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Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

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Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#11

Post by meetups323 »

I wonder if this is an example of not knowing your audience (or rather assuming one's self represents a wider audience than it does).

The people vouching for this at Google are likely product marketing managers, public relations folks, social media managers, etc. All they do is write corporate garbage all day, and much like we have "nit"s in PR's for formatting, variable names, etc; they likely have similar reviews that get flagged for "non-inclusive language" or whatever this is. So they have brilliant idea: the Code people use auto linters/formatters that we enable by default (hey gofmt) and everyone loves it, how about we do the same for the Prose people!

Basically: "All I write is corporate garbage, and all the writing I consume is corporate garbage, and all my coworkers only write corporate garbage, therefore everyone would love a corporate garbage-ifyer!"

Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#12

Post by artificialLimbs »

Microsoft is in the process of rolling 'inclusive' checking out, in (at least) the web version of Outlook 365. You can see by clicking the gear icon (in top right) -> View all Outlook settings (at bottom) -> Compose and reply -> Microsoft Editor settings (bottom). It is 'very broken'.

Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#13

Post by dekhn »

One of the reasons I left google is that their "content moderation team" (the folks who make you take down wrongthink memes) is so far out of touch, that somebody had to explain to them there are people in the world who are discriminated against, but aren't black. They simply didn't know that was the case! And if that's the people who are moderating content...

I said motherboard all the time in meetings and chats, never had any pushback. TBH if I did get pushback on that one, I'd bring it to HR and say the pushback was affecting my ability to get work down.

Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#14

Post by ohyoutravel »

john_moscow wrote: post #6

Well, such things are always driven by demand. And unfortunately, there is a strong demand in our society for policing words, renaming formulas and issuing apologies all while: * Property ownership is becoming out of question for an increasing fraction of Americans * Any kid of retirement (as in not having to work and enjoying life off your savings) has become a pipe dream * Having a single-income family with one par…

May I ask what the items in your enumerated list have to do with “policing words?”

Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#16

Post by NikolaeVarius »

mgraczyk wrote: post #9

In the article they use the example of "Motherboard" and "Landlord" and seem to suggest that these are areas where the Google AI is making mistakes or being overly strict. As a Google employee expressing my own opinion and observations of company culture, I can say that these are 100% not mistakes. Many Google employees are just so out of touch with the real world that they believe it is the duty of Google Docs to ch…

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Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#19

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

mgraczyk wrote: post #9

In the article they use the example of "Motherboard" and "Landlord" and seem to suggest that these are areas where the Google AI is making mistakes or being overly strict. As a Google employee expressing my own opinion and observations of company culture, I can say that these are 100% not mistakes. Many Google employees are just so out of touch with the real world that they believe it is the duty of Google Docs to ch…

This attempt at "de-offensive-izing" all language has the effect of turning clear, evocative phrases to mush.

George Carlin's skit couldn't be more timely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMm2vF4uFs

Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken

#20

Post by karaterobot »

I dislike this proposed feature as much as the next person, but it's worth noting that the main complaint of this article is fairly unique: they work on a channel called Motherboard, and this feature is going to cause the name of their channel to be considered a problem. Most people won't experience that specific error case. It's valid, and points to the kinds of unforeseen consequences you run into when trying to manage speech in this way, but it's not by itself a smoking gun for most people.
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