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Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

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Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#161

Post by Traster »

jl2718 wrote: post #149
refenestrator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems they identified have been known for years and there are lots of papers exploring how to mitigate. The whole paper was a nothing burger wrapped in social justice language with asides about how global warming is Actually Racism because of disparate impact (interesting, not an ML topic). If the problems aren't novel and you're proposing zero solutions, it shouldn't be a paper.

I wonder what would drive someone to do this. Anger? Loneliness? Work pressure? Imposter syndrome? Her prior work seemed more observational than theoretical, and the she got thrown into a top-level leadership position in a theoretical research organization with almost zero experience. Is there a single person that would have defended decision if that person was a straight able christian white or north asian male? (No…

I don't know where you get these ridiculous ideas about imposter syndrome. Take one look at her career. She's written signal processing algorithms at Apple, won awards at conferences, got a PhD and worked for Microsoft in their AI ethics lab. She was more than qualified for her position and the research paper she was publishing passed peer review.

You're right, this wouldn't have happened if she were a straight white male - if she were a straight white male, there wouldn't be comments like yours making asinine assumptions about how good she was at her job.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#162

Post by jl2718 »

Traster wrote: post #161
jl2718 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would drive someone to do this. Anger? Loneliness? Work pressure? Imposter syndrome? Her prior work seemed more observational than theoretical, and the she got thrown into a top-level leadership position in a theoretical research organization with almost zero experience. Is there a single person that would have defended decision if that person was a straight able christian white or north asian male? (No…

I don't know where you get these ridiculous ideas about imposter syndrome. Take one look at her career. She's written signal processing algorithms at Apple, won awards at conferences, got a PhD and worked for Microsoft in their AI ethics lab. She was more than qualified for her position and the research paper she was publishing passed peer review. You're right, this wouldn't have happened if she were a straight white…

Non-sequitur. I invite you to disabuse me of any of my exact statements.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#163

Post by refenestrator »

Traster wrote: post #161
jl2718 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would drive someone to do this. Anger? Loneliness? Work pressure? Imposter syndrome? Her prior work seemed more observational than theoretical, and the she got thrown into a top-level leadership position in a theoretical research organization with almost zero experience. Is there a single person that would have defended decision if that person was a straight able christian white or north asian male? (No…

I don't know where you get these ridiculous ideas about imposter syndrome. Take one look at her career. She's written signal processing algorithms at Apple, won awards at conferences, got a PhD and worked for Microsoft in their AI ethics lab. She was more than qualified for her position and the research paper she was publishing passed peer review. You're right, this wouldn't have happened if she were a straight white…

An impressive career makes this paper's quality and the subsequent meltdown over it more puzzling, not less.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#164

Post by g9yuayon »

I'm not sure I get the logic of the article. Google AI Research is going to implode because we know what the current models can't do? I thought we do research precisely because we wanted to expand our boundary of out knowledge. That is, shouldn't a research institution implode if there is nothing to research?

And why is Gebru relevant in this article? Does she do quality research, and the research results have to do with the claimed implode?

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#165

Post by marshmallow_12 »

manux wrote: post #153
tinyhouse wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not just making money. The point is solving real world problems. AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems. AI ethics research has very little impact if at all on real issues.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

why on earth should i care any more or less about systemic racism just because some charlie tells me it's unethical? Inventing ethics for machines helps cure exactly nothing. Only that i may be deemed by a machine to be an inferior human and less worthy than a "superior" being. Pushing technology that enforces your ideology is a horrible idea.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#166

Post by throwaway19937 »

jl2718 wrote: post #149
refenestrator wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problems they identified have been known for years and there are lots of papers exploring how to mitigate. The whole paper was a nothing burger wrapped in social justice language with asides about how global warming is Actually Racism because of disparate impact (interesting, not an ML topic). If the problems aren't novel and you're proposing zero solutions, it shouldn't be a paper.

