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Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

vox.com

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Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#91

Post by Proven »

ecshafer wrote: post #87
telltruth wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly everyone who hasn't done anything technical but wants to ride AI train chooses to become "AI Ethics" person these days. You can look up vast number of these AI ethics "experts" giving talks on this subject without ever having trained a model for anything. So apparently the bar for this "field" is zero experience in anything technical but great ability to hold a microphone and induce FUD in public.

I would trust an ai ethicist with a PhD in philosophy or ethics of their ideas were coherent. Tech backgrounds are not necessarily required.

Why?

The other day HN had a link to a research paper that showed ethicists don’t behave more morally than average Joe.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#92

Post by Reelin »

sytelus wrote: post #85
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.

Which technologies will be used in wars is not determined by you but your opponents.

Granted, but there's much more than a binary (use/ban) discussion to be had here. It's important that we have open discourse about the design, manufacture, deployment, and general use of such things in order to avoid dangerous or highly objectionable outcomes.

There is more than one way to do something; the repercussions of those pathways may differ significantly.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#93

Post by mike00632 »

ehsankia wrote: post #80
zuse wrote: post #35

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

The whole point of a council is to bring different ideas, so they can approach a problem from multiple directions. If you remove all the people you disagree with, you no longer have a council, you've got an echo chamber. If you are threatened by 1 person out of 8 having different views, then maybe your ideas aren't as strong as you thought?

So if you want a council on the exploration of space should you include a few flat-Earthers?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#94

Post by jmcgough »

mike00632 wrote: post #90
jmcgough wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably didn't bring her on for her expertise, they brought her on because she's a powerful conservative. Google wants politically powerful friends on both sides of the aisle in light of how much criticism there's been of them lately.

Piling on against a minority of people who can't really fight back is not being "powerful." It's cowardly and weak. It's also unethical .

I didn't say that what they were doing was a good thing. The AI ethics council wasn't intended to do much but provide some nice PR and political connections.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#96

Post by Proven »

The idea was poorly conceived to begin with.

What should be okay can’t be okay because of the raging SJWs and various people who think non-shareholders ought to have a say how a private company is run.

In such an environment modern academic types wouldn’t last and others would be attacked for their opinions. Consider it was supposed to be pro bono work with only an advisory role, why bother?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#98

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

tiglionabbit wrote: post #82
smelendez wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

It's not really regional. I have noticed this most from folks who are transitioning genders. Some are OK with "they", but some prefer folks to go above and beyond to affirm their new gender, thus objecting to "dude" and "guys". As a result, I've gotten into the habit of saying "y'all" and "folks" even though I'd otherwise never have used these words.

I use gentlefolk, to avoid this issue (also it's kinda of a cool word, that people tend not to use very much).

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#99

Post by SamReidHughes »

skj wrote: post #13
andrenth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the cause of Googler rage: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273360/how-african-american...

I tried to read it, to see what she did that was considered objectionable, but I couldn't get past the trite putdowns the article slipped in all over the place about lefties and millennials. I was three pages deep before I gave up.

I found a tweet where she opposed a law that would force women’s sports leagues to let men play, require people to let men use women’s bathrooms, and force doctors to sterilize teenagers.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#100

Post by kenneth »

@dang — came through the Reuters article. Prefer it to the new Vox article, due to being factual and objective, instead of editorialized and showing bias.

Vox's article implies Google was in the wrong. Reuters makes no such implications.

I have no opinion on the topic at hand, but I am saddened that journalism these days falls far too often into the trap of being lynch-mob. I would've preferred to see the objective and factual article win over the opinion piece.

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