31–40 of 227 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
i’d wager that in most cases “low wage, low education” workers have much better morals than your “highly educated well paid” team.
The problem isn't a single-value metric of morals, whatever that may be, the problem is that one group is bored and not invested in the project while the other has far more exciting things to do than wondering who they might be listening to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mostly agree, however, there are some issues I'm foreseeing. I've done some NLP work myself and have had access to very private information because of it. The team we were working with were all highly educated and well paid. Because of this, we were aware of the implications of the data we were working with, so at one point, in one of our randomly selected data sets, we found data that was from a public figure and…
i’d wager that in most cases “low wage, low education” workers have much better morals than your “highly educated well paid” team.
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
Minor point: While I do agree that ethics course should be a part of CS curricula, wouldn’t managers be the ones who likely pushed for the pattern you’re remarking upon? (Ie ethics classes would be more useful for them?)
I would agree that that’s not really the case here (since grading Siri using people means hiring people and that’s immediately a bigger fish), but in general everyone should keep ethics on their mind.
In the end I would say that everyone has to be made aware of and always keep in mind ethical issues since they can crop up everywhere, also places where a certain person has the most insight and others might overlook the ethical issue. It’s a shared responsibility.
I’m sometimes shocked about how careless developers approach ethical issues and since they are the one actually writing the code they can do a lot of harm.
Since we live in this capitalist hellscape all of this is unlikely to have any effect anyway …
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
And a ritual like they have in Canada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
I’m genuinely concerned about data privacy, but I’m kinda surprised about the outcry about all of this. I guess it’s relatively common knowledge for hacker news readers that all of these systems need to have human intervention to improve, but I feel like all this could have been avoided by just explaining that this was how the service was able to improve... I’m sure more steps could be taken to anonymise data from th…
1.) Apple literally plastered "What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone" ads around CES to make fun of competitors. - https://www.macworld.com/article/3331597/apple-privacy-billb...
2.) Apple always slams competitors over their lack of privacy on every keynote.
I think the outcry is more than warranted when the company is blatantly lying to your face in their marketing.
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
I thought the thing that was listening is a low level circuit in your phone that detects "hey siri/ok google" and it doesn't transmit anything until it detects that. Am I wrong? Or was there too many false positives?
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
Minor point: While I do agree that ethics course should be a part of CS curricula, wouldn’t managers be the ones who likely pushed for the pattern you’re remarking upon? (Ie ethics classes would be more useful for them?)
Programmers on the other hand, just like engineers or doctors or any other craftsperson, are only conflicted because ethics can get in the way of job security.
If businesses were the military, managers are the officers giving orders, programmers are the soldiers pulling the trigger. If your officer tells you to do something extremely immoral, it's your ethical duty to object even if it means you will be punished. Even if it will only be recognised as the right thing to do when your officers are brought before a court by another nation.
EDIT: As HN has ratelimited me again, I'll reply here instead: Yes, in the case of doctors the moral duty is in part enforced through licensing. But anyone thinking an absence of a legal duty means the ethical duties are entirely down to personal preferences seems to have a very short memory of history.
There's a reason in my military example I explicitly said "even if it will only be recognised by another nation": laws are arbitrary, fundamental ethics are not. The Nuremberg trials are an oft-quoted example because it was a case of people being tried for blatantly unethical acts that were perfectly legal in their own microcosm (mostly because the people supporting those acts were also the ones writing the laws).
If you're a soldier and your commanding officer orders you to perform massive human rights violations (even if your country does not consider the UN Human Rights legally binding) it's your duty to refuse, even if you suffer drastic consequences for that refusal. "Just following orders" has become a cliche for non-excuses thanks to people using exactly that justification for committing unspeakable atrocities.
Also, fun fact: the German military distinguishes between binding orders, orders you can refuse and orders you must refuse. A typical example of the second category seems to be "go and wash my (private) car". An example of the third category would be a criminal act. But even despite those distinctions a soldier might be legally punished for refusing to do something unethical. Extremely immoral orders are generally also orders to do something illegal (and thus illegitimate in this case) but that mapping is neither guaranteed nor necessary.
My point is that "doing the right thing" doesn't mean doing something that'll benefit you and "doing the wrong thing" doesn't mean something you'll suffer direct consequences for. Whether the consequences are legal, personal or financial (e.g. by being fired from your job), sometimes following your ethical duty comes with a cost. Nobody said any of this was fair.
So far, most of the comments here are a good example of both why this happened and why it will happen again. When people complained that putting microphones in your home 24/7 was creepy, the response was "that's nonsense, Siri is not sending anything unless you specifically ask for it". When it turned out that it does send things you didn't intend, the response was "well, it's not like anyone is listening anyway". No…
Voice recognition isn't really possible without someone listening to train the system.
If the option is "don't have a voice assistant at all" or "have a voice assistant that sometimes has a human listening", I suspect the public would mostly choose the latter.
When you call a company helpline and get connected to a human rather than a robo-voice, most people are happy about it. It's curious they treat voice assistants the other way round.