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Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

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Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#11

Post by freeone3000 »

firebaze wrote: post #4

Another perspective on this drama to me is what the official expectation of a team labelled "Ethical AI" is/was. I doubt the only focus was to prevent discrimination by sex or race, For example, there's also prevention of mass manipulation (AI learns human psychology, $BAD_ACTOR uses that to manipulates masses) and AI based profile generation of individuals with the goal of creating leverage for blackmail/extortion/w…

Those things are bad, and are worth thinking about, but right now we have more immediate concerns. AI systems are currently being used for bail eligibility, likelihood of recurrence, mortgage approval, and hiring. These are things that literally change people's lives on an individual level, and the systems being used are currently indecipherable black boxes that return a result with no possibility of meaningful appeal.

There's a sense of starting small - redlining is illegal. No company wants to redline - it cuts into their profits and dings their compliance scores. So they're willing to work with us. Once we get that right, then, maybe we can start dealing with the cases where there aren't millions of dollars of funding assisting with making the tech more ethical -- and then, cases where it may actually be working against the money.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#12

Post by KirillPanov »

esja wrote: post #10
KirillPanov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or instead of answering my question people could just downvote me. I guess. Legitimately curious here. "Download all my mail from the mail server" is something I do multiple times every day. I guess my workflow would be verboten in corporate environments? Is it really such an odd behavior that they have an automated check for this, and it isn't throwing false positives every hour? Or is this one of those things they…

In general: if it’s on a corporate server, it’s not your email, it’s corporate IP.

I don't dispute that. I don't think you understood the question.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#13

Post by willxinc »

KirillPanov wrote: post #7
KirillPanov wrote: post #5

Do Google corporate email accounts allow IMAP sync, like gmail accounts? I mean fully-replicated BODY.RFC822 sync, not just headers. I have to assume not, otherwise everybody using this feature would trigger the same exfiltration-lockout.

Or instead of answering my question people could just downvote me. I guess. Legitimately curious here. "Download all my mail from the mail server" is something I do multiple times every day. I guess my workflow would be verboten in corporate environments? Is it really such an odd behavior that they have an automated check for this, and it isn't throwing false positives every hour? Or is this one of those things they…

Typically this is disallowed from non company devices. If you're allowed to sync your corporate email to your personal devices, that's probably an oversight.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#14

Post by nostromo »

esja wrote: post #8

“In this instance, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” If true, that is damning, and would demonstrate once again that being an “ethics researcher” does not mean that you are are any more ethical than the average person. It just means you are more interested in the subject. As a side note, I wish this field was more intere…

Many of the people in this field aren’t ethicists, they’re activists.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#15

Post by meheleventyone »

esja wrote: post #8

“In this instance, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” If true, that is damning, and would demonstrate once again that being an “ethics researcher” does not mean that you are are any more ethical than the average person. It just means you are more interested in the subject. As a side note, I wish this field was more intere…

It’s not necessarily unethical to do that if you believe you are uncovering or preventing the cover up of unethical behaviour. Ethics is more than following the rules. See whistleblower protections for where that sort of thing intersects with the law.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#16

Post by Zarath »

esja wrote: post #8

“In this instance, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” If true, that is damning, and would demonstrate once again that being an “ethics researcher” does not mean that you are are any more ethical than the average person. It just means you are more interested in the subject. As a side note, I wish this field was more intere…

What if Google is doing something unethical?

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#17

Post by izacus »

Zarath wrote: post #16
esja wrote: post #8

“In this instance, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” If true, that is damning, and would demonstrate once again that being an “ethics researcher” does not mean that you are are any more ethical than the average person. It just means you are more interested in the subject. As a side note, I wish this field was more intere…

What if Google is doing something unethical?

Well, it'd be great to hear this from a respectable and ethical person and not someone who'll lie for their own gain, right?

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#18

Post by gonehome »

actuator wrote: post #9
ALittleLight wrote: post #3

I was disappointed to find out that AI ethicists at Google aren't LessWrong style AI ethicists. I've just read one Google AI ethics paper in it's entirety but it seemed pretty non-insightful and not actionable. That said, if Google is "investigating" her because she was trying to find evidence of discrimination or bad treatment of Dr. Gebru, that seems borderline criminal behavior. (Assuming her attempts at trying to…

I think sending it to external accounts probably triggered this, there is no way this would not have raised a red flag in any company. I mean, Alphabet is the same company where a person took self driving documents with him to start a new company. Hopefully, if it was just normal conversations and after identities had been redacted, their access is restored. Still, analysing this information on their work machine its…

Somewhat related - Levandowski (the crook that stole the self driving docs) was just pardoned by Trump. The pardon was supported by Thiel, Luckey, and other Founders Fund people. I find this pretty irritating, but I guess when you’re in the company of actual war criminals like Eddie Gallagher then the bar is pretty low.[0]

——

Separately, from the drama I’ve seen around the recent AI ethics stuff, I’d bet money Google is on the right side of this and the activists are not.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843040

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#19

Post by valesco »

freeone3000 wrote: post #11
firebaze wrote: post #4

Another perspective on this drama to me is what the official expectation of a team labelled "Ethical AI" is/was. I doubt the only focus was to prevent discrimination by sex or race, For example, there's also prevention of mass manipulation (AI learns human psychology, $BAD_ACTOR uses that to manipulates masses) and AI based profile generation of individuals with the goal of creating leverage for blackmail/extortion/w…

Those things are bad, and are worth thinking about, but right now we have more immediate concerns. AI systems are currently being used for bail eligibility, likelihood of recurrence, mortgage approval, and hiring. These are things that literally change people's lives on an individual level, and the systems being used are currently indecipherable black boxes that return a result with no possibility of meaningful appea…

European law foresees those exact cases and IIRC prohibits automated treatment of personal information that leads to decisions that affects someone’s life, if no human takes the final decision and if the specific elements for the decision cannot be explained. In my opinion this forbids black boxes.

Re: Google is investigating the actions of another top AI ethicist

#20

Post by [deleted] »

willxinc wrote: post #13
KirillPanov wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or instead of answering my question people could just downvote me. I guess. Legitimately curious here. "Download all my mail from the mail server" is something I do multiple times every day. I guess my workflow would be verboten in corporate environments? Is it really such an odd behavior that they have an automated check for this, and it isn't throwing false positives every hour? Or is this one of those things they…

Typically this is disallowed from non company devices. If you're allowed to sync your corporate email to your personal devices, that's probably an oversight.

[deleted]
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