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

reuters.com

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

#111

Post by [deleted] »

_Nat_ wrote: post #94
kovac wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General proposition may be true, but how can a math publication place the department interests in a negative light? Like "Doesn't matter how hard we try, there are always undecidable facts in our own system"? :p I still have faith in the research done by hard science research teams.

> how can a math publication place the department interests in a negative light? With Math, the sensitive topic is utility. Math departments would tend to be upset by someone pushing papers that, say, call attention to the lack of social benefit relative to other fields of research that taxpayers could be funding instead. I guess a researcher could also spin a narrative about mathematicians' contributions to cryptogr…

[deleted]

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

#112

Post by im3w1l »

daniel957 wrote: post #110
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An absurd and highly inappropriate comment. You’re the first to bring up race. There is absolutely no reason to infer that parent has any issue with race or sex whatsoever.

It’s called a dog whistle. You don’t have to specifically mention race or gender in order to imply something about it. It’s not inappropriate. I didn’t flag his comment. Someone else did. It should have been flagged and rightfully was. I think your points would come across better if you didn’t use such extreme words (absurd, highly inappropriate, absolutely). It’s your opinion, not a fact. I also find it funny that _…

You are just a name calling bully, inventing accusations out of thin air and it's shameful that HN tolerates it.

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

#113

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

izacus wrote: post #66
square_usual wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody knows that. You can think it's a bad thing for a private company to do bad things, even if they're free to. Stating a fact isn't an argument.

I think the comment flies more in the wierd way Google is treated by the media when other corpos aren't. E.g. noone is batting an eye when Apple chooses cherry-picked based datapoints for their performance comparisons or when Stanfords research department spins a paper to get them more funding. For Google we keep getting this streams of "Google is acting like any other corporation, OH GODS". It's... wierd.

I dont know if a case where Apple hired ethicists and then fired them for their research? Admittedly apple also doses all their employees with NDAs up the wazoo so we simply can’t know these things.

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

#114

Post by bonoboTP »

unishark wrote: post #40
throw_m239339 wrote: post #8

Google is a for profit corporation, not a college campus, news at 11.

All I'm asking for is the freedom of tenure combined with the pay and equity of industry.

The top dogs have both, with multiple affiliations.

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

#115

Post by sgregnt »

xiphias2 wrote: post #2

We already know that ,,self regulation'' doesn't work. It made sense to me that when I was working at Google I didn't talk bad about the company that I was getting my paycheck from. Alphabet is still a great company, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't need checks and balances from outside.

Can you elaborate? Who are "we", does this refer to some scientific community studying these things?

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

#116

Post by blackbrokkoli »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #8

Google is a for profit corporation, not a college campus, news at 11.

Yes, and that is ok.

But then nobody should call whatever they are publishing "paper". Because if you "research" with a PR-directive, it is literally not science. If they want to "research" like a corporation, kick them out of Google Scholar and scientific discourse, right now, please.

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

#117

Post by eternalban »

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.

Pretty sure the Devil's lawyers asked for that.

"The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly [power]."

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

[deleted] wrote: post #111
_Nat_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how can a math publication place the department interests in a negative light? With Math, the sensitive topic is utility. Math departments would tend to be upset by someone pushing papers that, say, call attention to the lack of social benefit relative to other fields of research that taxpayers could be funding instead. I guess a researcher could also spin a narrative about mathematicians' contributions to cryptogr…

[deleted]

[deleted]

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

#120

Post by daniel957 »

im3w1l wrote: post #112
daniel957 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s called a dog whistle. You don’t have to specifically mention race or gender in order to imply something about it. It’s not inappropriate. I didn’t flag his comment. Someone else did. It should have been flagged and rightfully was. I think your points would come across better if you didn’t use such extreme words (absurd, highly inappropriate, absolutely). It’s your opinion, not a fact. I also find it funny that _…

You are just a name calling bully, inventing accusations out of thin air and it's shameful that HN tolerates it.

Again, why are you championing the writer of a flagged comment? Like I said, I didn’t flag the comment. So clearly other people agree with me and saw what I saw. Sorry if that’s hard for you to swallow.
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