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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?

#141

Post by blueblisters »

bo1024 wrote: post #91
tinyhouse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the article is not about the firing. In any case, the two researchers who got fired did more harm to Google than good. Internally no one cares they left. AI etichs is an esoteric academic research field.

I'm in the research community and I think you're significantly underetsimating the effect of firing Gebru and Mitchell. Machine learning is the hottest research area in computer science and ethics of ML is possibly its hottest subfield. And people pay attention to employers' actions. I think Microsoft Research is still feeling reputation effects from closing down its Silicon Valley lab 10 years ago with no warning. I…

> ethics of ML is possibly its hottest subfield.

Is this really true? I don't see ethics in ML papers getting the same attention in major conferences as theoretical or experimental breakthroughs in deep / reinforcement learning.

Don't get me wrong, ethics could be hot outside the ML academia, but I very much doubt it's something majority of grad students in ML are dying to get into.

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

#142

Post by cowpig »

tantalor wrote: post #86
ramblerman wrote: post #21

> I don’t want to downplay the deep instutionalised sexism and racism that is at play in Gebru’s firing — that is there for all to see. Really, where is that to see. You weaken your whole case with this kind of casual reference to "oh and she was also a black women" so racism and sexism apply. Its a type of crying wolf that loses you more people in what is the potentially important issue at hand, her work at google.…

It's tough to draw a straight line from "deep institution" (redundant?) to specific examples. It shows up more in background statistic than anecdotes. When we're focusing on N=1, I'd rather see concrete complaints (and no, internal forum posts do not count).

> and no, internal forum posts do not count

I don't understand this statement. In my mind, internal forum posts as among the most revealing forms of evidence about the culture of an organization.

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

#143

Post by at_a_remove »

As I have said before, whenever someone talks about ethics and AI, I ask the question "Whose ethics? Ethics according to who?"

It's a fantastic chance to export your viewpoint on the entire world when this ethical AI begins to underlay various services. For example, "Members of Group X are inferior/should die" being unethical while "Members of Group Y are inferior/should die" getting past the AI ethics is a great way to slide this past a ton of people. No need for argument, it just comes pre-censored on the commenting system.

AI, as a field, is going to have to face a painful question: what if we get answers we do not like? I'm Irish enough by extraction, so I'll use it as a self-denigrating point ... what if AI found that the Irish, just by genetics, did actually tend toward alcoholism and drunkenness? Would we accept that, or would we say "No, that's wrong. Go back to the drawing board until we get the answers we want"?

My guess is that we are going to look for the latter. AI is going to give us the answers we want, because that's how we are going to build it. AI won't be constrained by ethics so much as it will by the discovered truths we are unwilling to accept, whatever they may be. And that means there's a space for people with a thousand tiny axes to grind to be employed. It will be a chance to shape what "truth" in the Orwellian sense will mean.

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

#144

Post by Rochus »

fractionalhare wrote: post #120
Rochus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of us are replaceable That's a management illusion. Try to replace e.g. someone like Fabrice Bellard, Mike Pall or Claude Shannon. Of course such things happen in big companies, but mostly because management is too limited to properly assess the true value of certain individuals. But the article is actually about a different topic.

Okay, approximately all of us are replaceable. We can agree there is an epsilon of people who are clearly beyond others. However for almost all the work that has to get done, the actual bar is "can you write decent Python?", not "can you design and implement a novel algorithm for computing Pi?"

> approximately all of us are replaceable

I guess it depends on the purpose for which we are all supposed to be replaceable. Nature probably doesn't care which individuals reproduce or are eaten, as long as the numbers are right. Human society with its elaborate specializations and long training periods has added a few more dimensions.

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

#145

Post by xiphias2 »

tinyhouse wrote: post #96
bo1024 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the research community and I think you're significantly underetsimating the effect of firing Gebru and Mitchell. Machine learning is the hottest research area in computer science and ethics of ML is possibly its hottest subfield. And people pay attention to employers' actions. I think Microsoft Research is still feeling reputation effects from closing down its Silicon Valley lab 10 years ago with no warning. I…

I think you're very wrong. Yes, there's hype around ML etichs. Trends in ML come and go. Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? As I said, it's an esoteric academic field. How do you even compare between the two? MSR closed an entire lab out of the blue of some great researchers who didn't do anything wrong. Here you have two employees going against their company and shitting on it publicly. The only r…

I'm much more scared about the singularity (AI safety) in the ethics field than models having bias, while the models are improving accuracy over time.

People say that AGI is still far away, but I haven't seen any results of being able to contain the harm AGI can do to us humans.

What these researchers are doing is the easy part of AI ethics.

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

#146

Post by DavidSumpter »

Tenoke wrote: post #82
tinyhouse wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the article is not about the firing. In any case, the two researchers who got fired did more harm to Google than good. Internally no one cares they left. AI etichs is an esoteric academic research field.

>AI etichs is an esoteric academic research field. I don't agree in general but I do think these two researchers, and this whole saga have just hurt the AI ethics field.

But when you write something like this, do you also understand that their actual research is widely considered to be of a high quality and very important? So if you agree that ethics is important, would you leave them off a top 10 list (and who would you put on)?

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

#147

Post by tinyhouse »

manux wrote: post #124
tinyhouse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're very wrong. Yes, there's hype around ML etichs. Trends in ML come and go. Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? As I said, it's an esoteric academic field. How do you even compare between the two? MSR closed an entire lab out of the blue of some great researchers who didn't do anything wrong. Here you have two employees going against their company and shitting on it publicly. The only r…

> Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? Perhaps you should pay less attention to VCs and more attention to governments and academic institutions, who for example in Canada are investing 10s of millions of dollars into AI ethics/FATE/AI for good research. Sometimes, the point isn't just to make money, it's to actually improve humanity.

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.

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

#148

Post by tinyhouse »

pyrale wrote: post #126
tinyhouse wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're very wrong. Yes, there's hype around ML etichs. Trends in ML come and go. Do you see any VC investing in etichs in ML startups? As I said, it's an esoteric academic field. How do you even compare between the two? MSR closed an entire lab out of the blue of some great researchers who didn't do anything wrong. Here you have two employees going against their company and shitting on it publicly. The only r…

You seem to have an already strongly formed opinion on the topic, and it seems it would be very hard for people to have you even acknowledge that they may have valuable diverging views. Starting from that point, what do you expect from a discussion? What kind of information would lead you to think again about the situation?

I'm happy to change my view if someone shows real world issues AI ethics research is helping in solving.

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

#149

Post by jl2718 »

refenestrator wrote: post #110
dominotw wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that asking too much. How would a researcher also know how mitigate the problems they identified.

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? (Note: please do not respond by speaking for others that do not share your own views.)

I wonder when the “performative wokeness” bubble will burst.

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

#150

Post by fock »

high_derivative wrote: post #62
DavidSumpter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please read the article. I address some of the issues raised. My point is that Gebru's firing is symptomatic of some deep problems Google are experiencing. Thank you.

>. I don’t want to downplay the deep instutionalised sexism and racism that is at play in Gebru’s firing — that is there for all to see. This is a very badly written and uniformed article, and sentences like these essentially illustrate the thinking here (It's imploding because I don't like it). Here is an alternative reading: Google is cleaning house of toxic activists who are not interested in serious ethics resear…

but isn't ethics inextricably linked to the worldview generally? We have some common ground nowadays (no killing in so called "civilized" countries), but to me it seems like you are just proposing the usual neo-xyz-argument: things can't be changed (which - originally developed in the thinktanks of cold-war-USA under heavy fascist influence - now has been the main global narrative without any institutionalized counter for 30 years)
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