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Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

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Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#291

Post by lawnchair_larry »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #236
bonoboTP wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do people use "gaslighting" this way? She and colleagues seem to use it left and right on Twitter regarding all kinds of behaviors. I thought it had a quite specific meaning in the context of narcissist abusers intentionally making their victims doubt their own sanity.

It does. She's made this argument explicitly elsewhere; she believes that Google's treatment of her constituted emotional abuse.

Emotional abuse isn’t gaslighting though. Almost nobody uses that term logically it seems.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#292

Post by pron »

motohagiography wrote: post #110

This issue reminds me a lot of what we do in security and privacy, which are ostensibly engineering disciplines, but are really technology governance functions. Ethical AI is also a governance function, and like hackers in security, there is an invisible yet stark limit to the value activists can provide in actual governance roles. Litigating demands is just not how governance gets done. The irony of Google hiring so…

> The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good.

But the very outcome that this is just your company rather than yours and theirs is, itself, a result of decades of activism; it's not a law of nature, nor is it the law in all Western countries. Company executives and shareholders are themselves activists (Google certainly is), only they have more power. Why is it reasonable for management to be political activists but not the workers?

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#293

Post by pietrovismara »

igorkraw wrote: post #282

I find it sad that a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID. Ironically, the self identified "anti-SJW" are cancelling her by complaining about her "toxicity" and "attempts to cancel people" in vague terms. I also find it sad that apparently, freedom of speech and free actions end when it comes to criticizing your employer in public, sho…

We grow up with the ideal of democracy and treat it as the single most important value we have to protect. Yet we spend the best (awake) third of our life in authocratic environments, where decisions that can deeply affect our lives are taken without our consent. Where speaking up for ourselves or our peers' good gets us fired. I also find it incredibly sad.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#295

Post by throwaway19937 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #100
tomcam wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re 100% right. A job at a FAANG company isn’t a tenured position. Let her go get a job at Harvard and trash them all she wants.

We praise whistleblowers left and right on HN, at the expense of objectivity (assange, snowden, et al), despite ethical issues with them. Yet when a woman of color does it, "oh they are their own company and can do what they want and it's her fault for trying to be ethical in this space in industry." What?? Had a white male done this, it's hard not to think he'd be praised as a hero on here.

> We praise whistleblowers left and right on HN, at the expense of objectivity (assange, snowden, et al), despite ethical issues with them.

HN has a large audience with a broad range of opinions. In my opinion, Snowden and Manning are traitors and the latter should have been left in prison.

> Had a white male done this, it's hard not to think he'd be praised as a hero on here.

I'd be equally dismissive of any person who committed the following actions.

1. Griping about the racist reviewers of her paper on Twitter.

2. Sending an email to a internal list criticizing Google's behavior and telling people to stop working on diversity.

3. Demanding the names of reviewers and threatening to resign if they weren't provided.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#296

Post by dragonwriter »

aabhay wrote: post #270
throwaway201606 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had more upvotes to give for this comment. It gave me multiple upsights about how to clean up my approach thinking about the issues here: + framing an analogy using technology governance functions - whose functions and values can be clearly quantified and measured by many independently - with a ethical (moral) functions - whose values and results are much more nebulous + drawing a parallel between hackers -…

> Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Do you believe this is a viable trend? This debacle seems to point to the death of 'Ethics research' inside of corporations. What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? My guess is that the model will go back to using CSR budget to invest in 'social good' non-profits and think tanks that stay at a…

> What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders?

The same thing media companies’ gain from controlling content rating systems plus the same thing any company gains from dominating research relevant to it's product area; if they do a good enough job at pretending to care, they forestall state regulation, and even if they don't succeed at that, the more influence they have over the research field, the more any outside regulation will be dependent on information that they have the ability to at least subtly spin before it is even published.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#297

Post by bonoboTP »

bzb6 wrote: post #273
bonoboTP wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, seems like other black people recognize her as black too, so I don't know what else can you expect. A person identifies as part of a group and the group agrees. It's kind of like asking if Obama is really African American/Black. Races aren't sharply divided, it's a social grouping thing based on history, culture, etc.

Blacks of the tech liberal elite consider her black. That’s not representative. Obama has clear facial features of a black person. This woman does not have them. She even looks like she got a perm just to look more black. Let’s agree to disagree ;)

Haile Selassie is also quite commonly regarded as having been Black despite not looking like "stereotypically black". Edit: although seemingly he did not self-identify as "negro" (term of the time), but is looked up to as a black emperor by rastas.

Race isn't straightforward.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#298

Post by coward8675309 »

pron wrote: post #267
coward8675309 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes no sense to me. If you don't believe in the raison d'être of a company, you should not join the company. There is no need to delve deeply into competing theories of the corporation. I'm willing to bet that even over in Europe, Ruger, Sig, Glock, Walther, and Beretta don't have a ton of gadflies on staff who are paid to write papers calling for the outlaw of handguns.

It's possible that the company's values or behaviour have changed, but, more importantly, the decision to work at a company is mutual: both sides want it (the company expects the value an employee will bring exceeds the cost of their employment; hiring someone is not a charity), and they enter into this relationship when neither side knows everything about the other, certainly not how they would behave in the future.…

I don't disagree with you. I was at an adtech startup, and I had bright lines — no payday loans or for-profit education. Luckily we never needed to blur or cross those lines, but as our business evolved, the way I delivered my — and my colleagues delivered their— preferences was not through laying down ultimatums but by having conversations.

Some people seem intent on creating drama and casting things not as their preferences but as Epic Struggles Between Good and Evil, where people who don't share their preferences are Evil. These people may not be offended by this characterization!

Life is complicated. I re-watched Schindler's List the other day, and assuming for a moment it's historically accurate, one could argue that by laboring in the factory, the workers were aiding the war effort and trading their own temporary safety for the lives of the people who would be victims of a Nazi war machine fed out of the factory's enamel pots. If someone were to actually argue that, I would just sort of stare at them like there were insane, despite not knowing how to rebut the argument except by blurting our words like "nuance" and "perspective" and "balance."

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#299

Post by pron »

twcz wrote: post #288

I can't say I feel for Google, they've had it coming. A completely self-inflicted wound. What worries me is the woke culture creeping over from Google to other companies, and from US to other countries . Demanding vice-presidents be fired, taking over companies like a virus. But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? What will sustain it long-term?

> But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently?

Comparing a company to a host and the employees that create its wealth to a virus is illogical even for the most ardent capitalist. Isn't the capitalist idea that everyone, be it the employer or the worker, do their utmost to maximise their market value and use it to the best of their ability to their own advantage? Even the ancien régime realised that they need the people to actually make their food and that the people aren't some sort of parasite on the aristocracy. I don't even know what to call your view.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#300

Post by bisectable »

twcz wrote: post #288

I can't say I feel for Google, they've had it coming. A completely self-inflicted wound. What worries me is the woke culture creeping over from Google to other companies, and from US to other countries . Demanding vice-presidents be fired, taking over companies like a virus. But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? What will sustain it long-term?

See Eastern Europe, 1917-1989. It will kill the infected countries as well, but it will take a few generations for the whole enterprise to utterly collapse.
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