Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 373 posts

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#151

Post by tomp »

TheDong wrote: post #147
tomp wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 catego…

> Categories do not need to be immutable.

I agree, but you have to ask yourself, what purpose do the categories serve. It seems to me that th epurpose of sex-segregated bathrooms is two-fold: (1) to make people feel more comfortable, because many have weird hangups regarding intimacy and sex, and (2) to keep women safe. Even disregarding (2), it seems to be a choice between inconveniencing a tiny proportion of the population a bit more or inconveniencing most of the population a bit less. In any case, regardless of what bathroom trans people should go in, it doesn't even remotely start to solve other issues (e.g. what bathroom does a dad take his 4-year old daughter in) which is why I think the whole idea is a huge politically-motivated strawman.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#152

Post by kuzehanka »

redwood wrote: post #149

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…

You articulated so well what I've been observing.

With the widening political divide, we find ourselves in this weird situation where any decision makers are swarmed with moral outrage attacks unless they're the bastions of politically correct ideology. An increasing number of topics are taboo because merely opening up a discussion around them summons the moral outrage army. Moral outrage has become most effective social manipulation technique, and morality has long ago stopped playing into the equation.

The entire point of ethics discussions is to capture the views of the population in a proportionate manner and try to come to a set of mutually positive outcomes. Bonus points for not stomping on minority views. Instead even on HN we have people claiming that their views are the Correct views and the opposition should not even be given a voice.

No matter how disagreeable you may find some particular viewpoint, if it happens to be held by a non negligible number of people and you marginalise them, it will eventually result in tremendous blowback.

I don't know how we got here, it's a bit scary.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#153

Post by tzs »

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…

> How can you possibly begin to discuss AI Ethics if you have no idea how it works or what's -realistically- possible?

What matters for ethics is the effects things have on people. You generally don't have to know how something works in order to understand what effects it has--someone who does understand how it works can figure that out and tell you.

For example, if you had to decide between on the ethics of using a nuclear weapon and using conventional weapons to destroy some legitimate military target you wouldn't need to know anything about the physics of nuclear weapons.

All you'd need to know about the nuke is how powerful it is, the long term illnesses it can cause, how it can affect people far away from the blast, how it can make the area unsafe for humans for a long time, and so on. To decide the ethical issues you are concerned with what happens, not how it happens.

If we ever get to general AI, and are dealing with ethical questions like whether it is murder to restore a robot to factory settings, whether it is slavery to own a robot, or whether a robot can own property then we will probably need ethicists who are also AI experts.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#154

Post by empath75 »

redwood wrote: post #149

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…

I don’t think it’s possible or desirable to find common ground with fascists, personally.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#155

Post by michaelt »

matt4077 wrote: post #112
telltruth wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem is that these people don't understand what current tech really is. The media and Musk have hyped this up as "AI" but it's not even remotely AI. These people go around and present slides as if sky is falling and induce massive FUD in general public. There is no real AI as far as anyone technical is concerned. So whole deal about "AI Ethics" is great way to get on AI train and get massive salaries for n…

The central example of AI ethics is a self-driving car deciding whom to run over. That example is perfectly possible to occure even with today’s technology. I don’t know what this continuation of playing-chess-doesn’t-take-Intelligence griping is supposed to accomplish, except as posturing of people conflating perpetual contrarianism with insight.

See, that exact example is why I look askew at a lot of the field of 'AI ethics'

I mean, human drivers' education doesn't cover choosing who to kill in unavoidable crashes. Isn't that because we believe crashes where the driver can't avoid the crash, but can choose who to kill, are so rare as to be negligible?

IMHO much more realistic and pressing AI ethics questions surround e.g. neural networks for setting insurance prices, and whether they can be shown not to discriminate against protected groups.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#156

Post by kenneth »

empath75 wrote: post #154
redwood wrote: post #149

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…

I don’t think it’s possible or desirable to find common ground with fascists, personally.

Thanks for being a great example of what GP was talking about.

Shutting down discussions about issues based on the pretext that the people you disagree with are "fascist" or "bigots" is a huge part of the problem. (And yes, the other side does the same while calling you "communists" — doesn't change anything)

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#157

Post by golergka »

empath75 wrote: post #154
redwood wrote: post #149

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…

I don’t think it’s possible or desirable to find common ground with fascists, personally.

Calling people who merely disagree you 'fascists' and consequently shutting down discussion with them makes you much more of a fascist than they are.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#158

Post by Symmetry »

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…

Kelsey is frankly one of the best communicators I know. I was very glad to hear that she became a journalist because I've been a fan of her Tumblr[1] for years.

[1]https://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#159

Post by r_smart »

kenneth wrote: post #156
empath75 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s possible or desirable to find common ground with fascists, personally.

Thanks for being a great example of what GP was talking about. Shutting down discussions about issues based on the pretext that the people you disagree with are "fascist" or "bigots" is a huge part of the problem. (And yes, the other side does the same while calling you "communists" — doesn't change anything)

In my defense, the one person I accused of being a communist on this board, turned out to actually be one :)

Less flippantly, you're spot on. I'd go further, and say overuse of these words erodes their meaning, and makes it possible for actual facists or bigots (or commies!) to hide among groups of people who have been tarred with the same brush but don't hold the same views.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#160

Post by thaumasiotes »

michaelt wrote: post #155
matt4077 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The central example of AI ethics is a self-driving car deciding whom to run over. That example is perfectly possible to occure even with today’s technology. I don’t know what this continuation of playing-chess-doesn’t-take-Intelligence griping is supposed to accomplish, except as posturing of people conflating perpetual contrarianism with insight.

See, that exact example is why I look askew at a lot of the field of 'AI ethics' I mean, human drivers' education doesn't cover choosing who to kill in unavoidable crashes. Isn't that because we believe crashes where the driver can't avoid the crash, but can choose who to kill, are so rare as to be negligible? IMHO much more realistic and pressing AI ethics questions surround e.g. neural networks for setting insuranc…

> I mean, human drivers' education doesn't cover choosing who to kill in unavoidable crashes. Isn't that because we believe crashes where the driver can't avoid the crash, but can choose who to kill, are so rare as to be negligible?

I'd look at a few other reasons:

- We don't have "driving ethics" classes at all. Human driving education covers how to drive. "AI ethics" might cover many things, but I don't think "how to drive" is on that list. That topic falls under "AI", not "AI ethics".

- The usual example you hear about is an AI driver choosing whether to kill a pedestrian or the driver. There is no point in having a "driving ethics for humans" class which teaches that it is your moral duty to kill yourself in order to avoid killing a pedestrian. No one would pay attention to that, and people would rightly attack the class itself as being a moral abomination.

This example actually makes me more sympathetic to the traditional view that (e.g. for Catholics) suicide is a mortal sin, or (for legalists) suicide should be illegal. This has perverse consequences, like assuring the grieving family that at least their loved one is burning in hell, or subjecting failed suicides to legal penalties. But as a cultural practice, it immunizes everyone against those who would tell them to kill themselves.

Post reply on HN