely jumped the shark with their political leanings. They have been sued for implementing hiring quotas and discriminating on race, sex, and age. You can read the complaint here https://www.scribd.com/embeds/372792998/content While Sergey seems to care about immigrants like himself, lgbtq, and women, he does not give a flying fuck about age discrimination, which is a legally protected class in Americ…

Your argument only makes sense if you think immigrants, lgbtq and women are not every day people.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#96
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using AI to manipulate what you see is already happening - especially if you browse the web without an adblocker.

Yeah, but this directly has ramifications for our democracy, doesn't it? It looks they're actively trying to prevent certain content from being seen while exposing the content Google executives feel the masses 'should' see. This doesn't seem very neutral to me. The leaked video is quite disturbing.

Every action or inaction with any social context is a political action. Who gets to decide what “neutral” even is, anyway? Of course this has ramifications for our democracy, along with every single other piece of media you’ve ever consumed.

I want my search engine to make me smarter and better informed and not baby me with only the content I already know or believe. In that respect, I don’t want censorship. But I also don’t want it to try and feed me just any old information that happens to be sitting around.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are being genuine when they say their plan is to combat fake news with AI; their business is built around AI. It is one of their core competencies. I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they realize that they still need h…

> I think they are going to fail, and quietly increase the human involvement once they realize that their AI isn't good enough. Then they will slowly scale back the humans as their AI improves, until the next controversy when they realize that they still need humans. Exactly. AI is not good at subjective decisions of qualitative data. For example, nobody knows any political candidate's net worth apart from IRS, until…

Short of launching a forensic investigation, subpoenaing records, and carefully watching you, how would the IRS know your net worth?

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#98

Wait, you mean there's bias in our media? All joking aside- I remember watching ed Snowden go from being a "whistleblower" to a "leaker" in the space of 8 hours. I watched Alexandria ocasio Cortez go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours. I remember how all the media were creaming themselves with excitement over the wmd's they were going to find in Iraq.…

> Alexandria ocasio Cortes go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours Are you kidding ? She said US military was given $700 billion increase that they didn't ask for. She said that US unemployment is low becuase everyone has two jobs. She said ICE has to detain 34,000 people every night by law. http://www.politifact.com/personalities/alexandria-ocasio-co...…

She was criticized for being female regardless of her misconceptions on military spending and how many jobs people have. A huge chunk of the world doesn't give equal forgiving or demands of females as they do males - they demand more and forgive less. Ever looked at PolitiFact for just about every other politician? Just look at Serena Williams.. she blabbed and it may be the end of her career (or a lingering black eye)yet for other males in the sport, it just means the front page on the newspaper and nothing else the next day... We can't ignore this. I wouldn't want AI to shape the views of women any worse than they already are just as we shouldn't use targeted bias in user comments to make her look unique in light of her male counterparts than ran against her - of which they all have/had faults and screw ups themselves.

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#99

I find it a bit absurd when I hear pundits and media types claim that liberal bias doesn't exists in silicon valley tech companies (top to bottom). As somebody who lived in San Francisco for five plus years, I can firmly attest it is more than bias. It's utter disdain, hatred, and prejudice. Just look at how James Damore was handled it should be clear that diversity of thought and individualism is not accepted. It's…

I don't think anyone claims Californians working in SF aren't liberal.

What you really mean is you want to be a mildly bigoted in peace and/or demand attention because historically disadvantaged groups are getting attention without any backlash while simultaneously telling others to get over their own insecurities. When people say you have a persecution complex you think its a liberal agenda.

Case in point, no one thinks caring about industry standards makes you racist. Not caring about what makes others uncomfortable so you don't have to learn a new word is what's frustrating. The appropriate response to a silly request like that is "oh, uh, sure whatever. Just update the wiki."

Re: Google’s first all-hands after 2016 election [video]

#100
post #68

Wait, you mean there's bias in our media? All joking aside- I remember watching ed Snowden go from being a "whistleblower" to a "leaker" in the space of 8 hours. I watched Alexandria ocasio Cortez go from a bold new voice to being portrayed as a know-nothing (in a pretty sexist way) in about 6 hours. I remember how all the media were creaming themselves with excitement over the wmd's they were going to find in Iraq.…

What media are you talking about? I Googled in Google News for Alexandria ocasio Cortes, and almost all of the coverage I found from mainstream publications was positive.

I checked and results are very different if you spell her name with a z, as she does.
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