Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

breitbart.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 486 posts

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

#201

Post by mc32 »

shams93 wrote: post #26
jiojfdsal3 wrote: post #20

"(00:54:33) An employee asks what Google is going to do about “misinformation” and “fake news” shared by “low-information voters.” Pichai responds by stating that “investments in machine learning and AI” are a “big opportunity” to fix the problem." Anyone find this disturbing? They're trying to use AI to manipulate what users 'should' see?

The solution is actually free college education for everyone who wants it, even if not everyone will be able to use it on their job the only solution is massively easier access to quality education that teaches you how to think, not what to think. The lack of critical thinking skills is a real problem but its largely by designs, some in DC think having an economic draft is a good thing and an educated population is n…

Will those intructors teach from both sides of the political spectrum and give both major philosophies similar time?

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

#202

Post by toast0 »

throwaway_trust wrote: post #61
gizmo686 wrote: post #57

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…

The IRS doesn't know your net worth. They know your income and deductions, mostly.

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

#203

Post by rdtsc »

petermcneeley wrote: post #165

Twice it was mentioned that the cause of WWII was boredom. Is this actually a real theory?

I found that interesting as well. He seemed to be the most informed and data driven. "Data shows that no, we are not as divided, but that these voters are bored and have routine jobs..."

First result I found was this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/14/health/boredom-extreme-politi...

Which references a few studies:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ejsp.2205

Though can only see the abstract. It shows that boredom leads to extremism both left and right wing as extremism provides meaning. I can see that to some extent. Article is the just the abstract, need a login and possibly to pay money to read the full text.

Another one:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2016/images/07/13/consevatismas...

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

#204

Post by comesee »

jacquesm wrote: post #32
jessaustin wrote: post #28

Wow they get lots of comments over at Breitbart. 11k on TFA, 35k on a soundbite from Cher, 22k for some ridiculous complaint about Serena (hmmm, is this some sort of theme?), 3500 on some guy having a heart attack. Is this normal for partisan news sites? They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments.

> They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments. The people funding those sites are cleaning up with the votes they've bought in this way. The comments are the monetization.

Breitbart is hardly unique in being accused of being a tool for manipulating voters for the business-owning elite. In any case, it's just a conspiracy theory. You have no reason to believe the people at Breitbart don't sincerely believe in the issues they report on.

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

#205

Post by lamarpye »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #181
mikeyouse wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was essentially no new news in the hacked emails -- People had been reporting for years that Schmidt was supporting HRC's presidential bid, including forming a startup to help her with engineering talent: https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...

He’s been a notable Democratic donor for a while - he even invited Obama to a talk at Google and asked him about how to sort a billion integers.

I have meet people that believe Obama knew how to do it.

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

#206

Post by zawerf »

nkurz wrote: post #104
zawerf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic: You're implying that you have an admin UI that lets you see all our other logins? (matched on IP or cookies I guess?) Or did you do a one-off query just for that guy? Since YC applications are attached to HN accounts, do you guys check comments made on alt accounts too? Tracking is useful for moderating but I want to confirm that I can treat my throwaways as throwaways.

I don't know what dang's answer will be, but why would you assume that you are allowed or encouraged to treat your "throwaways as throwaways"? The written FAQ doesn't exactly encourage them: "Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but please don't create them routinely. On HN, users should have an identity that others can relate to. " Separate from dang's moderator tools, you might also note that there…

The no-throwaway rule is probably to prevent people from making a new account for every comment.

I am not at that level of paranoia yet, but I do rotate my accounts once a year to avoid accumulating too much information under one username. This is usually enough to prevent stylometric analysis. So I just need to worry about people with access to HN database/logs/moderation tools, assuming HN itself never gets compromised.

I guess I just want some reassurance that the tracking is being done responsibly and is considered privileged information only used as needed to keep the site working (moderating is pretty fair) and nothing else. Bonus points if the session logs aren't kept forever (something something GDPR compliance?).

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

#207

Post by sooheon »

quotemstr wrote: post #126
crazygringo wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bacteria absolutely care -- or at least we humans care about how it affects bacteria. Political policy determines how the FDA regulates (or doesn't regulate) drugs, including antibiotics. Political policy determines if taxpayer dollars are spent getting antibiotics to those who need them, or on missiles instead. Political policy determines whether doctors are incentivized to minimize antibiotic prescriptions (and pre…

> Bacteria absolutely care Seriously? > Political policy determines how the FDA regulates... That's exactly what I mean when I talk about a tendentious excuse for putting activism where it doesn't belong. A drug company might have a lobbying arm that has to care about policy (and that, for pragmatic purposes, talks to all sides!), but a researcher looking at chromosomal recombination isn't going to do a better job of…

> A drug company might have a lobbying arm that has to care about policy (and that, for pragmatic purposes, talks to all sides!), but a researcher looking at chromosomal recombination isn't going to do a better job of examining the damn chromosomes after being subject to political screeds.

If the researcher refuses to politicize, he will be used as a tool by others who will. Play the game and win, or be used.

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

#208

Post by mrschwabe »

mikeyouse wrote: post #19
mrschwabe wrote: post #15

For additional context, also note Eric Schmidt's consultant role which was revealed in HRC's leaked emails: https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-... https://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-emails-google-eric... https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262

There was essentially no new news in the hacked emails -- People had been reporting for years that Schmidt was supporting HRC's presidential bid, including forming a startup to help her with engineering talent: https://qz.com/520652/groundwork-eric-schmidt-startup-workin...

Well it is a confirmation a paid arrangement was in place, which is actually big deal.

Anyone paid to consult or render services for that campaign should be under intense scrutiny.

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

#209

Post by jacquesm »

jessaustin wrote: post #49
jacquesm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They need to figure out some way of monetizing those comments. The people funding those sites are cleaning up with the votes they've bought in this way. The comments are the monetization.

I suppose that's possible , but it seems rather convoluted. Why wouldn't those hypothetical funders simply bribe both branches of the status quo party like every other rich asshole does? I might change my mind about all this if any of the actually-different young democrats who have forsworn such financing are actually elected this fall...

I'm not aware of any such ridiculous sites on the left side of the spectrum, insofar as you could call the democrats 'left', in most countries a party with their political stance would still be on the right. Some would argue the USA does not have a functioning left wing party.

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

#210

Post by lern_too_spel »

LanceH wrote: post #180
ehsankia wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, anyone who finds this offensive is implicitly agreeing that removing unfactual results would skew the results to be politically biased.

What's offensive is that if their candidate wins, they don't raise that question.

If the candidate who isn't spreading fake news wins, then fake news isn't a big deal. There's nothing offensive about that.
Post reply on HN