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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

#211
post #133
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a slur, it's just distinguishing people between those that own property and those that don't. As such, it's offensive to large swathes of disadvantaged people.

I can't even begin to follow this line of thought. Is 'billionaire' offensive because it distinguishes those who own billions of dollars versus those who don't? How, by your logic, is 'property owner' not offensive?

> billionaire

I think you meant 'person of means'?

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

#212
post #26
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…

As someone fairly familiar with the SJWs in a variety of FANGs, motherboard/mainboard doesn't even offend me any more. I kind of get it, even though it is lame logic. I'm waiting until they start marking "Latino" as non-inclusive, and start forcing "Latinx".

LatinX is complicated. If (white person) corrects someone of hispanic origin that using the word latino is offensive and they should use latinx - I've gotten some pushback. It may be best to just let the folks who care about getting to Latinx hash it out themselves. I've started seeing folx as well instead of folks. Was curious about the offensiveness of folks?

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

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment is a lie. Terms like "motherboard" are readily findable on Google's internal search. I could not find anything referencing a banned non-inclusive words policy in the employee policy guide. I have never heard of anything remotely resembling someone catching heat for saying "motherboard" or whatever. Source: I also work at Google.

Since you work at Google, maybe you can answer this: does internal tooling exist to flag occurrences of "bad" words in say, code reviews or shared documents?

There is at Amazon, it gets brought up as a code violation while we’re doing security and other kinds of reviews

I’ve mostly cleansed myself of these words while I’m at work but I generally let the shit fly once Im out of the setting

I just look at it like any other corporate politics, you have to play along to get anywhere

Outside of work I’m my own person and use any word I want. Retard, cripple, bum, idiot, motherboard, man, master, slave, fuck, shit, piss!

See! Fire me Amazon I fucking dare you! :)

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

#214
post #62

And now the rest of the world will be very happy learn that they will once more have to silently deal with the aftermath of America’s latest political trend. After banning world-famous paintings from Facebook because they dared show a breast, a few well-off engineers and product managers will now pick which English words should remain, and which should be let go. How nice of them. Don’t know what we’d do without them…

This isn't unique to SV. There are plenty of examples of words and behaviours that were commonplace and then over time evolved to be unacceptable to use in polite company.

I'd like to give some examples, but I fear I'd end up swiftly banned for even using some of the best examples.

One interesting case is "idiots, imbeciles and morons" - once technical terms to describe a mental health scale. The 'most insulting' end of the scale is now probably the most acceptable word to use in public!

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

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Except for the decades of documentation, blog posts, etc. that will now cause confusing to newcomers.

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

#217
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's in the banned words list, I can share a link internally if you want.

why does a company have a say which words are allowed to be used? i mean there are some bad words you shouldn’t use, but i just can’t grasp why is there something like “motherboard” on that list?

No post body was provided.

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

#218
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…

So... essentially you have to go around hoops in the way you communicate internally? LEL.

Sure if you believe it. We also don't speak to each other to cater to people who are deaf, and we don't use sign language to cater to people who are blind.

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

#220
post #65

I was extended an on-site interview at Google and after reading this and the comments I think I'll pass.

If you can (i.e. you don't fear persecution), please let them know that this was the reason. Part of the reason these things have taken off is that their proponents are very vocal, while the opponents prefer to just mind their own business.

Absolutely do not do this. There is massive brigading that happens and the folks pushing the "anti-isms" are very very focused on this stuff. You will get on a list as some type of abuser / racist. Everyone knows to keep heads down on this stuff at a place like google or just find somewhere else to work. It really doesn't matter if you are liberal in all other ways even.
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