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Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

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Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#41
post #35

"[T]he inclusion of a drone company executive had raised debate over use of Google’s AI for military applications." Lovely.

I share your distaste for militarized AI (unless I mistake you?), but if AI are to be used in such applications then competent representation and examination of such use cases by a public ethics body would seem to me to be a good thing.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#42
This article is a little light on details, but there's a more in depth article here:

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-...

The initial complaint was around comments from 1 of the 8 board members: Kay Coles James

The complaint was published Apr. 1 in a Medium post:

https://medium.com/@against.transphobia/googlers-against-tra...

As evidence the post lists 3 tweets from Kay Cole James:

https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108768455141007360

https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497

https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#43
post #41
post #35

"[T]he inclusion of a drone company executive had raised debate over use of Google’s AI for military applications." Lovely.

I share your distaste for militarized AI (unless I mistake you?), but if AI are to be used in such applications then competent representation and examination of such use cases by a public ethics body would seem to me to be a good thing.

yes if you dislike militarized AI you should discuss it.

the woman in question that runs the drone company is ex-military, so i would feel like she would be in favor of militarizing drones (albeit to be fair her drone company currently does not do that) and thus probably shouldn't be on the board in the first place

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#44
I thought this twitter thread by Kelsey Piper was pretty good:

> as I look through her history I am mostly confused why she was chosen in the first place. She doesn't have any background in tech. She doesn't have any prior writing or research related to AI. No background in the other topics that come up - surveillance, data privacy, international security. She's mostly a culture warrior, so no wonder now we're having a culture war.

https://twitter.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1113544871292182528

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#45

I don't get why Google caves to pressure from internal activism. Only 2000 of 98000 employees signed the letter. And they are themselves a very skewed cohort, unrepresentative of the general population of customers Google has.

eh you know that doesn't mean 96000 opposed this though? do you yourself actually care other than the fact that a specific group of people complained?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#46
post #35

"[T]he inclusion of a drone company executive had raised debate over use of Google’s AI for military applications." Lovely.

Why not have Google decide the AI for military applications? This group who is against current drone warfare, which they have every right to. See [0]. One civilian is one too many! So why doesn't Google actually put their ethics and AI knowledge into action, by maybe coming to a better solution to identify actual enemy combatants?

The military will use drone warfare regardless of what a group of Google employees think. The US military is in dire need of ethics in AI [1]

[0] "Summary of Information Regarding U.S. Counterterrorism Strikes Outside Areas of Active Hostilities" [PDF] https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Press%20Release...

[1] "Does the U.S. Face an AI Ethics Gap?" https://www.rand.org/blog/2019/01/does-the-us-face-an-ai-eth...

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#47
post #24
post #7

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.

Engineering at Google objected, and leadership at Google can't do anything without engineering at Google.

as an engineer, no we didn't. maybe like 1 pct that are SJW's did but not the silent majority. we're tired of them speaking for us.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#48

I thought this twitter thread by Kelsey Piper was pretty good: > as I look through her history I am mostly confused why she was chosen in the first place. She doesn't have any background in tech. She doesn't have any prior writing or research related to AI. No background in the other topics that come up - surveillance, data privacy, international security. She's mostly a culture warrior, so no wonder now we're having…

Agreed, thank you very much for posting. I don't know who Kelsey Piper is, but I feel it's exceedingly rare when I read something on Twitter that makes me come away feeling like I learned something at a deeper level.

I'd encourage other folks to read the whole thread. It's not really mainly about Kay Cole James, more about how the whole panel looked like simply a PR exercise from the start, and I especially liked how she compares it against what OpenAI is doing.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#49
post #6

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...

Gizmodo called her a "ghoul?" That is a very odd choice given that "spook" has been historically used as a racial slur against African-Americans.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#50
post #36
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure this is entirely true. Compared to some of the previous petitions / walkouts, this one was relatively minor, and was mostly the whiny ones.

What duty does the majority have to respect the feelings of the minority? Google recently posted that less than one percent of their population was non binary. If there was a concern that impacted every non binary Googler and they all spoke out passionately, it might not register as a major voice, but it still seems important to listen. Should we only concern ourselves with what the majority thinks? Isn't that the gr…

sure and what if 20 percent feel strongly the opposite way but cant say anything or else they will be bullied by the 1 pct and called bigots and fired like damore?

I'm sure 1 pct of people are white supremacists but we don't listen to them just because they whinge

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