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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

#281

Post by SmirkingRevenge »

fixermark wrote: post #183
naasking wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people Yes, but we must recognise the difference between etiquette and ethics. Ethics are the things you must do, but courtesy is a matter of etiquette, behaviour that is optional but culturally polite. PC culture these days raises etiquette to the level of ethics, and that's simply wrong.

Not if you apply the point-of-view that etiquette is what the unethical use to keep their unethical practices under-questioned.

There's no real limit to what bad-faith actors will use to appear legitimate. They'll use philosophy, science, religion, etiquette, etc - in constrained, self-serving ways, of course. We can't just assume anyone doing those things is evil and acting in bad faith - otherwise we're just elevating the ad hominem as our supreme, central dogma.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#282

Post by naasking »

fixermark wrote: post #183
naasking wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I find especially sad is I am a total believer in political correctness as a general courtesy to people Yes, but we must recognise the difference between etiquette and ethics. Ethics are the things you must do, but courtesy is a matter of etiquette, behaviour that is optional but culturally polite. PC culture these days raises etiquette to the level of ethics, and that's simply wrong.

Not if you apply the point-of-view that etiquette is what the unethical use to keep their unethical practices under-questioned.

I have no objection to ignoring etiquette in general. The point I was trying to make is that treating etiquette as ethics is how people justify shutting down debate on controversial topics. They also use it to dehumanize their opponents on an issue, and that is unethical.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#283

Post by tzs »

kuzehanka wrote: post #277
fixermark wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speaking loosely, but by "valid" here I just mean "a full person with human dignity and value." James' Heritage Foundation has come out strongly in favor of the Trump administration's attempts to ban transgender people from military service, which is somewhat incompatible with the view that transgender people are valid.

Why do you care only about transgender people? There are hundreds of larger groups which face far more severe marginalisation in society. Trans people have a net positive social status where they are actively sought by employers. Isn't it time to move on to helping other minorities? Looking at your comments here, it's starting to look like you have a singular agenda will just support whatever larger movement best ali…

> There are hundreds of larger groups which face far more severe marginalisation in society. Trans people have a net positive social status where they are actively sought by employers. Isn't it time to move on to helping other minorities?

This sounds like you think we need to serialize helping marginalized groups. Was that the intent?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#284

Post by muraiki »

jerf wrote: post #256
max76 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yeah, for particular sects of Buddhism, such as Pure Land, one can observe practices that are more akin what we would call worship.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#285

Post by techsin101 »

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 believe this what people refer to as snowflake. With these criterias you only get best liars.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#286

Post by yesofcourse »

tree_of_item wrote: post #187
krishicks wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be referring to tweets such as this, linked elsewhere in the comments: https://mobile.twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/110836523877...

The text of the tweet: > Today @heritage will critique gender identity @UN_CSW because powerful nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63 That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist", or that they should be harmed in any way, or that they…

> That tweet does not say anything like "trans people don't exist"

It advocates "critiquing gender identity," which I take to mean asserting that gender identity is either not real or not important. Gender identity is the defining characteristic of trans people, so when someone critiques it as a concept, that implies that they think trans identities are made up, possibly for some insidious purpose, ie. that trans people don't really exist. I've heard people say things like "there's no such thing as a transgender, you're either a man or a woman," and this tweet makes me think that James would agree with them.

> or that they should be harmed in any way

Advocating against legislation to protect marginalized groups harms them directly.

> That tweet expresses a perfectly reasonable sentiment that many others share:

Many people in the world share the sentiment that apostates should receive the death penalty. If you lived in a place or time where this was considered a reasonable sentiment, I hope that you would not let it stop you from doing everything you could to oppose murdering people. We currently live in a society where many people believe that trans people should not accepted. I'm willing to be an "extremist" in order to change that.

> that human beings are sexually dimorphic

This tweet says nothing of the sort, nor would I expect it to, as no one in the history of the world has ever suggested the contrary.

> and cannot change sex

This is a red herring. The public controversy is not over what features of human biology can and cannot be changed, but over how society should treat trans people.

> transactivists

trans activists

> This sort of hyperbole on the part of transactivists is very frustrating: anyone who doesn't agree with extremist gender ideology is painted as a "bigot".

