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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

#51

Post by dx87 »

ananth22by7 wrote: post #39

I fail to understand. Is “comments” and “views on issues” enough to cause such a stir? People’s sensitivity boggles my mind. Can we not say things without having to walk on eggshells? What kind of unforgiving and judgemental culture are we living in?

If it makes you feel any better, not everywhere is like that. I work at a mid sized technology consulting company on the east coast, and I've heard multiple managers say that they hate when they have to manage developers from the west coast. My manager told us about a time she got a nasty email from the lead developer of a team because she started an email with "Hey guys" instead of a gender neutral greeting.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#52

Post by throwawaysea »

swang wrote: post #45
throwawaysea wrote: post #37

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?

Sure, but it doesn't mean 96000 are in agreement either. So why wouldn't leadership just trust their own judgment and stay their course? That seems not just spineless, but also irresponsible since it means they are willing to discard all prior careful deliberation and research at the drop of a hat.

> do you yourself actually care other than the fact that a specific group of people complained?

Yes, I want a diverse set of views on such a council, representing multiple areas of the political spectrum - that is, left, moderate, and conservative views rather than just the far-left. There are also a wide range of opinions out there on topics like the use of AI for military purposes or on the modern transgender movement (which is the subject of controversy relating to this council). Only 8% of America are progressives after all (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...). And all this is still without consideration of the worldviews that exist around the globe, which is important given Google has customers globally.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#53

Post by twy6979 »

ananth22by7 wrote: post #39

I fail to understand. Is “comments” and “views on issues” enough to cause such a stir? People’s sensitivity boggles my mind. Can we not say things without having to walk on eggshells? What kind of unforgiving and judgemental culture are we living in?

This is an ethics council. Things like advocating against the right for certain classes of people to exist in public spaces are relevant to deciding if someone should be a member of an ethics council.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#54

Post by Reelin »

swang wrote: post #43
Reelin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What? No. The fact that she's ex-military and runs a drone company is precisely why she should be on such a board.

If there is no one on the board with the relevant knowledge and experience to competently represent a given use case, then the board will likely be unable to produce results relevant to such use cases. For example, if I form a board to hash out software version control system best practices but actively exclude experts on distributed VCS such as git and mercurial, then the resulting "best practices" are unlikely to prove useful for anyone actually using a DVCS in reality.

My point here is that excluding her almost certainly won't actually do anything to prevent the development of militarized AI. Rather, it will simply reduce the likelihood that anything the board puts out has influence on such matters.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#55

Post by [deleted] »

swang wrote: post #43
Reelin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#56

Post by cube2222 »

dx87 wrote: post #51
ananth22by7 wrote: post #39

I fail to understand. Is “comments” and “views on issues” enough to cause such a stir? People’s sensitivity boggles my mind. Can we not say things without having to walk on eggshells? What kind of unforgiving and judgemental culture are we living in?

If it makes you feel any better, not everywhere is like that. I work at a mid sized technology consulting company on the east coast, and I've heard multiple managers say that they hate when they have to manage developers from the west coast. My manager told us about a time she got a nasty email from the lead developer of a team because she started an email with "Hey guys" instead of a gender neutral greeting.

Just saying, guys in the plural is gender neutral.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/guy

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#57

Post by smsm42 »

throwawaysea wrote: post #52
swang wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sure, but it doesn't mean 96000 are in agreement either. So why wouldn't leadership just trust their own judgment and stay their course? That seems not just spineless, but also irresponsible since it means they are willing to discard all prior careful deliberation and research at the drop of a hat. > do you yourself actually care other than the fact that a specific group of people complained? Yes, I want a diverse se…

> Yes, I want a diverse set of views on such a council, representing multiple areas of the political spectrum

You may want it, but a lot of googlers definitely won't. A lot of people on the far left define ideological disagreement as "violence" and would be very vocally attack anybody that holds view they disapprove. And Google management is not invested in this project enough to spend a lot of political capital on it - plus they themselves are probably on the left side, so why would they battle for including somebody who they don't even agree with?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#58

Post by moultano »

cube2222 wrote: post #56
dx87 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it makes you feel any better, not everywhere is like that. I work at a mid sized technology consulting company on the east coast, and I've heard multiple managers say that they hate when they have to manage developers from the west coast. My manager told us about a time she got a nasty email from the lead developer of a team because she started an email with "Hey guys" instead of a gender neutral greeting.

Just saying, guys in the plural is gender neutral. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/guy

How many guys have you dated?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#59

Post by smsm42 »

swang wrote: post #43
Reelin wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So, the idea of "discussing it" is to first exclude everybody who might hold an opinion different from the one you want to arrive at (preferably without even actually asking them - why bother to ask a person if she's for or against military drones if she served in the military so you already know everything about her views from one single factoid?). At which point I'm not sure why indeed waste time on having any council at all - a dozen people that think all the same can be replaced by just one person at 12x more efficiency.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#60

Post by anbop »

throwawaysea wrote: post #37

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.

I wouldn’t sign any political petition in my company. That doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion, or that I wouldn’t act on that opinion, such as by leaving my company if I didn’t like it and had another alternative.
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