Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry • Hacker News Board

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#61

Post by smelendez » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:05 AM UTC

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.

That is regional, though. I'm from New York and I've addressed groups of older female relatives as "you guys" without anyone batting an eye.

In other parts of the country that's not common and people see "guys" as gendered, and people feel like you're forgetting they're there.

The word "dude" as a form of address is gender neutral and business appropriate some places and not others.

It's a hard problem: Y'all works some places but sounds goofy and affected in others. Same with "folks."

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#62

Post by narag » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:15 AM UTC

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…

So why wouldn't leadership just trust their own judgment and stay their course?

The ship had already sunk:

https://www.facebook.com/floridi/posts/10157226054696031

It seems they included a couple of women as token disenters but the plan didn't work exactly as intended.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#63

Post by caconym_ » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

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?

> Is “comments” and “views on issues” enough to cause such a stir?'

Why not? When people in positions of power hold ignorant and/or harmful opinions, a stir should be made. One individual in particular comes to mind.

> What kind of unforgiving and judgemental culture are we living in?

The kind where public figures curry favor with their bases of obstinately illiberal^[1] followers by intentionally spreading divisive sentiment?

Nobody is a victim just because people disagree with what they're saying and say as much to their faces. Bad ideas do not in theory deserve a platform beyond what simple freedom of expression provides them. Striving for "diversity of thought" does not mean we should elevate willful ignorance and demagoguery.

^[1] In the general sense of the word. Far-left whackos included, though I think they're a bit less scary than what's going on on the right these days.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#64

Post by muchachos » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:22 AM UTC

moultano wrote: post #58

cube2222 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many guys have you dated?

Is it that some would prefer we only speak in gender neutral esperanto? Many languages operate with a defacto indeterminate/masculine combination gender as default.

With no harm implied, it presumes that, as with opinions, everyone has an asshole, and you can bet their shit stinks, and that's all you really need to know about anyone, when push comes to shove. Assume all strangers are diseased and untouchable.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#65

Post by MBlume » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48

vilhelm_s wrote: post #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…

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's actually the one who broke the story https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-...

Not sure why the Reuters follow-up made the front page instead.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#66

Post by mwfunk » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

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?

I agree with you in principle, but what you are describing is a safe space in which all viewpoints can be voiced without judgement, and in which everyone has to politely sugarcoat major disagreements instead of "telling it like it is".

I'm not disagreeing with you- that kind of environment can be nice and intellectually liberating in its own way, as long as it isn't a global setting. But that is what you're asking for. Judgement-free safe spaces where everyone has to be nice to each other.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#67

Post by rjf72 » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

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?

One issue with this view is that such petitions tend to be spread with near perfect coverage. So only 2,000 people out of 98,000 signing does generally mean that the other 96,000 are more likely to be opposed/neutral to the 2000. And the current culture of Google such that openly expressing support for a panel that includes genuinely diverse ideological views is something that could have consequences.

As one interesting aside, this is the exact same reason that protests no longer have the effect or meaning that they used to. During things such as the social rights movement organizing and getting your message out was really hard. Imagine trying to organize people when your biggest form of advertising something would be either calling people on a phone manually entering those 7-10 digits each time, by doing things like stapling a sign to a utility poll. And on top of this travel was also quite expensive. What that means is that every protester would generally represent far more people than himself simply because those other people were either unaware or unable to attend.

But today you can reach nearly every single interested individual, and organize with extreme efficiency due to the internet. And a domestic plane flight or bus is incredibly cheap. Because of this a million people protesting today don't necessarily represent all that many people other than themselves. So it creates quite the spectacle but has lost the very meaning that protests used to bring.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#68

Post by swang » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:34 AM UTC

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…

what is kay cole james' expertise on ai ethics that she should be on the council?

is there no other person in computer science, mathematics, privacy research or some professor that is a conservative that holds none of this baggage and says shitty things? and like one of staff at vox said, why bring someone who is entrenched in the political culture war in the first place?

you want a set of diverse views. assuming she wasn't actually anti-trans, anti-lgbtq, do you think this woman knows enough about ai to represent the views of conservatives?

let's say this ethics council actually had power and could dictate what google or alphabet as a company could do in regards to ai. do you trust her to understand the topic at hand to then also address conservative concerns? let's say they make a ruling and she was too ignorant to the issue at hand (maybe those sneaky leftists used language that hid their leftist agenda). what is the likelihood of outrage by the "far-right" that the council was setup to be some pro-left google cabal because they brought someone with zero knowledge of the situation to represent the conservative side?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#69

Post by educationdata » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

qmanjamz wrote: post #33

geofft wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the board is there to advise Google on hard questions, not easy ones. Is it unethical, for instance, to use AI to detect and block potential child pornography and flag it for potential referral to law enforcement? Probably not, but anyone can tell you that. Is it unethical to use AI to identify "gender ideology propaganda" and refer that to law enforcement in places where it's illegal? Depends on whether you thin…

If you stack your council with people of entirely one viewpoint, there's little point in having a council at all. Create a board entirely of Muslims and it's going to say we should fast during Ramadan. If Google tries to cite that board as an ethical authority to justify a policy of mandatory fasting, they're not going to convince many people. With a diverse board, the answers to some questions are going to be inconc…

How many conservatives do they have on the board? I feel viewpoint diversity should at least be close to nationwide percentage.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#70

Post by educationdata » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:44 AM UTC

geofft wrote: post #3

nosseo wrote: post #2

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?…

Is "Which bathroom should this person use" an easy question? If it is really easy, why it is so controversial? You may think it is an easy question, in reality it is an actual hard question.