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

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#251

Post by TimothyBJacobs » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

93s6oz wrote: post #127

matt4077 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is polarising. An extreme take. I haven't seen anybody make the argument that trans people should be killed. Just that men should not be able to use women bathrooms. In this case, that's the argument. Turning it into something like that is not going to help anybody.

The OP didn't say the counter argument was that trans people should be killed, but that they shouldn't exist. You are taking the take to the extreme.

Routinely, trans people are treated as an entity that should not exist. Or a disease or condition that should be rooted out. Not a valid identity.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#252

Post by tertius » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

So only insiders can be on ethics boards?

How about pushing this to congress. None of them know hardly anything about anything. They delegate a lot of their thinking.

So two problems.

1. People who are practitioners are more likely to be for the technology than against it. Tristan Harris is a good example of what you're looking for. 2. Going to the logical extreme on this doesn't work.

P.S. Should we apply this to journalism? Because seriously journalists these days don't even know how to make phone calls to even pretend to fact check.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#253

Post by repolfx » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

kaitai wrote: post #245

repolfx wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's anything to do with the internet. A lot of this stuff is taking place offline - shouting people down at lectures and things like that. My own theory is it's due to the decline of religion. I say that as a non religious person who has lately started wondering if I'm so right to be that way (I never used to question the righteousness of scientific atheism). Religion can be defined as a moral framework…

I don't think it's religion, personally, because in Christianity for instance you see the pro-lifers and the people at the border protesting to give refuge to Honduran asylum-seekers in accordance with the teachings of Jesus and they often seem to have essentially no common ground, frankly. On a personal level they do, but on a political level, nah.

Ah but I'm not arguing that this dispute is religious in nature or that religious people all agree (the bible has nothing to say on the topic of mass immigration anyway, AFAIK).

Rather that the people protesting for or against something because of their religious views are much less likely to suddenly change those views or crumble in the face of pressure from opposing activists. They have some sort of concrete belief system that they've thought about and are invested in - it doesn't have to make sense, but they aren't going to turn around and say, "ok ok I promise I won't be pro-life anymore" because some angry Google engineers tweeted that they must hate women's rights. Their views are more robustly grounded than that.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#254

Post by tertius » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:47 PM UTC

93s6oz wrote: post #126

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…

I am European. "Y'all" and "folks" are big warning signs for me. When I see someone use those, I know where things are going.

Headed for profit, charm and lightheartedness?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#255

Post by jasonmp85 » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

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…

This is an article about a company normalizing fascist and white supremacist thought in our nation and exporting that sludge to other nations as well. Frankly, who cares.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#256

Post by jerf » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

max76 wrote: post #231

trentnix wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone worships something. You can worship deity, the State, or yourself. Those working tirelessly to shut down contrary thoughts and opinions and playing semantics games are doing so with a religious fervor and to redefine social norms to their own worldview.

> Everyone worships something. I don’t think someone following the tenets of Buddhism would worship anything. Correct if me I’m wrong.

It depends on your definition of "worship". It's not particularly well defined.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#257

Post by Jun8 » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:55 PM 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.

Despite what many people say, usage of you guys as non-gendered address, similar to the regional y'all, is rather well-established: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11816/is-guy-gen.... However, in corporate environments it's still a good maxim to be mindful of people who have non-standard sensibilities, e.g. I personally use you guys as email address only for all-male group of recipients.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#258

Post by Udik » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

learnstats2 wrote: post #201

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…

Isn't the start point of an ethics board "don't seek to remove rights from an entire demographic of people"? As such, the board would seem to be corrupted if it has people openly working towards that goal. Good that Google has agreed.

> Isn't the start point of an ethics board "don't seek to remove rights from an entire demographic of people"?

No. That's one specific ethics, the one you seem to agree with. But it's not the only possible one. Btw, you seem to want to remove a right to speak from an entire demographics of people, those who profess ethical stances you don't like. How about this?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#259

Post by tzs » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #236

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…

>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. What about all the other board members?

Here are their descriptions from Google's initial announcement:

• Alessandro Acquisti, a leading behavioral economist and privacy researcher. He’s a Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy at the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University and the PwC William W. Cooper Professor of Risk and Regulatory Innovation.

• Bubacarr Bah, an expert in applied and computational mathematics. He’s a Senior Researcher, designated the German Research Chair of Mathematics with specialization in Data Science, at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) South Africa and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Stellenbosch University.

• De Kai, a leading researcher in natural language processing, music technology and machine learning. He’s Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute.

• Dyan Gibbens, an expert in industrial engineering and unmanned systems. She’s CEO of Trumbull, a Forbes Top 25 veteran-founded startup focused on automation, data and environmental resilience in energy and defense.

• Joanna Bryson, an expert in psychology and AI, and a longtime leader in AI ethics. She’s an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath. She has consulted for a number of companies on AI, notably at LEGO researching child-oriented programming techniques for the product that became LEGO Mindstorms.

• Kay Coles James, a public policy expert with extensive experience working at the local, state and federal levels of government. She’s currently President of The Heritage Foundation, focusing on free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom and national defense.

• Luciano Floridi, a leading philosopher and expert in digital ethics. He’s Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the University of Oxford, where he directs the Digital Ethics Lab of the Oxford Internet Institute, Professorial Fellow of Exeter College and Turing Fellow and Chair of the Data Ethics Group of the Alan Turing Institute.

• William Joseph Burns, a foreign policy expert and diplomat. He previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of state, and retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a 33-year diplomatic career. He’s currently President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#260

Post by fixermark » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 3:01 PM UTC

colpabar wrote: post #249

fixermark wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're confusing my personal viewpoint with my observation on what Google appears to have done in this specific context. But for what it's worth, in the specific question of trans individuals, my personal view point is that majorities have been wrong before, and there's no reason to believe they wouldn't be wrong again. This is one of those times. Trans exclusionism doesn't pass the "Do not ban that which is…

You are missing the forest for the trees. The commenters above are trying to articulate that ultimately, you are okay with a group of people shutting down a discussion if the views of the participants involved don't align with their own. You seem to have strong opinions regarding how this can apply to discussions about trans issues, which is fine, but you are still saying that if someone doesn't hold an opinion you a…

I think the trees are really significant here because the other commenters are trying to generalize an instance that can't be generalized without discarding significant details. To give a concrete example of how that over-generalization is incorrect: Kay Cole James hasn't even been shut down. She's welcome to participate in the public discussion of AI and ethics. On her own platform. Over there. Which is what James has done in the past and is welcome to continue to do, without the implicit imprimatur of having her views taken seriously by an ethics board for one of the largest software engineering companies in the world.

Being barred from speaking is entirely different from being denied a seat at someone's table. Or are we also upset that The Heritage Foundation doesn't have Miss Major Griffin-Gracy on their experts panel?