Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#11

Post by robbrown451 » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

I don't see how the things he discusses have to do with empathy in Silicon Valley. Driverless trucks, for instance, have nothing to do with empathy and a lot to do with simple economics. Someone is going to build them if they can make a buck doing it, and empathy isn't going to somehow stop that.

On the other hand, I do think companies like Facebook and Google and the news sites (or whoever makes their comment systems) can do a lot about "the impact of their algorithms and their ability to shape popular sentiment in our society," as he alludes to in the article but fails to explore in any depth.

What if there were simply richer tools for users to rate things? For instance, to tag a post as "+1 nuanced" or "-3 overly divisive" or "-2 unsupported by evidence" or "-3 inappropriately political" or "-5 bigoted", and then have algorithms (and user interfaces) that deal with this additional information in ways that actually are effective while also being careful not to discourage those who don't like getting downvoted? (e.g. only show downvotes to users a month after they appear so the user is less likely to emotionally respond, but still gets feedback as to why their microphone is getting the volume turned down)

Then of course give users tools to control what they see....e.g. hide (or suppress) divisive political content, etc.

There are any number of things that can be done to tone down the hateful divisive rhetoric that pervades online social spaces, and lets the insightful, nuanced content float to the top. Is anyone doing this? Are they even experimenting with it? Are they so scared that users will run away if there are too many options? (you know, you can always put them behind a "show all ratings options" setting that by default is off)

This isn't censorship, this is just putting into place things that have in place in the real world for millennia, but that disappear in naive approaches to bringing conversations online. It won't be perfect initially, but it can at least be a lot better.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#12

Post by illumin8 » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #3

It's not a private company's job to have empathy for the people affected by progress. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of empathy. But petitioning private companies to change their ways will get you exactly nowhere unless it comes with a corresponding profit motive. It's the government's job to redistribute wealth and income to the needy, and provide safety nets and retraining opportunities for people whose industri…

Right on. Silicon Valley may have an empathy vacuum/problem, but let's place the blame for this problem where it really lies: government policy makers. They are the ones that have watched globalization gut the middle class, while sitting back and collecting their fat stock grants and salaries for sitting on the board of the companies that are the beneficiaries of these policies.

We need universal basic income to soften the impact of the rise of automation in the workforce. The problem is that the same people influencing government to write policies that are clearly against the middle class also control the media, and they seem to have just convinced a majority of US voters to vote for a government that will create more income inequality by cutting taxes for the wealthy.

In a masterful stroke, now the policy makers pulling the strings are using the media to blame silicon valley for creating these problems. As if Facebook's news feed is the sole cause of the decimation of the middle class that has been happening for about 40 years now...

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#13

Post by adamnemecek » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

This Neo-Luddism feels really misplaced. Do you know why some people are getting the short end of the stick? It's because the educational system has failed them by wasting their youth and giving nothing in return. But I can't blame a guy who founded a SV-centric blog to see all problems through a SV-centric lens.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#14

Post by whistlerbrk » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

I think it runs a bit deeper than "Silicon Valley" which makes for a nice headline and is the new scape goat. My opinion:

1. computer science has an ethics problem due to the lack of modernization of and membership in professional societies like the ACM.

2. Technology moves so fast that the ethical dilemmas created by it aren't explored and debated quickly enough, nor are the long term impacts able to be understood in time.

3. We fail to learn from our history and our own writings. Seriously, science fiction writers of the 60s and 70s have explored so many issues we grapple with today in such incredible detail yet we haven't synthesized this beyond Asimov's laws.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#15

Post by rubidium » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:39 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #3

It's not a private company's job to have empathy for the people affected by progress. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of empathy. But petitioning private companies to change their ways will get you exactly nowhere unless it comes with a corresponding profit motive. It's the government's job to redistribute wealth and income to the needy, and provide safety nets and retraining opportunities for people whose industri…

bull. You're a human being. A CEO is a human being. A software engineer is a human being.

The type of thinking you just espoused leads to sweatshops, environmental destruction, and corporate fraud.

