Google’s office suite has always been amateur hour.
Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
161–170 of 1001 posts
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#162I've been privy to people trying to ban words like "whitelabel" at my company. Thankfully, management & executives at my company never stood for that BS so I still get to use whitelist & blacklist in documentation, and don't worry about those non-issues get in the way of me actually doing work. Google might be too far gone, and working with those people would be so exhausting that it's actually stopped me from applyi…
Silly question: ignoring any kind of history, why fight for terms like "whitelist" and "blacklist" when terms like "allowlist" and "blocklist" are objectively clearer, especially for folks who's first language is not English?
I just don't like people telling me what to say or write. I think it's unhealthy to look for grievances in language and that if you get good enough at doing so you might not be able to stop. I also think terms like these are just a small part of an ongoing effort.
Independent of all other political goings on, in a vacuum, I could agree that we should get rid of white and blacklist and replace them with something else.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#163One 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, ne…
Put yourself in the shoes of your average content moderator. Aren't they there for the paycheck like most people at their jobs? Why does everyone assume these people are first and foremost bastions of acceptable behaviour? They are instructed by executives as to how to do their jobs. Now executives are learning nuance and say "oh there's more to this than you thought, so here's the updated guidelines to follow now",…
I think the point you're missing is that often moderators are in that position because they specifically want the power that comes with it. We see this all the time with volunteer moderators getting high on their power, pushing through whatever agenda they have regardless of user opinion.
I think those types of people are even more likely to end up as paid content moderators, since the work tends to be too tedious for most average people to deal with.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am incredulous at the "mother" to "birthing person" requirement. I have seen one or two people with such prescriptive views on language but the vast majority of people I know consider it ridiculous. And I am in an incredibly "woke" social bubble.
Encountering this aspect of the culture war always makes me wonder why are tech companies so focused on these gender minorities and not, say, on the disabled groups. There are more blind, deaf, mute (etc, etc) people in the US than transgender people who will bear a child. It would be equally incoherent to attempt to replace all usages of “see”, “hear” with “perceive”.
Trans people are frequently in tech. Go to any college and you'll see the CompSci department is the one with the most amount of LGBT individuals.
The same can't be said for people who are blind or deaf.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#165In 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…
Is there at least some sort of mailing list you can subscribe to to know which phrases are verboten this week?
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#166In 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…
Reminds me of when GitHub stopped using "master" for the default branch because it was somehow offensive.
My opinion:
`main` is better. It's shorter, it's more descriptive, and costs nothing to remove something someone might find offensive.
It's pretty much an all around win.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#167I 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 ma…
I think this article hints at an important thing though which is that language is contextual. Even if we think that we should describe mothers as birthing persons or fathers as non-birthing parents in the general context, I should be allowed to refer to myself as a father. People of color can re-claim slurs, which a correction to could probably feel paternalistic. There are lots of contexts where certain language is ok, depending on the speaker or the audience. And I guess it means you're not supposed to use google docs for any kind of emotional writing, as it tries to correct "annoyed" or the f word. That and there is this beauty:
> A transcribed interview of neo-Nazi and former Klan leader David Duke—in which he uses the N-word and talks about hunting Black people—gets no notes. Radical feminist Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto gets more edits than Duke’s tirade; she should use “police officers” instead of “policemen,”
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am incredulous at the "mother" to "birthing person" requirement. I have seen one or two people with such prescriptive views on language but the vast majority of people I know consider it ridiculous. And I am in an incredibly "woke" social bubble.
Encountering this aspect of the culture war always makes me wonder why are tech companies so focused on these gender minorities and not, say, on the disabled groups. There are more blind, deaf, mute (etc, etc) people in the US than transgender people who will bear a child. It would be equally incoherent to attempt to replace all usages of “see”, “hear” with “perceive”.
Because the "other side" wouldn't take offense to it. Newton's 3rd law applied to the social sciences.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#169Earlier quoted context omitted.
Genuinely curious: what do you do internally for "male" and "female" connectors?
That one is in the public list. https://developers.google.com/style/word-list You're supposed to use "plug" and "socket" instead.
That google is at a point where they can pay employees to waste time on crap like this and yet still print money is incredible.
Re: Google’s AI-powered ‘inclusive warnings’ feature is very broken
#170In 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…
I can believe this. Around the time I left people were patting backs for fighting racism by getting rid of terms blacklist/whitelist.
Not something I feel super strongly about, but the fact that it's so scary to go against these stupid ideas is annoying. It's pure politics, there's nobody benefiting from this except the people claiming impact for antiracist work in their perf.