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Accountability sinks

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Re: Accountability sinks

#191

Post by izacus »

larsrc wrote: post #133

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner. This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at wil…

Just to be clear, LLC is supposed to be about limited financial liability, not criminal liability. But we seem to have forgotten that on the way.

Re: Accountability sinks

#192

Post by marci »

dale_glass wrote: post #162
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this dysfunction is not a bug, it's the feature. In some ways, it's useful, because it allows positive risk-taking that could not be taken if anyone was actually held (or even just felt) accountable. But at this point, as a society, we've shifted too far towards enabling accountability-free behavior from corporations. I think a good example of the dichotomy here is Starlink. On one hand, it's an incredibly usef…

> I think a good example of the dichotomy here is Starlink. On one hand, it's an incredibly useful service that often has a positive impact. On the other hand, a private corporation is just polluting our low earth orbit with thousands of satellites. Seems like a terrible example to me. I'm no fan of Musk, but I don't see how that is "polluting". They provide an excellent service. They're a minor hindrance for astrono…

Astronomy isn't the only issue with space pollution (e.g: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome)

Re: Accountability sinks

#193

Post by Dilettante_ »

RandomLensman wrote: post #161
atoav wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the root of all that? Privatization.

The German mail rail and track operator (Deutsche Bahn) isn't private but 100% state owned (and control sits with the federal government). They wanted to privatize it a couple of decades ago but abandoned it. There is still some hybridization between supposedly it being a business and also a public service left in the law, though.

The Deutsche Bahn AG is in fact a private Aktiengesellschaft(which is to say a stock company) with the german gov't owning 100% of the shares. I'd very much argue that it is run mostly like a private enterprise and only occasionally compelled by the government to act like a public service.

Re: Accountability sinks

#194

Post by atoav »

RandomLensman wrote: post #161
atoav wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the root of all that? Privatization.

The German mail rail and track operator (Deutsche Bahn) isn't private but 100% state owned (and control sits with the federal government). They wanted to privatize it a couple of decades ago but abandoned it. There is still some hybridization between supposedly it being a business and also a public service left in the law, though.

You sure the ~600 companies that the Deutsche Bahn is made up of can be compared to one state-owned entity?

Re: Accountability sinks

#195

Post by kleiba »

aziaziazi wrote: post #159
scrollaway wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is the only country in which I’ve had 112 (emergency services) hang up on me because they couldn’t speak English. It’s worse than France in this regard.

Yes, but it’s still fine to have a customer service only answering in the official language. The chance are high that a random German speaks english so you’ll probably be good but if that’s not the case, blaming the company seems unfair to me.

> The chance are high that a random German speaks English

Not sure how random my selection process was, but that certainly wasn't my experience when I lived in Germany a few years ago. Maybe in big cities, yes. But even in the burbs, chances are you have to look for the metaphorical needle in the haystack to find someone speaking English. Your best bet might just be teenagers and young adults.

Re: Accountability sinks

#196

Post by sethammons »

lucianbr wrote: post #102
TeMPOraL wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that "accountability of an algorithm" is a category error.

That's reasonable. Let's just call it root cause analysis in this case. The original point seemed to me to be "we can't use computers because they're not accountable". I say, we can, because we can do fault analysis and fix what is wrong. I won't say "we can hold them accountable", to avoid the category error.

I think folks may have different interpretations of accountability.

If your algorithm kills someone, is the accountability an improvement to the algorithm? A fine and no change to the algorithm? Imprisonment for related humans? Dissolution of some legal entity?

Re: Accountability sinks

#197

Post by f1shy »

InsideOutSanta wrote: post #157
lesuorac wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

State orgs (and federal ones) often have length processes before they can do stuff though. As well as after they do something there is typically a recourse path provided by that org for you to protest their decisions and if that doesn't resolve favorable you can also sue them. Which differs from the article because the corporation doesn't provide any protest path nor did it have to publish any memo/etc describing how…

"the corporation doesn't provide any protest path" This. The problem with "voting with your wallet" is that you can't vote "no", you can only vote "yes" or abstain from voting altogether.

That can be said of many many democracies around the world.

Re: Accountability sinks

#198

Post by [deleted] »

lucianbr wrote: post #99
lazide wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of accountability is to deter harmful activity by ensuring actions/decisions somewhere result in consequences for who are responsible for them. Those consequences can be good or bad, though it is often used to refer to bad. An algorithm has no concept of consequences (unless programmed to be aware of such), and the more plausibly whoever wrote it can deny knowledge of the resulting consequences, also the mo…

> The point of accountability is to deter harmful activity by ensuring actions/decisions somewhere result in consequences What I read is yes, the point is revenge. If I can offer you a different way of preventing harmful activity, apparently you're not interested. There has to be some unpleasant consequences inflicted, you insist on it. I think you should reconsider.

[deleted]

Re: Accountability sinks

#199

Post by InsideOutSanta »

TJSomething wrote: post #185
InsideOutSanta wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk is not accountable for Starlink. Starlink is an LLC, a limited liability company. There is no single person who is accountable for Starlink's satellites.

The chief difference here is that you can plausibly point at every investor in Starlink and say if they have the slightest idea of Starlink's business plan, they know that causes light pollution. There is exactly one degree of separation from putting satellites in the sky to causing light pollution. There's no plausible deniability there. This article is more about the phenomenon where decisions are removed by multip…

But that is how it works, isn't it? They're saying, "we want to make the Internet available to as many people as possible." They don't want the light pollution, and they don't create the light pollution.

It's analogous to the Fox example in the article, where somebody at the top says, "we want high viewership." They don't want their employees to lie to their audience, and they don't force them to lie to their audience.

Does the Fox leadership at some point become aware that "lying to the audience" is a result of their performance goals, just like the decision makers at Starlink become aware that light pollution is a result of their goals? They very likely do. Does that make them feel accountable for the negative side effects? Probably not, because they didn't tell anyone to lie and pollute the skies, somebody else did that.

Re: Accountability sinks

#200

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

RandomLensman wrote: post #167
larsrc wrote: post #133

I've long thought that that is one of the main functions of corporations. There's a reason they're called limited liability. The fact that you can conjure up new companies at a whim makes it easy to shuffle responsibility into an obscure corner. This is a strong reason that corporations should not be considered people. People are long-lived entities with accountability and you can't just create or destroy them at wil…

Limited liability corporations are a relatively new concept and there is certainly scope to change how/when/where they could be created and run, for example.

I recently had to submit a copy of my drivers license to the feds, for my LLC. I have heard that they are working on the accountability shield for LLCs.
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