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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

#341

Post by crowdpleaser »

repolfx wrote: post #218
winchling wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

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…

Agreed. What we're seeing from the thought police is a resurgence of puritanism. With various degrees of success, religions can put guard rails on puritanism with 'love the sinner hate the sin' messages, it's not apparent whether any of that exists for puritanical ideologues - the Pope washed the feet of Muslim refugees, when's the last time you saw someone woke AF go out of their way to affirm the humanity of someone who holds opposing views? Ask hollywoods liberals if they'd shake Trump's hand.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#342

Post by humanrebar »

pjc50 wrote: post #192
humanrebar wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And yes, the other side does the same while calling you "communists" — doesn't change anything Well, both the right and left thinks the other is the fascist. The right also thinks the left is communist. Both think the other is bigoted in different ways.

Calling someone both fascist and communist is, if nothing else, logically incoherent.

How?

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#343

Post by belorn »

xnyan wrote: post #302
raxxorrax wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's unacceptable for this role Do we really need to play facts opinion? In a discussion about ethics you include as many viewpoints possible or it become dishonest immediately. You are not a priest or something like that. It has taken too long to accept premised authority.

I don't accept people who advocate suppressing the rights of trans people as members of society. I'm fine if you judge me for that or think I'm moralizing, because I am. I can live with that.

In almost all political disagreement there is underlying fear or concern being unaddressed. Simply shutting people out only amply it further.

For example, a very common topic in practically all discussion around trans right in the US is the issue around toilets. An obvious solution to it is unisex toilets, but the right never accepted it and the left abandoned it so it is now a centrism political view. When it comes to both the left and the right, it seems to exist a fear that unisex bathroom are more likely to cause crime, through there is no data to actually support it. Thus rather than settle the issue, they fight over it.

If we could convince both side, maybe by using data from countries which overwhelming use unisex bathrooms, we could settle those fears.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#344

Post by belorn »

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…

It is not that people are concerned about being fired for expressing a politically-charged viewpoint, but rather expressing the wrong side of a politically-charged viewpoint.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#345

Post by belorn »

fixermark wrote: post #332
manigandham wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what Damore actually said but he was fired under "creating a hostile workplace" which is up to interpretation of a private company. What people have a problem with is that you can have people fired for holding political viewpoints in the first place. You seem to be saying that's ok to do.

In most of the US, political affiliation isn't a protected class. There are good reasons this is true; as a country, we generally (a) recognize a difference between private social or economic pressure and censure and legal sanctions or punishment and (b) reserve the right to apply private pressure to, say, hamstring the KKK. The notion that you could find out an employee was a Klansman and be barred from firing them…

Those "good reasons" all breaks down when we consider that religion is a protected class.

For example, a person is perfectly free to believe that all unbelievers are less worth as people, but they have no right to believe that people of a specific race are less worth.

There is really no distinction between a religious opinion or a political opinion, but under US law one is protected and the other is not. In Swedish law they are often regarded as identical, which mean that political views do hold some protection against discrimination.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#346

Post by goatlover »

physicsyogi wrote: post #316
goatlover wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, and it seems like nuclear physicists back in the day could have used some stronger opinions on the ethics of making nuclear weapons.

During WWII, Germany was also trying to build the bomb. All things considered, it's probably better that the Manhattan Project beat them to it.

Sure, but it didn't stop there.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#347

Post by fixermark »

belorn wrote: post #345
fixermark wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most of the US, political affiliation isn't a protected class. There are good reasons this is true; as a country, we generally (a) recognize a difference between private social or economic pressure and censure and legal sanctions or punishment and (b) reserve the right to apply private pressure to, say, hamstring the KKK. The notion that you could find out an employee was a Klansman and be barred from firing them…

Those "good reasons" all breaks down when we consider that religion is a protected class. For example, a person is perfectly free to believe that all unbelievers are less worth as people, but they have no right to believe that people of a specific race are less worth. There is really no distinction between a religious opinion or a political opinion, but under US law one is protected and the other is not. In Swedish l…

When an opinion---any opinion, including religious---crosses the line into political action, it becomes an action that can have impact on other people. At that point, the people very much have a say regarding the consequences.

The intersection between freedom of religion and the laws of society is one of the hardest interfaces for American law to adjudicate, and yet it does.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#348

Post by rixed »

birksherty wrote: post #137
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…

Why should only tech people decide our lives? They don't have any ethics as we have seen in american companies like Google and fb. They only care about money. These companies definitely needed some people outside their tech bubble long time ago. Tech people can design the tech. But here we are talking about the impact and those people should not be the one deciding everything. They are doing that over a decade and di…

> Why should only tech people decide our lives? They don't have any ethics as we have seen in american companies like Google and fb. They only care about money.

Tech companies are not made only of tech people. Those companies you named employ many engineers but are led, like any other company, by finance, sales and management. This whole story is actually about a conflict between the rank engineers and the management (similar to the earlier conflict about military projects).

You should totally trust the tech people, as they are the ones who are not in for the money (or less likely to be just in for the money, at least).

Actually, the whole story of Google not being trustworthy any longer might just be the story of engineering being slowly overruled by finance/management there.

I would totally trust Google AI researchers, like i would totally trust Einstein with the fussion theory. That employees were still able to overthrow a comitee formed by upper management will achieve more than whatever little benefit this comitee would have achieved.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#349

Post by intertextuality »

tertius wrote: post #252
intertextuality wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 jo…

Yes, only people who know how the tech works should be discussing it. It’s far easier to train a skilled person in ethics than to take an ethics person and train them in that domain.

I don’t buy your argument that all experts are necessarily proponents. Even within a domain there are disagreements.

The government issue is real and also slightly tangential. We need to make working in the public sector more attractive.

And yes it should apply to journalism, but discerning that falls onto individual people. It’s a bit of a different issue.

Re: Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry

#350

Post by intertextuality »

BeetleB wrote: post #235
intertextuality wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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? That's what other members of the board are there for. Let's flip your question: How do you expect a tech person to comment reasonably about AI ethics when all they've taken is an undergrad course in philosophy (and even that may be a stretch). The notion that a person on the board must be an expert in…

It’s not ridiculous to expect people to understand the topic that they are discussing. You can take domain experts and train them in ethics. It’s impossible to discuss something–and the ethics around it–if you don’t fully understand how it works.

I wouldn’t want John Stuart Mill on that board because he wouldn’t know what he was talking about, and therefore would be unable to properly evaluate things.

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