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Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

reuters.com

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Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#161

Post by _Nat_ »

whimsicalism wrote: post #151
_Nat_ wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's common for researchers to publish a journal article in a more academic tone, then use it as a basis for legitimacy in public venues. This happens at both individual and institutional levels. Examples: 1.) At an individual level, someone might publish a study on a social issue that's important to them, adhering to relevant academic standards, then establish a popular identity as the author of that study. Afterwar…

Well, I'd be fine with Google putting its thumb on the scale in terms of how researchers engage in public press conferences/media releases/talk shows, etc. What we're discussing, however, is "striking a positive tone" in actual research papers.

> What we're discussing, however, is "striking a positive tone" in actual research papers.

Yeah.. that's what pretty much every academic does. Most talk up the merits of their work and the general importance of their field. The idea's to be constructive, always looking for avenues of improvement. For example, if you test a new medical treatment and it's not great, you don't trash it as a failure but rather focus on how it can be improved to get more positive results.

Though I'm starting to get the impression that you're reading "striking a positive tone" as meaning something other than what I'm seeing in those words. So to avoid talking past each other, what exactly are you seeing? And do you find it somehow problematic?

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#162

Post by cmiles74 »

xiphias2 wrote: post #2

We already know that ,,self regulation'' doesn't work. It made sense to me that when I was working at Google I didn't talk bad about the company that I was getting my paycheck from. Alphabet is still a great company, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't need checks and balances from outside.

In my opinion, this is different: Google is hiring research scientists and telling them that Google would like to pay for their research. When hired, Googled told these people that they would be free to conduct research in their field without this kind of censorship. Now they are being censored, this is a new policy.

In my opinion, this is very different from a typical employee "talking bad" about their employer.

"Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy."

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#163

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Wonnk13 wrote: post #37
xiphias2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but my work life was amazing. There are important things to address at Google, like not having enough sitting toilets for men (there's 3 times as much for women even though there are much less women in the office where I was working) that an union may help with, but that's different from the product PR.

I've seen these comments on internal email threads, but this is the first time seeing one out in the wild. Still blows my mind people who make >300k a year can't be bothered to walk 100ft to cut a shit.

Still blows my mind that companies paying people >300k a year would make them waste so much of the time they are paying for finding and waiting for toilets.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#164

Post by [deleted] »

daniel957 wrote: post #138
unishark wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are supposed to assume good faith about other posters though. And philosophy is (as far as I know) yet another male-dominated major so I don't get what you mean. Personally I think the flagged poster was just ranting about technophobia among machine learning bias researchers.

I’ve read enough of HN comments over the years and been in the industry even longer to know not to assume good faith. Sorry. Like I said, someone else flagged the comment, not me. As a simple example when Kobe Bryant died there were numerous comments on the post saying “Why is this here? This shouldn’t be on Hacker News.” (Even though he was an angel investor). Yet when some random (to me) soccer player died a couple…

[deleted]

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#165

Post by free_rms »

cmiles74 wrote: post #157
_Nat_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public institutions tend to observe the same policies, even when there's no direct commercial interest. For example, if you join a Math department and start publishing papers that cast the department's research interests in a negative light, that's often a good way to get fired. I mean, seriously, go ask just about any professor of any topic at any university if their field is undervalued or overvalued. They'll almos…

My understanding is that the Google is pressuring it's employees (who are research scientists) to refrain from publishing papers that Google management believes casts a negative light on a Google product. It's not theoretical, researchers are quoted in the article and papers have been altered. I find it difficult to come up with an analogy from a public institution. What is the product the math department would be pr…

What if it's an inaccurate negative light?

The Gebru paper makes a lot of hay about carbon impact, but Google's put a ton of effort into mitigating that, they've been carbon neutral on paper since 2007: https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/sustainability/our-...

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#166

Post by cmiles74 »

bite_tongue wrote: post #107

Seems reasonable for a company to not fund research that directly goes against their bottom line.

If Google did not want to fund research that conflicted with their bottom line, they could have avoided hiring researchers interested in that kind of work. Instead they hired these people and told them they would be free of censorship. Now that these people work there and depend on Google for their paycheck, Google is instituting this new policy. During a global pandemic.

