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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

#141

Post by astura »

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.

What about the email was "nasty?"

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#142

Post by watwut »

roenxi wrote: post #135
matt4077 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She never wrote anything on AI ethics, so she most definitely was invited for some other, unrelated action of hers. it‘s also not unrelated, because it speaks to her ability to evaluate facts, and to her soundness of mind.

> She never wrote anything on AI ethics, so she most definitely was invited for some other, unrelated action of hers. Yes. > it‘s also not unrelated, because it speaks to her ability to evaluate facts, and to her soundness of mind. Well, her record of success also speaks to her ability to evaluate facts and suggests she is doing fine. Believing something that there is clear evidence against is a very common afflictio…

Just because you are successful culture warrior does not mean you ability to evaluate facts is great or that you are good choice for AI ethics board - unless you are choosing that person because of successful culture war which you want to recreate there.

The choice of leader matter great deal. It influences goals and approaches. Leader matters and is strategical choice.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#143

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

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.

Strange, I consider "guys" to be gender neutral. Presumably "guys and gals" would be offensive to non-binary folk?

So what's the acceptable format? "guys, gals, and... others?"

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#144

Post by SmellyGeekBoy »

laughinghan wrote: post #125
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.

It's funny, the mind-boggling sensitivity definitely goes both ways. I've known people who received direct but totally polite feedback suggesting they use one of many delightful gender neutral greetings instead of "guys", and became incredibly defensive. Probably described the feedback with a word similar to "nasty".

There's nothing "polite" about trying to create conflict out of trivial non-issues.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#145

Post by killjoywashere »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #143
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.

Strange, I consider "guys" to be gender neutral. Presumably "guys and gals" would be offensive to non-binary folk? So what's the acceptable format? "guys, gals, and... others?"

"Hello", "good morning/afternoon/evening". In Japanese, "Ohio/Konichiwa", in German "Guten tag" etc.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#146

Post by tree_of_item »

mike00632 wrote: post #88
AntiTechTechie wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> advocating against the right for certain classes of people to exist in public spaces When did she do this?

The Heritage Foundation is famous for their attacks on LGBT people, saying that they shouldn't have children and shouldn't have basic human rights. Literally there are tweets from the exact person in question suggesting that trans people don't exist.

Literally there are no such tweets.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#147

Post by TheDong »

tomp wrote: post #136
matt4077 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

„Some say you shouldn’t exist. Others say you have a right to live. Hard question“

Oh come on you're making a huge strawman. Personally, I don't see a point in sex/gender-segregated bathroom at all. The only segreggation that makes sense to me is sitting/standing (which mostly conincides with private/non-private). But if we want sex-segregated bathrooms (and AFAIK many governments force that), then there's little point if people can just randomly change their mind about which category they belong t…

> But if we want sex-segregated bathrooms then there's little point if people can just randomly change their mind about which category they belong to. What's the point of categories then?

Categories do not need to be immutable. There are meetups for bikers and redditors and many other categories which anyone may self-identify as belonging to. These people prefer to think of themselves as belonging within those categories for any of a number of reasons, and accepting their choice is generally a decent thing to do, barring a compelling reason to the contrary.

The point of the male/female categories is that a large number of people identify as one of those two genders, and prefer strongly to be recognized as within one of those categories. There are exceptions and it's more complicated than that, but in the common case, that's why the categories have value: people ascribe value to them. If recognizing someone's desired identity makes them feel more comfortable, why shouldn't we? In the case of genders, it's especially important since it's such an important category.

Finally, people switching genders on a whim is a strawman itself. Transitioning your gender officially is a multi-year process, and you face significant persecution and stigma along the way. I don't see why anyone would undergo that unless it helped resolve some acute gender dysphoria.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#148

Post by yalue »

durability wrote: post #114
yalue wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about all of that, but shouldn't a meaningful board at least make some show of trying to include diverse opinions? The key word of course is "meaningful", and I think you're right on the money that Google wasn't interested in having a panel to discuss meaningful issues in the first place; it seems more likely that they wanted to be able to point to a source of "external" "unbiased" opinions to justify wh…

Diversity is great! Putting someone who advocates for not using AI on an AI ethics board is diversity. Putting someone who advocates for more/less/self regulation is diversity. Putting someone hostile towards the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ rights? That’s not diversity. That has no place in 2019.

Sure, but if they're not debating that topic, why should it be an issue? Not that I think such a person belongs on the panel, but the reason they're not invited should be, as you said, that they have few or no qualifications to discuss either ethics or AI.

The fact that they don't agree with the others on LGBT rights should only be an issue if they insist on trying to espouse their unrelated viewpoints using the panel, in which case by all means kick them off.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#149

Post by redwood »

This is a shameful situation. We need to all wake up and take a step back and realize what's happening here: increasingly you can't have a conversation about one issue unless you are a hundred percent pure in the eyes of a frankly self-proclaimed judge jury and executioner for 100% of your other views.

I am of the left myself but on a meta-level what we're doing is essentially making it impossible to ever find middle ground on issues if we're unable to talk to folks who we don't agree with on 100% of things.

This is a dangerous trend for all of us because it makes it impossible find common ground in an open democracy even if half the country in our eyes have essentially deplorable views, we need to recognize that they feel the same about us and then it's simply not constructive to be unable to find common ground.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#150

Post by SerLava »

intertextuality wrote: post #107
deviomi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need to be a nuclear physicist to have opinions on ethics of nuclear weapons?

Anyone can have an opinion. When a person's title at a company is "Nuclear Weapon Ethics" and they go around giving talks, I would 100% expect them to have some sort of practical experience and knowledge in that domain. Just because you know a thing or two about ethics doesn't mean you are equipped to discuss a particular domain. How can you possibly begin to discuss AI Ethics if you have no idea how it works or what…

To what degree? There's a difference between knowledge of what's practical, and experience in implementation.

I'm getting the sense that the goalposts are ready to slide here, but I wouldn't expect an expert on "when to not do a new Holocaust" to be able to model interactions between uranium atoms.

Not having any familiarity with the subject is obviously its own disqualification as an expert in a given area of ethics. And a nuclear physicist could lack understanding of ethics, international politics, history, military, who's even armed... This would be far more disqualifying.

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