We all have a responsibility to show empathy to others. Anyone who tries to hide behind the corporate shield of "it's just my job and fiduciary responsibility" should be shown the door.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#16

Post by TulliusCicero » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:42 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #3

It's not a private company's job to have empathy for the people affected by progress. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of empathy. But petitioning private companies to change their ways will get you exactly nowhere unless it comes with a corresponding profit motive. It's the government's job to redistribute wealth and income to the needy, and provide safety nets and retraining opportunities for people whose industri…

I agree. Now when companies do embark on charitable acts, things that are beneficial to society (e.g. a tech giant pushing for green energy for their data centers), that's great and commendable. But we shouldn't generally expect them to be the ones pushing society forward except for the narrow sphere in which they offer products and services to consumers. The incentives just aren't there, not to mention they lack the power government has to set uniform standards via taxes and regulations.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#17

Post by jmkni » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

noir-york wrote: post #7

On one hand you have increasing immigration increasing the supply of labour. On the other hand, you have increasing automation reducing the demand for labour. And in the pinched middle you have falling wages. This cannot end well. I don't know which is the most dangerous scenario: the working classes taking it out on immigrants, or the working classes making common cause with immigrant labour against a Victorian econ…

Yeah I agree.

At the moment the anger felt by people who fear for their jobs seems to be focused on immigration and free trade deals.

Immigration because people fear that somebody will come from another country and take their job, for less money, free trade deals because people fear their job will be outsourced to somebody cheaper in another country.

I believe this was a primary driver behind Brexit/Trump.

At some point these people will start to understand that it isn't just the immigrants threatening their jobs, it is also the programmers at home who automate them.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#18

Post by ckoglmeier » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #3

It's not a private company's job to have empathy for the people affected by progress. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of empathy. But petitioning private companies to change their ways will get you exactly nowhere unless it comes with a corresponding profit motive. It's the government's job to redistribute wealth and income to the needy, and provide safety nets and retraining opportunities for people whose industri…

^ Example A.

An alternative way to approach this, which the author of the article could also consider, is how might we, as technologists, build companies that help solve this problem?

For example, our country will have 3.5 M truckers (the most common profession in the US and in 46 of the 50 US States) out of jobs within 10 years due to automated trucking.

Option A: We cheer at the success of the automated trucking industry and ignore the impact (the 19th century robber barron approach)

Option B: We say "government clean up our mess" (the 21st century liberal approach)

Option C: We build companies, or organizations, that educate and employ those out of work truckers. (??)

Assuming we care about time periods longer than tomorrow, we cannot ignore the societal impacts of the companies and products we build. These cultural externalities are real; similar to the environmental externalities of the industrial revolution.

Its time for the entire tech community to decide what role our industry will play in society. We have a choice about if we want to be part of the solution - or just ignore it and wait for the coming societal chaos.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#19

Post by amelius » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

> However, when you are a data-driven oligarchy like Facebook, Google, Amazon, or Uber, you can’t really wash your hands of the impact of your algorithms and your ability to shape popular sentiment in our society. We are not just talking about the ability to influence voters with fake news. If you are Amazon, you have to acknowledge that you are slowly corroding the retail sector, which employs many people in this country. If you are Airbnb, no matter how well-meaning your focus on delighting travellers, you are also going to affect hotel-industry employment.

Yes, it is not fair if a small part of the population reaps all the benefits of hundreds of years of progress, while the majority has to fear for losing their jobs.

A lack of fairness means a lack of empathy.

Re: Silicon Valley Has an Empathy Vacuum

#20

Post by rhodri » Mon, Nov 28, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #8

I'm just going to cut right through this from the start. Unlike most of my tech friends, I actually have tried to reconnect outside our privileged circles (and if you don't think that's what they are, you're kidding yourself). And you know what I found? A lot of echoes of the personal past. Lets face it. A lot of techies — engineers specifically — are who they are because they were socially rejected in younger years.…

nicely written. reconciliation is not like the movies, it requires from us steadfastness and courage in the face of criticism and outright character assasination.

as engineers we spend a lot of time dismissing the ethical or systemic consequences of our work in favour of concentrating on hard problems with deterministic solutions. humanity is more than that, reality is more than that.

there is real, legitimate anger, grief and confusion in the population. if we want to put technology to work for the people, we need to listen to them (us) in all their (our) messy, contradictory beauty/ugliness/realness.

grieving is a process that starts with denial and ends with acceptance.