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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

#181

Post by danmaz74 »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #46

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.

From what the article mentions, it looks like the sensitive subjects they worry about are those which can get a company burned at the stake on social media these days. It's not great, but it's un unsurprising effect of the current culture wars.

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

#182

Post by orange_tee »

cmiles74 wrote: post #180
jariel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any researcher who thought they could publish research about 'race and gender' and not have it reviewed by a corporate sponsor is incredibly naive. It's an extensively sensitive subject and particularly in a field with such vague and 'subject to interpretation' results, the sponsor corp. is going to want to have a look. Considerably more so if the research is about the institution itself. There was a specific case re…

Perhaps researchers who accepted these positions with Google were naive. That is certainly possible but it can't be argued: Google hired these people under the pretense of letting them do their research free of censorship and, now that they work for Google, this censorship is being imposed. I'm not sure what the rest of this comment is alluding to... The posted article from Reuters doesn't mention race and gender, th…

Here is my theory: these researchers were not naive and they knew the deal, they could work on their research as long as the topics were not too sensitive and as long as the results did now harm Google's image too badly. So what likely happened (imho) was either a miscommunication, or they got results they did not expect. Either they did not realize which topics are too sensitive to touch, or they believed they'd get different results and did not.

I cannot entertain the idea that they signed up with Google believing truly they could have full scholastic freedom. I am pretty sure it is even covered in elementary ethics classes that such a scenario is itself questionable.

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

#183

Post by tempodox »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #173
s3r3nity wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Google wants their cake + to eat it to by hiring the best in class Ph.D's with the allure of doing "academic research" but paid a big-tech salary. Turns out it's mostly PR and buying yourself credibility at this point.

Honestly find it confusing how almost everyone from the outside could see that teams reason for existing was PR but the team itself seemed totally oblivious to the fact.

Upton Sinclair comes to mind: It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

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

#184

Post by free_rms »

cmiles74 wrote: post #172
free_rms wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it's an inaccurate negative light? The Gebru paper makes a lot of hay about carbon impact, but Google's put a ton of effort into mitigating that, they've been carbon neutral on paper since 2007: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/our-...

Sorry, I'm having trouble following this comment. In a public institution (as well as at Google) research papers are subject to peer review before publication. Now Google is adding _another review process_ after peer review, I don't believe this is something that would happen at a public university. Do you have an example of a public university censoring research papers that passed peer review because that university…

The tone of parent comment was "Google should tolerate research that's critical of Google", which I'm sympathetic to.

My rejoinder was that if it's inaccurately critical of Google, like hyping carbon impact without mentioning a decades-long carbon mitigation program, I get a lot more sympathetic to Google's position. Why should they pay someone to spread falsehoods about them?

I don't really care about the process minutiae.

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

#185

Post by mistersquid »

axegon_ wrote: post #6

Hah, reminds me of this literature teacher I had in school. She asked us to write a report on the positive aspects of Hamlet. I remember sitting at home and thinking "Well... It could have been worse - more people could have died, that's positive thinking, right?"

> She asked us to write a report on the positive aspects of Hamlet.

Spoiler Warning!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern get what is probably their just desserts.

If that’s too uncertain given they may not have known the fate the King had in store for Hamlet, then Fortinbras.

Fortinbras is a pretty standup guy through it all and his closing lines provide the possibility of a better future.

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

#186

Post by Veedrac »

cmiles74 wrote: post #166
bite_tongue wrote: post #107

Seems reasonable for a company to not fund research that directly goes against their bottom line.

If Google did not want to fund research that conflicted with their bottom line, they could have avoided hiring researchers interested in that kind of work. Instead they hired these people and told them they would be free of censorship. Now that these people work there and depend on Google for their paycheck, Google is instituting this new policy. During a global pandemic. Sounds like censorship to me: hire the people…

You're confusing the ideas with their presentation. Google never allowed someone to post a paper under their name saying ‘datacentres generate CO₂, that's evil and we should focus on smaller datacentres’, but that doesn't mean they didn't care about CO₂ production; clearly they did, since they're now carbon negative.

Same thing here. The researchers' jobs aren't to publically deface Google, they're to help direct Google down the right path.

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

#187

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

daniel957 wrote: post #81
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

Why did you find the mention of Timnit Gebru ludicrous? The issues are closely related. In fact, I was _expecting_ the article to mention it. Google tells Researcher 1 to re-word things in X way for Y reason. Google tells Timnit Gebru to re-word things in X way for Y reason. The X and Y are the same. Based on the rest of your response, I believe you are having trouble reading the article in an objective manner. You s…

You appear to be mistaken on nearly all the facts about the Gebru situation. Given this it seems clear we would draw very different conclusions. Anyone claiming Jeff Dean lied must be so disconnected from the actual facts and so prejudiced to blame Google and view Gebru’s actions as acceptable that their opinion amounts to nothing but partisan gainsaying.

To be clear, it’s ok to disagree with Jeff Dean or to dispute his charitability in accepting Gebru’s ultimatum-based resignation, but to claim he publicly lied is beyond the pale.

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

#188

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #75
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #34

The “sensitive topics” extra review seems completely fair and obviously necessary. Anyone acting like that amounts to censorship in a private company is totally off their rocker. This article seems really weak, and of course there’s the obligatory attempt to tie it in with Timnit Gebru’s resignation and her very inappropriate behavior, even though for all of Google’s flaws, Google clearly and obviously did the right…

"Gebru’s weak paper" Could you please back up your claim as to the paper's quality - do yoy have credentials and background that enable you to cast this judgement, or is this pedestrian?

Sure, I wrote a lot about this already when the paper leaked,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25314824

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

#189

Post by gowld »

_Nat_ wrote: post #54
nisuni wrote: post #13

And that’s why I was happier when basic research was mostly being carried out in public institutions.

Public institutions tend to observe the same policies, even when there's no direct commercial interest. For example, if you join a Math department and start publishing papers that cast the department's research interests in a negative light, that's often a good way to get fired. I mean, seriously, go ask just about any professor of any topic at any university if their field is undervalued or overvalued. They'll almos…

Mathematicians are pretty open about the fact that their field is unimportant and their research funding is coasting off of winning WWII with Enigma codebreaking. The only reason they deserve money is that they teach mandatory calculus to uninterested non-mathematicians.
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