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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

#121

Post by blackbrokkoli »

chaboud wrote: post #33
_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 I was young and (more) idealistic, my department chair pulled me aside after I’d been dogmatic about something and said “everything is political... The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.” It took 10 years for that to really sink in, but I knew that every paper has an angle well before that. There’s a position of inevitability about AI around Google, and, to an extent, I agree. Unlike tobacco, alc…

This is such a tired argument.

Sure, politics is in everything down to the design of the armchair you are arguing from. That however doesn't fucking mean that all papers shall be considered equal?

Do you think you would be able to differentiate the value of a census statistics from a 2015 paper written by the state of Nevada from a 1930 census statistic paper from Nazi Germany? Excellent!

Because very obviously there is a line where science crosses into bullshit. Sure, the line is multidimensional, ever changing and very blurry. As you say, from finance to family everything factors in and there is no true objective way of doing science. That does not however mean we as humanity can get away with defeationist pseudo-enlightenment by just giving up every analysis of nuance or motive.

What Google is doing here is not in the territory of science anymore - you can and should argue that - and should be treated as such. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, whataboutism won't cut it.

Edit: grammar

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

#122

Post by ruslanbogan »

daniel957 wrote: post #120
im3w1l wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More likely it was flagged by the aforementioned academics rather than people like you imagining dog whistles that aren't there. hth

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

#123

Post by unicornmama »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #37
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.

I've seen these comments on internal email threads, but this is the first time seeing one out in the wild. Still blows my mind people who make >300k a year can't be bothered to walk 100ft to cut a shit.

I used to work at the Google San Francisco office, back when there was just one SFO office. IIRC the office was 5-7 floors with one “bathroom” per floor. I remember having walked up and down the entire building to search for a toilet, eventually giving up to go use the one at Starbucks.

Certainly not employee mistreatment all things relative. But it made me stop and think how much Google values engineer time, and how I feel in terms of productivity.

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

#124

Post by marcus_holmes »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #10
dls2016 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I didn't talk bad about the company that I was getting my paycheck from Have you ever been in a union workplace?

> Have you ever been in a union workplace? why would he want to be in a union when he is a top earner compared to great majority of people in the same country? and aside from a relative freedom of speech he works in very favourable conditions with a lot of perks and a generous severance package if he gets fired? working at google is the very definition of privilege.

Unions are for more than just getting higher pay.

If Google (perish the thought) decided to pull some shady reviewing stunts and make your work life so intolerable that you felt your only option was to force the issue and threaten to resign - being part of a union could have helped with that.

HR is a bunch of people who represent the company's interests in negotiations and transactions. Unions are the same thing for employees.

We've been told, repeatedly, that unions are socialist organisations that want to destroy capitalisim and bankrupt employers. This isn't true.

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

#126

Post by gwd »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #82
piokoch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an actually good question. AI is supposed to be fed with real-live data, after all it has to be something usable in the real-world. Now, you feed AI with crime data, looking at statistics such AI will suspect people having black color of the skin to be criminals more often than people with white skin. Is that ok? Is it ok to say that if some person happens to have black skin there is a bigger chance that it is…

> For ages Christianity was a source of ethics in Europe Two angels arrive in Sodom, and Lot shows them hospitality. However, the men of the city gathered around Lot's house and demanded that he give them the two guests so that they could rape them. In response to this, Lot offers the mob his two virgin daughters instead. ... Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt, but Lot and his daughters escape to Zoar, and end up…

Sorry, were you somehow under the impression that the people of Sodom, Lot, and his daughters are being held up as models we should all be emulating?

I always find it a bit strange that people despise simplistic "Sunday-school" answers to life, but then when they read the Bible and find messy situations like the one described above, they say, "What kind messed up story is this?" Real life is sometimes messed up. A book that skipped over the messed up stuff would be pretty useless.

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

#127

Post by daniel957 »

koreanguy wrote: post #102
FemmeAndroid wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an example of one of these ‘philosophy graduates’ you’re describing? The only person I’m closely aware of here is Timnit Gebru. She has a bachelors and masters in Electrical Engineering as well as a PhD. If you’re describing her and her ilk as ‘philosophy graduates’ because they have PhDs, I think you’re vastly mischaracterizing their education.

Timnit Gebru is just another racist, who uses her race card when she can't do her job. there are many like her in all types of jobs when things do not go well for them they bring out the racism card. i am sick of the bs

The article only briefly mentioned Timnit. Your comment is disturbing on several levels.

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

#128

Post by daniel957 »

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 _…

Also, ruslanbogan’s comment did mention race which confirms for me that you didn’t even read it. It accused the researchers of being racist towards if statements. (Please tell me you find that more absurd than what I wrote lol.) Again, why are you championing this cause when you’re clearly wrong?

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

#129

Post by jgalt212 »

The problem is that Google wanted to monetize AI via marketing itself to a higher share price and more panache (sell the sizzle). If AI were solely an internal tool at Google, none, or very few, of these ancillary problems would have presented themselves.

Or, they could have just labelled all these efforts with the less sexy and scary moniker of "machine learning".

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

#130

Post by daniel957 »

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 _…

Also, ruslanbogan’s comment did mention race which confirms for me that you didn’t even read it. It accused the researchers of being racist towards if statements. (Please tell me you find that more absurd than what I wrote lol.) Again, why are you championing this cause when you’re _clearly_ wrong? I’m using an extreme word on purpose.
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