I wonder what would drive someone to do this. Anger? Loneliness? Work pressure? Imposter syndrome? Her prior work seemed more observational than theoretical, and the she got thrown into a top-level leadership position in a theoretical research organization with almost zero experience. Is there a single person that would have defended decision if that person was a straight able christian white or north asian male? (No…

This is #4 (Pollution of Agency) and #8 (Anomalousness) from Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Suppress_Women%27s_Writ...).

Poorly written papers are a regular occurrence in any field - that doesn't justify attributing bad faith or character issues to Dr. Gebru.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#167

Post by tinyhouse »

fock wrote: post #160
tinyhouse wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is not just making money. The point is solving real world problems. AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems. AI ethics research has very little impact if at all on real issues.

So, could you tell me for example, what this relatively often cited paper solves or where it's actually applied to solve a real world problem? https://openreview.net/forum?id=Sy2fzU9gl

I don't know this paper but it doesn't matter. I didn't say only ethics in AI research doesn't solve real world problems. It's a research field mostly for academia not industry IMHO. Obv many ethics researchers would disagree with me on this and that's OK. Partly because they would rather have the option to work at Google with FAANG salary vs a middle tier university in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#168

Post by manux »

tinyhouse wrote: post #159
manux wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

Systemic discrimination is indeed a real world problem. That's exactly the problem. AI ethics doesn't help solving systemic discrimination for the simple reason that AI is not causing systemic discrimination. AI systems are trained on data. There's an abundance of English data which is why systems are often biased to work better on English. Similarly, an image recognition system might be biased if you don't provide i…

> you don't need AI ethics research to solve these issue.

what are you talking about? This is exactly the kind of research that's classified as AI ethics. "Solving these issues".

> instead of focusing on real issues that cause systemic discrimination

Identifying which ML models _actually running in production_ cause systemic discrimination (e.g. as you mentioned poor image recognition, bail predictions, etc.) is exactly focusing on real issues that... cause systemic discrimination.

> AI is not causing systemic discrimination

This is simply not true. Bad ML models have an impact on systemic discrimination right now, in that they amplify it.

> instead of focusing on real issues that cause systemic discrimination

It's a fallacy to think we can't do both, there's enough humans. Both making better AI and making better societal systems.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#169

Post by manux »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #165
manux wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

why on earth should i care any more or less about systemic racism just because some charlie tells me it's unethical? Inventing ethics for machines helps cure exactly nothing. Only that i may be deemed by a machine to be an inferior human and less worthy than a "superior" being. Pushing technology that enforces your ideology is a horrible idea.

> Pushing technology that enforces your ideology is a horrible idea.

But that's what we're all doing. By being "against AI ethics", you are effectively pushing technology that enforces _your_ ideology.

Your ideology seems to happen to be different than mine, but you would be naive to think that the status quo is somehow "ideology-free".

Do you still think it's a horrible idea? Try being a bit less deontological and a bit more consequentialist. Doing nothing has consequences too.

Re: Is Google’s AI research about to implode?

#170

Post by tinyhouse »

tinyhouse wrote: post #159
manux wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI ethics focus on esoteric problems that don't solve any real world problems I'm not sure now what you think AI ethics research is. Do you think systemic discrimination is not a real world problem?

Systemic discrimination is indeed a real world problem. That's exactly the problem. AI ethics doesn't help solving systemic discrimination for the simple reason that AI is not causing systemic discrimination. AI systems are trained on data. There's an abundance of English data which is why systems are often biased to work better on English. Similarly, an image recognition system might be biased if you don't provide i…

> Identifying which ML models _actually running in production_ cause systemic discrimination (e.g. as you mentioned poor image recognition, bail predictions, etc.) is exactly focusing on real issues that... cause systemic discrimination.

There's nothing systemic about these issues. I already mentioned it's a data problem. Nothing new. It's very easy to build a fair image recognition system by representing all demographics. And even then AI systems will continue to make mistakes. Some AI ethics researchers cherry pick on those mistakes to justify their entire research.

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