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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

#201

Post by WaitWaitWha »

There are many comments that identify the work by corporate sponsored researchers as fraud and not research.

I have the unpopular opinion, and I vehemently disagree.

There is no altruistic, sponsored research, no matter of the sponsor, be it corporate, government, non profit, or the Holy See.

There is always a specific outcome the sponsor hopes for. The question is, how much pressure the sponsor puts on the researcher not to publish failed or unfavorable outcomes? And, we all know majority of failed research never gets published.

Let's presume that we accept sponsorship. What is acceptable level of pressure? I think this is very subjective.

To be clear, falsifying by modification, omission or addition of data is fraud. Drawing the wrong conclusion is not.

The only time I have seen altruistic, "clean" research was performed by individuals as hobby. Once there are more than one person involved, there will be some preferred outcome. Nature of humanity.

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

#202

Post by joshuamorton »

free_rms wrote: post #184
cmiles74 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mi…

Does it make sense to mention Google's carbon mitigation program in a paper not specifically about Google?

"Large language models can have an outsized carbon emissions impact, but not Google's, those are carbon neutral".

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

#204

Post by titzer »

I published several papers while working at Google on Chrome. There is a publication review process that at that time was not onerous at all. In fact, all of my publication submissions were reviewed post facto and basically rubber-stamped. All, with the exception of one, our publication on Spectre, which was carefully vetted to not disclose any sensitive information about further vulnerabilities or violate NDAs with partners. So my experience for publishing at Google, admittedly in a non-controversial area of Programming Languages, was positive.

That said, the corporate culture is bending authoritarian and Orwellian. The new changes are just an further evolution in that arc. This is part of the reason I left in 2019.

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

#205

Post by lacker »

This whole saga is such a PR “own goal” by Google. The vast majority of corporate research labs just don’t fund research doubting their own ethics in the first place. Company leadership should choose an ethical stance and defend it. It’s an abdication of responsibility to say, well the ethics are an open question, we’re going to fund some research into it. And now Google is being punished for their abdication of responsibility. If they had simply established a corporate policy that said, we believe facial recognition is good when XYZ conditions are met, and defended it, they wouldn’t be in this situation.

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

#206

Post by googlethrow3134 »

titzer wrote: post #204

I published several papers while working at Google on Chrome. There is a publication review process that at that time was not onerous at all. In fact, all of my publication submissions were reviewed post facto and basically rubber-stamped. All, with the exception of one, our publication on Spectre, which was carefully vetted to not disclose any sensitive information about further vulnerabilities or violate NDAs with…

When have trillion dollar companies not been authoritarian in protecting and furthering their own corporate interests?

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

#207

Post by cmiles74 »

_Nat_ wrote: post #193
cmiles74 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that the Google is pressuring it's employees (who are research scientists) to refrain from publishing papers that Google management believes casts a negative light on a Google product. It's not theoretical, researchers are quoted in the article and papers have been altered. I find it difficult to come up with an analogy from a public institution. What is the product the math department would be pr…

I'm having trouble getting a clear perspective on what's going on. So many of the descriptions are vague and based on apparently informal descriptions, leaving much to the reader's imagination. > It's not theoretical, researchers are quoted in the article and papers have been altered. In grad school, PhD students' advisors typically insist on various revisions before publishing a paper, as publications reflect on the…

When an graduate school advisor provides feedback on a paper, the goal is to improve the quality of the paper. The peer review process also has the same goal in mind: produce a better paper.

According to this Reuters article, Google's new process happens after peer review and Google's other processes have completed.

"The “sensitive topics” process adds a round of scrutiny to Google’s standard review of papers for pitfalls such as disclosing of trade secrets, eight current and former employees said."

Instead of publishing the paper, Google will now review the paper with an eye to negative impact the paper may have on existing Google product (or lobbying efforts, etc.) Google isn't doing this to improve the quality of the paper, they are doing it to protect their business interests.

"For some projects, Google officials have intervened in later stages. A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told authors to “take great care to strike a positive tone,” according to internal correspondence read to Reuters."

I think this is very different from the advising process in graduate school.

Preventing people from disclosing trade secrets seem fair to me. Preventing valid research simply because it may negatively impact business strikes me as less reasonable.

"Four staff researchers, including senior scientist Margaret Mitchell, said they believe Google is starting to interfere with crucial studies of potential technology harms."

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

#208

Post by googlethrow3134 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #176
jchallis wrote: post #146

Every specialty has taboos and learning what they are and how to avoid them is part of being successful with the job. As a physics graduate student I made an impassioned case to a high energy researcher that the money spent on high energy research was low yield and should be pushed to the biological sciences ... suffice it to say he did not take my points on their merits. Upton Sinclair’s famous “ It is difficult to…

This seems very different to me than hiring researchers doing work in fields that directly impact your business and telling them their work will not be censored. And then censoring them from a position of power, since you now provide their paycheck. Keep mind that this is a new, recently instituted process. During the interview process when these researchers were hired, this policy did not exist. Perhaps they were na…

The policy existed, management just assumed that they would implicitly understand that they shouldn’t work on research that will knee-cap Google.

Of course, they also hired unhinged woke employees so it’s no surprised they’re reaping the seeds they sowed

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

#209

Post by googlethrow3134 »

cmiles74 wrote: post #157
_Nat_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My understanding is that the Google is pressuring it's employees (who are research scientists) to refrain from publishing papers that Google management believes casts a negative light on a Google product. It's not theoretical, researchers are quoted in the article and papers have been altered. I find it difficult to come up with an analogy from a public institution. What is the product the math department would be pr…

What is the product the math department would be pressuring it's members to protect?

I’m not sure about math, but in physics it would be string theory which has been a dead end and has mostly served as a welfare program for boomer scientists

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

#210

Post by UncleOxidant »

googlethrow3134 wrote: post #206
titzer wrote: post #204

I published several papers while working at Google on Chrome. There is a publication review process that at that time was not onerous at all. In fact, all of my publication submissions were reviewed post facto and basically rubber-stamped. All, with the exception of one, our publication on Spectre, which was carefully vetted to not disclose any sensitive information about further vulnerabilities or violate NDAs with…

When have trillion dollar companies not been authoritarian in protecting and furthering their own corporate interests?

Corporations, companies are some of the last bastions of authoritarianism.
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