Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research • Hacker News Board

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#41

Post by YinglingLight » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

_cs2017_ wrote: post #14

IMHO, a scientist capable of striking any tone in their work, positive or negative, is doing marketing / PR work rather than science. There's nothing wrong with that. Just like any other member of society, a scientist may want to contribute to a (for-profit or non-profit) organization of their choice, be it for material or spiritual rewards. However, I think it's important not to get science and marketing confused. S…

Yet Redditor's and HN'ers treat Scientists as centuries ago people treated men of the cloth. Their word is not to be scrutinized. You wouldn't want to be outed as being critical of the Scientific Method would you? (the irony between those two sentences have been lost in the last 5 years)

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#42

Post by aikinai » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:05 PM UTC

bitcharmer wrote: post #27

drfuchs wrote: post #9

Consider the historical parallel to the tobacco industry’s research departments. And asbestos. And lead. And talc. And etc. The researchers found that the products were harmful, but their results were squelched. “Do no harm,” indeed.

Well, Google removed "Don't be evil" as their slogan quite some time ago. Don't think that was by an error.

This is a rumor that won’t die because it’s too enticing to believe and tack onto any anti-Google sentiment.

The phrase was only moved from the introduction to the conclusion of the code of conduct, never removed.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#43

Post by square_usual » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:06 PM UTC

amitport wrote: post #4

tl;dr;: + "Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy." + "A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told a…

What about this:

"Subsequent correspondence from a researcher to reviewers shows authors “updated to remove all references to Google products.” A draft seen by Reuters had mentioned Google-owned YouTube"

or this:

"""A draft reviewed by Reuters included “concerns” that this technology can promote “disinformation, discriminatory or otherwise unfair results” and “insufficient diversity of content,” as well as lead to “political polarization.”

The final publication instead says the systems can promote “accurate information, fairness, and diversity of content.”"""

or this:

"A paper this month on AI for understanding a foreign language softened a reference to how the Google Translate product was making mistakes following a request from company reviewers, a source said"

or this:

"A draft described how such disclosures could infringe copyrights or violate European privacy law, a person familiar with the matter said. Following company reviews, authors removed the legal risks, and Google published the paper"

Seems like there's a lot more than "two sentences".

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#44

Post by extropy » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

purple-again wrote: post #31

xiphias2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but my work life was amazing. There are important things to address at Google, like not having enough sitting toilets for men (there's 3 times as much for women even though there are much less women in the office where I was working) that an union may help with, but that's different from the product PR.

My first inclination was just to move on but you didn’t post on a throwaway so I will take the bait. Why do you think the toilet issue you described is a problem that needs to be fixed? My experience in every corner of life in America to date has been separated bathrooms by sex and the men’s restroom containing far fewer sitting toilets. We all know this is because women sit for both natural duties and men, generally…

I will bait too, as someone who has stood in line for male toilets in a Google office.

In the office I was in there where generally 1 sitting and 2 standing seats per male toilet.

The standing one are quick in / quick out and almost always free. But good luck finding vacant sitting spot after lunch.

Edit: female restrooms generally had 3 sitting spots, so same size.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#45

Post by mlthoughts2018 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:08 PM UTC

daniel957 wrote: post #16

amitport wrote: post #4

tl;dr;: + "Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy." + "A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told a…

Why does your last bullet point make me feel like we read two different articles?

fwiw I agree with the parent comment. This article, especially the ludicrous attempt to tie in the Gebru stuff, is super weak and absent of any details or anything substantial.

I don’t see anything in the article that suggests Google suppresses unfavorable research or censors authors whatsoever. Instead it sounds like a lot of whining and complaining from exceedingly privileged researchers who want some version of tenure to apply within for-profit companies and seem too immature to accept that legal and compliance functions within a large corporation very differently than in academia.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#46

Post by frankfrankfrank » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

I deal with this on a regular basis in the research world, there is what is a really toxic and dangerous bias towards constructing the positive, i.e., making things seem, appear, and even fabricate outcomes that will be affirming of desired outcomes or other group biases.

It is not research, let alone science when you are striking a positive tone, it’s fraud.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#47

Post by ritchiea » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

_cs2017_ wrote: post #14

IMHO, a scientist capable of striking any tone in their work, positive or negative, is doing marketing / PR work rather than science. There's nothing wrong with that. Just like any other member of society, a scientist may want to contribute to a (for-profit or non-profit) organization of their choice, be it for material or spiritual rewards. However, I think it's important not to get science and marketing confused. S…

When scientists write results sections and abstracts they strike a tone. They make an argument for why the raw data is meaningful. Scientists interpret data, which involves a layer of human analysis that is not objective but is attempting to find the correct language and narrative to describe the results of an objective, quantitative process. Outside of the methods and data sections, academic science writing absolutely has to strike a tone. And especially when you are seeking grants and career progression one of the tones you have to strike is to highlight the importance of the work.

Once in a science course in college, I had to present a paper to my class. I tried to present it "objectively" as you would describe it, avoid striking a tone or making judgements. My professor told my presentation was technically correct but failed to highlight the broad significance of the research, which comes from tone. Science writing requires selecting a tone of voice.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#48

Post by ClumsyPilot » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:09 PM UTC

_cs2017_ wrote: post #14

IMHO, a scientist capable of striking any tone in their work, positive or negative, is doing marketing / PR work rather than science. There's nothing wrong with that. Just like any other member of society, a scientist may want to contribute to a (for-profit or non-profit) organization of their choice, be it for material or spiritual rewards. However, I think it's important not to get science and marketing confused. S…

'is doing marketing / PR work rather than science. There's nothing wrong with that'

I like how we learned nothing from decades of lies and billions of damages in big tabacco, asbestos, lead in petrol and climate change.

Whats next, can we tell aircraft safety inspectors to strike a positive tone and declare a damaged airframe flight worthy? How about rating some securities in a positive tone?

Lets call it what it is, corruption

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#49

Post by oh_sigh » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

> The manager added, “This doesn’t mean we should hide from the real challenges” posed by the software.

If I ever plucked a single sentence out of a long post and called attention to it context-free, I could probably make whoever posted it look fairly bad. But, in the context of news articles, it becomes the headline? Was the context "Try to strike a positive tone...or else you're fired" - or "Try to strike a positive tone...you've shown that these problems are solvable"

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#50

Post by xiphias2 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

purple-again wrote: post #31

xiphias2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but my work life was amazing. There are important things to address at Google, like not having enough sitting toilets for men (there's 3 times as much for women even though there are much less women in the office where I was working) that an union may help with, but that's different from the product PR.

My first inclination was just to move on but you didn’t post on a throwaway so I will take the bait. Why do you think the toilet issue you described is a problem that needs to be fixed? My experience in every corner of life in America to date has been separated bathrooms by sex and the men’s restroom containing far fewer sitting toilets. We all know this is because women sit for both natural duties and men, generally…

> Why do you think the toilet issue you described is a problem that needs to be fixed?

Because this way Google was effectively paying me loads of money to just go through 7 floors of bathrooms to find an empty one when I needed to use it. It's a waste of corporate resources to use a human resource's time like this. At the end the solution for me was just using the disabled toilet, as we didn't have disabled people on the floor at all.

One solution would be to just build more sitting toilets instead of the standing ones, as those ones weren't used as much. But on 1 floor there were 2 bathrooms for women and 2 for men, so yes, repurposing some would have helped.