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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

#181

Post by madamelic »

silicon2401 wrote: post #111
jedimastert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Your question takes for granted that people are fighting for whitelist in blacklist, but it's the opposite. Whitelist and blacklist are long-established and familiar terms.

No, they are not.

Teach someone with no previous cultural knowledge what "allow" and "deny" means, then ask them what white list and black list means, then ask them what allow list and deny list means.

Black and white list requires previous knowledge of what those terms mean, allow and deny do not. Someone can intuit from just basic language knowledge what the feature does.

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

#182

Post by londons_explore »

xg15 wrote: post #83
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…

Out of couriosity: Why then didn't flag it the actual n-word of all things? > 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. Edit: Also interesting that this comment is dropping like a stone in HN's comment ranking, even though currently the comment score is at 1. If I accidentally triggered some anti-flame or anti-…

Perhaps certain words disable the feature entirely?

The feature only seems to trigger when it has a suggestion. I can't imagine what suggestion would be suitable to replace the n word.

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

#183

Post by skrbjc »

nebulous_two wrote: post #70
dekhn wrote: post #13

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, 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",…

Many people willingly do things like this voluntarily at their jobs to the point that the job they were hired for seems like a second priority for them.

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

#184

Post by tempnow987 »

duxup wrote: post #154
dekhn wrote: post #13

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, ne…

One of the challenges with moderation teams like that or similar is that the folks who REALLY want to do that job .. are the folks who absolutely should NOT be doing it.

This is I think a major issue. The passionate people on these committees have views that are perhaps in the 10% edge of spectrum. No mothers, birthing persons etc etc.

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

#185

Post by [deleted] »

______-_-______ wrote: post #90
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…

"Motherboard" is particularly unbelievable. The motherboard runs the machine. It's a woman in a position of power. Isn't that what everyone says they want? Or is the idea to just erase the very concept of gender from the world? Welcome to OkCupid, I am a [PERSON] seeking [PERSON] I want out of this timeline

[deleted]

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

#186

Post by vincnetas »

knorker wrote: post #105
olalonde wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when GitHub stopped using "master" for the default branch because it was somehow offensive.

Reminds me of when GitHub kicked out a paying customer for using the word "retard" as a verb in the mathematical sense.

had to look that up

Retarded differential equations (RDEs) are differential equations having retarded arguments.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037704270...

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

#187

Post by ajross »

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…

> Many Google employees are just so out of touch with the real world

This isn't remotely limited to Google. My company does this too. I've heard of others making similar changes.

Are these kinds of arbitrary changes to language usage silly and pointless? Maybe. But tough love here: languages change in arbitrary and pointless ways constantly. They always have. They always will. Your own common usages and idioms would seem outrageously weird to your grandparents. People had these same fights in the 60's, also 80's, and 50's... The 40's too now that I think of it...

To wit: we aren't getting oppressed here, we're just getting old. And the attempt to turn it into a political fight (on both sides) is largely just a reaction to the friction. It's not the cause.

I mean, really. Is "mainboard" such a hardship? It's not even a new word, it's two bytes and one syllable shorter. Must this be a fight?

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

#188

Post by trollied »

knorker wrote: post #105
olalonde wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of when GitHub stopped using "master" for the default branch because it was somehow offensive.

Reminds me of when GitHub kicked out a paying customer for using the word "retard" as a verb in the mathematical sense.

Large planes tell pilots vocally to “retard” when landing…

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

#189

Post by madamelic »

dymk wrote: post #115
jedimastert wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's not what the word "objectively" means Whitelist and blacklist are the words we've been using for decades to describe a concept. Everybody knows what they mean.

> words we've been using for decades to describe a concept.

Yeah, and so was calling black men "boy" or using the n-word like 50 years ago.

Language changes because people realize there are better words that more people are okay with.

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

#190

Post by hedora »

knorker wrote: post #98
reaperducer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Sounds preposterous, but is not. I had a boss around 2000 who believed wholeheartedly that people brought from Africa to the United States were the only slaves that ever existed in history anywhere on Earth. This came up because someone noted in passing conversation that an annivers…

Not only that, but there are more than three times as many slaves TODAY as ever were in the transatlantic slave trade that is the only one the US knows exists.

There are more slaves added each year in the US today than at the peak of transatlantic trade:

https://www.britannica.com/summary/Transatlantic-Slave-Trade...

Peak transatlantic: 78,000 new slaves per year.

https://thecurrentmsu.com/2021/01/24/prison-labor-americas-s...

Current US forced prison labor population: 1-2.1 million.

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