If you call the idea that we ought to respect the identites of trans people "extremist gender ideology," I am very happy to call you a bigot.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#287

Post by Veelox »

fixermark wrote: post #272
Veelox wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put the point user redwood made differently. There is a trend that certain questions have a "right answer" and if you don't believe the "right answer" it is okay to bar you from any and all discourse. While you might think "Trans rights are worth the sacrifice" the general trend in tech is that there is a "right answer" to same-sex marriage (Brendan Eich), biological differences between gender (James Damore), poli…

I'd personally be really cautious about making the mistake of conflating Damore with other topics. Damore, in particular, was fired legally because there are, in fact, some topics not up for discussion ( https://www.wired.com/story/labor-board-rules-google-firing-... ). Companies aren't legally free to entertain the question "Maybe women can't be as good at computer engineering as men" without running very quickly in…

I would agree that Damore is not a Shining White Knight of Truth. His actions since being fired are questionable. That said, in most of the Damore discussion I got a sense that there was a "right answer" to most of the questions he posed.

>If a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's viewpoint is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

While this is a valid stance to have, I don't think the left as a whole follows this standard consistently. When there is talk of diversity and inclusion, its normally shown as a higher ideal that the left is ascribing to. So, if it really is I higher ideal, we can change the subject of your idea and see if it still works.

Would you support me giving the below advice to a gay coworker?

f a person were concerned about being fired for expressing a LGBT viewpoint, I'd personally counsel them to consider whether that viewpoint is worth the price of the job, and if it isn't? Be silent. Silence is free. Making the decision that one's ability to be out of the closet is more important than the job is always a decision one is free to make.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#288

Post by omnipugent »

kuzehanka wrote: post #277
fixermark wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speaking loosely, but by "valid" here I just mean "a full person with human dignity and value." James' Heritage Foundation has come out strongly in favor of the Trump administration's attempts to ban transgender people from military service, which is somewhat incompatible with the view that transgender people are valid.

Why do you care only about transgender people? There are hundreds of larger groups which face far more severe marginalisation in society. Trans people have a net positive social status where they are actively sought by employers. Isn't it time to move on to helping other minorities? Looking at your comments here, it's starting to look like you have a singular agenda will just support whatever larger movement best ali…

People who identify as Jewish make up only 1.4% of the US population.

Why should 'helping other minorities' be exclusionary. Who is this 'other'? Trans people are NOT actively sought by employers - I've personally witness the exact opposite.

Maybe the issue is that people - including those who use religion as a form of control - have forgotten the Golden Rule.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#289

Post by dmix »

kaitai wrote: post #243
kuzehanka wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

As with so many ideas in American politics, the use of moral outrage has ping-ponged back and and forth across the political spectrum -- everyone uses it, and people have for a long time. The civil rights era: both sides used moral outrage. Prohibition/the temperance movement. The suffragettes being force-fed during their hunger strike in 1909, and the moral outrage about corrupting women and families and degrading A…

You seem to be narrowing the issue and abstracting it away from the local problems until you can easily dismiss it as a mere tool everyone has employed historically. But I don't think any recent history has had to have a perfectly "acceptable" political ideology and personal history (sometimes going back 40+ years) - that hasn't "offended" multiple extreme ends of various political camps.

...absent the Victorian age and some time after, which we all moved beyond culturally because it was backwards to force one top-down rigid "proper" way to live and speak.

Not to mention the definition of "acceptable" to these special interest camps is forever a moving goal post where anyone who isn't the perfect caricature of mainstream "acceptableness" can't have a say in any economic, cultural, political, etc discourse without being tarred, feather, and demanded to apologize for even thinking they could engage in the process.

This is a very different development than just employing moral outrage. A critical part of a healthy democratic society is accepting people have different worldviews. We're moving to a world where there is one alleged correct worldview and anything else is a showstopper.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#290

Post by pjc50 »

winchling wrote: post #204
kuzehanka wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

>I don't know how we got here, it's a bit scary. I think we got here because of telecommunications and the internet. The world is joining up and a nascent collective mind is emerging. Like the individual mind it has a set of ideas about who it is and what it should be doing, a.k.a. an 'ego'. Many potential thoughts in a normal mind are continually being censored/suppressed because they do not conform to those fixed i…

> Where might militant atheists and religious fundamentalists find common ground?

It turns out that the answer to this is transphobia, sadly.

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