Sounds like censorship to me: hire the people in the field who might publish research you disagree with, then pressure them from a position of power.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#167

Post by amanaplanacanal »

purple-again wrote: post #31
xiphias2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but my work life was amazing. There are important things to address at Google, like not having enough sitting toilets for men (there's 3 times as much for women even though there are much less women in the office where I was working) that an union may help with, but that's different from the product PR.

My first inclination was just to move on but you didn’t post on a throwaway so I will take the bait. Why do you think the toilet issue you described is a problem that needs to be fixed? My experience in every corner of life in America to date has been separated bathrooms by sex and the men’s restroom containing far fewer sitting toilets. We all know this is because women sit for both natural duties and men, generally…

I’m in favor of a more modern arrangement, where all restrooms are for a single person and can be used by anybody. It works well no matter what the gender ratio of the workforce is. Eventually we will all wonder why the heck we did it the old way.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#168

Post by xpe »

tanilama wrote: post #15

It is at will employment, the company makes it clear what you have done there, they want to have a say on it. If you want independence, goes to academia instead (though it is not easy to obtain it either)

You are offering a false choice / false dilemma:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Many of the comments on this thread are expressing concern and (more or less) asking 'why does it work like this?' and (in some cases) 'it would be better if it didn't work like this."

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#169

Post by daniel957 »

unishark wrote: post #152
daniel957 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve read enough of HN comments over the years and been in the industry even longer to know not to assume good faith. Sorry. Like I said, someone else flagged the comment, not me. As a simple example when Kobe Bryant died there were numerous comments on the post saying “Why is this here? This shouldn’t be on Hacker News.” (Even though he was an angel investor). Yet when some random (to me) soccer player died a couple…

I'm referring to the posting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

I knew what you were referring to. I simply don’t agree. Just like when I _know_ someone didn’t read the article, I will call them out on it. It really is ok. To be honest, I find it sort of lame whenever someone says “The guidelines say you’re not supposed to do that.” This isn’t elementary school.

I think these sort of rules actually do a disservice to intellectual dialogue and aren’t working as intended.

Why should I pretend that someone said something that they didn’t? Why should I pretend that someone read the article when it’s easily provable that they didn’t?

Again, I didn’t flag the comment. It’s not just me who refused to give OP the benefit of the doubt. Maybe our reaction _is_ the strongest plausible interpretation.

For example, I understand what you said about philosophy being a male-dominated field. But the article referenced _2_ female researchers by name. This is why there are other comments on this post complaining about the researchers being _whiny_.

For example, Timnit Gebru, who does a lot of work in Ethical AI related to sexism and racism, was mentioned briefly. This is why some guy with the username “koreanguy” called Timnit racist and basically said he hates her guts. This is why OP ruslanbogan made some very wacky comment about if statements and racism. He mentioned race first, not me. (He also hasn’t elaborated fully on what he meant, but still has time to downvote me for some reason. He can easily say “No, I actually meant this. My bad.” It’s so simple, really.)

Earlier, you mentioned technophobia. Take a moment and think about what are some of the biggest fears currently being researched related to Ethical AI. You guessed it: are machine learning algorithms doing more harm than good when it comes to the intersection of race and gender.

ruslanbogan’s comment was flagged for a reason. When people make weird/wacky jokes about racism, it usually means that they’re racist. It’s a shame that you’re assuming good faith in him but not me.

Here are a few links related to facial recognition:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/technolo...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/venturebeat.com/2020/09/24/in-f...

(And no, I’m not one of those users that hates amp pages. I’m glad there’s not a rule banning them :D)

((Jesus, I went from 26 points down to 15. Am I wrong about something? Or are there just more sexist/racist guys on HN than you thought unishark?))

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#170

Post by visarga »

tempodox wrote: post #132
bite_tongue wrote: post #107

Seems reasonable for a company to not fund research that directly goes against their bottom line.

When the result is predefined it's not research anymore, it's advertisement. Still calling it “research” is fraud.

> When the result is predefined it's not research anymore, it's advertisement. Still calling it “research” is fraud.

Like, when you see someone who's an amazing software engineer with a great salary, and you know they spend a lot of time doing research. Then you suppose the research must be paying off. Over time, survival tends to equal truth.

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