11–20 of 373 posts
Why can’t leadership at Google stand by any of their decisions, instead of caving in to the demands of a small yet vocal group of people.
Hey HN, I'm the author of this article (also the precursor predicting this, which was on the front page yesterday). My impression is that the best place to look for an explanation is actually the facebook post by Luciano Floridi: https://www.facebook.com/floridi/posts/10157226054696031 . My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Obviously, protests…
> My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Well, that's the point, isn't it? If the AI ethics council is meeting four times a year for a couple hours at most, and and has people who can't even agree on "Which bathroom should this person use," how are they going to produce productive advice for actual hard questions that haven't been well-explored?…
Not only could the panelists themselves not work together constructively. Googler's were so enraged by the inclusion of certain people that any recommendation with those people's sign-on would have been DOA.
This is the cause of Googler rage: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273360/how-african-american...
Why can’t leadership at Google stand by any of their decisions, instead of caving in to the demands of a small yet vocal group of people.
So what now? No ethics board at all and it just proceeds without ethics oversight? Isn’t that state worse than having someone you disagree with on some principles but in theory provide constructive criticism where the politics don’t intersect? I mean, making some jobs obsolete or making decisions on recidivism etc I think are distinct from what a panelist thinks about an unrelated issue. Moreover this person didn’t p…
In a sense (and this is a gross exaguration, but just to frame the concept), an ethics panel formed by Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and David Berkowicz would not be an improvement over nothing at all. It would be a step backwards, and the world would be worse for tolerating it.
This is not to say that any of the people involved in this particular episode are abominable monsters, far from it, but to drive home the point, whether you pick the right people or the best people really matters, and it does make a difference.
In some respects, I'm not sure I'd want individuals with a vested interest and enthusiasm for AI to play watchdog over appropriate, responsible behavior.
In a way, an ethics board in something of a no fun zone. It would likely make more sense to invite members from areas that might run counter to industry wonks, in ways that AI experts might prove tone deaf to self policing concerns. Does that make sense?
We don't want to stifle the best parts of progress, but an ethics board shouldn't be made of people inclined to rubber stamp Skynet, because they'd tend toward seeing AI as progress by default.
Given that conservatives make up between 35-40% of American adults, and that the way Senators and Electoral College votes are allocated gives them more political power than just the number would suggest, I fear that this alienation by Silicon Valley will prove to be detrimental in the long-term.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/225074/conservative-lead-ideolo...
In the near term, I think this will cause more conservatives to embrace the need for a government AI ethics oversight panel as opposed to a Silicon Valley selected one.
So what now? No ethics board at all and it just proceeds without ethics oversight? Isn’t that state worse than having someone you disagree with on some principles but in theory provide constructive criticism where the politics don’t intersect? I mean, making some jobs obsolete or making decisions on recidivism etc I think are distinct from what a panelist thinks about an unrelated issue. Moreover this person didn’t p…
And even if it weren't deliberately deceptive, not having an ethics council that wasn't going to work and looking publicly like you have no oversight is still likely better than having one taking up the role of one and causing competitive inhibition (the way certain drugs can physically take the place of biological molecules and prevent them from functioning).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Well, that's the point, isn't it? If the AI ethics council is meeting four times a year for a couple hours at most, and and has people who can't even agree on "Which bathroom should this person use," how are they going to produce productive advice for actual hard questions that haven't been well-explored?…
Why should they agree? They could have produced advice of the form "from perspective A we should do x but from perspective B we should do y".
And if you're going to pick one in the end, why not get everyone from that worldview? There are lots of Roman Catholic theologians, for instance, that they could have included. I don't personally agree with them either, but they absolutely have a rich history of thinking about ethics, and they mostly also don't believe in trans people. Why leave James to fend for herself?