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AI at Google: our principles

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Re: AI at Google: our principles

#221

Post by mikeJoy6 »

if by AI you mean collusion or racism or cartel or some other violation of either

- the law of the USA

- the law of international order as enumerated in Europe during the Middle Ages

or some other anti-historical or illegal association that would otherwise be known as a tech trade association and have a friend who bugs members of Congress on a regular basis...

I hope you get my drift. Artificial Intelligence is corporate lobbying and collusion masquerading as legitimate business. We had the trust busters, we will have the a. i. busters as well. Government will exercise common sense and cooler heads will prevail, if only because the people tire of Google's intelligent but annoying fantasies of wealth and international order and prefer the institutions of the 20th century, imperfect as they were, to the war on information that Google represents.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#222

Post by ma2rten »

EpicEng wrote: post #55

So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it. Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there…

The article you linked says the email was written by an exec, but the source article in the intercept said it was written by "a member of the sales team". It also says Fei-Fei Li, arguably the only exec on the email chain, was actually against it:

“I don’t know what would happen if the media starts picking up a theme that Google is secretly building AI weapons or AI technologies to enable weapons for the Defense industry,” she continued. “Google Cloud has been building our theme on Democratizing AI in 2017, and Diane and I have been talking about Humanistic AI for enterprise. I’d be super careful to protect these very positive images.”

If you take this literally you might say her concern is "just PR", but this is exactly the kind of argument I would use if I was against something on moral grounds but I am trying to convince who does not share the same values.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#223

Post by evrydayhustling »

moultano wrote: post #210
EpicEng wrote: post #55

So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it. Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there…

Organizations do not always communicate well, and sometimes things only reach the CEO via the press. Do not assume that the whole organization, or even just its executive, agrees with or knows about everything the organization does.

In addition to this, individual executives and teams of them often have to compartmentalize discussions of different aspects of a complex issue. This makes taking specific communications, chosen by a third party, as indicative of the whole conversation iffy.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#224

Post by philwelch »

RyanZAG wrote: post #132
philwelch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a geopolitical level, it does. It's far better for the world that the United States developed atomic weapons before either Germany or the Soviets did.

It's a good point, and if anybody thinks an arms race isn't already happening then they are very naive. While we're debating the morals of this, the Chinese, Russians and many others are trying to make it happen. For all we know, they may have already succeeded, and we're discussing the morals of it while it's already in full production a few thousand miles away. The relevant research papers, knowledge and skills are…

And I can almost guarantee that, unlike the US, the Russian and Chinese militarized AI programs are not optimized for minimizing civilian casualties.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#225

Post by googlryas »

lev99 wrote: post #194
briandear wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A suicide vest isn’t racially prejudiced. Identifying those that are wearing them isn’t an emotional appeal.

The identification of a person wearing a suicide vest isn't a racial or emotional problem. Declaring that a person wearing a suicide vest in an Arab market is inherently bad does play on racial prejudice and emotional appeal. It's impossible to separate that statement from a decade and a half of propaganda, and the trauma caused by the numerous suicide attacks on civilians in the western.

> Declaring that a person wearing a suicide vest in an Arab market is inherently bad does play on racial prejudice and emotional appeal.

In what contexts is a person wearing a suicide vest in a market anything other than inherently bad?

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#226

Post by s2g »

rdiddly wrote: post #190
debt wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed there was one particularly phrase missing from Apple's WWDC this year: artificial intelligence. It wasn't mentioned one time. Never in the presentations, none of the talk titles had it included either. Machine Learning was mentioned and Apple also released many updates related to it, but never did they call it artificially intelligent, or use the phrase artificial intelligence. Not a single time. Go ahead a…

I credit their sense of discipline in using the more accurate term. They know they can only stand to lose down the road if they over-hype notions if "artificial intelligence" now when it really is a misnomer. And they're probably betting that's what will happen to their competition who more enthusiastically use the phrase for marketing.

Probably more that they aren't as heavily invested in selling the idea that we are close to smart general AI.

Compare it to Musk who constantly talks up the idea while the actual AI systems his company has deployed are killing people.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#227

Post by benkarst »

EpicEng wrote: post #55

So, I'm all for giving someone the benefit of the doubt if they have a change of heart upon reconsidering an issue, but this coming after the fact rings a bit hollow to me. I think the only principle at play here is that it became a PR issue. That's fine, but let's be honest about it. Early emails between Google execs framed this project only in terms of revenue and potential PR backlash. As far as we're aware, there…

I agree. I'm encouraged that there are people who can see through the propaganda.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#228

Post by s2g »

the-pigeon wrote: post #168
killjoywashere wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should read Daniel Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It's not possible to make all the right policy decisions that are right in hindsight and before a sentinal event occurs. Hindsight bias is always 20/20. Anyone making real decisions of consequence will eventually curse hindsight.

Sure. But Google has no intention of doing the right thing anymore than Microsoft or Disney does. These are corporations and their executives HAVE to do what they think will be best for the corporation. Not what they think is best for mankind. This is how for profit businesses currently work. And PR saying anything to the contrary is simply not true.

This sort of thing gets said a lot. It's not a valid excuse and it's not true in the black and white sense that people constantly present it.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#229

Post by philwelch »

mtgx wrote: post #169
philwelch wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a geopolitical level, it does. It's far better for the world that the United States developed atomic weapons before either Germany or the Soviets did.

You can't just claim something like that as if it was a fact. Maybe it would be better for the world for Switzerland to have the most advanced AI. Why does it need to be the US, especially in the rapidly deteriorating political climate from the past 2 decades?

If e.g. France was willing to step up, and had a flourishing tech industry and a track record of responsible global leadership, that would be great. They seem to have their shit together slightly better than the US does, at this point. But, even at our worst, the US is a better custodian of this kind of power than either China or Russia, and those are the only two other countries that would be remotely interested in this kind of technology.

Re: AI at Google: our principles

#230

Post by s2g »

EpicEng wrote: post #158
ManFromUranus wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm not really. Google is bad and they should feel bad, you're just handwaving away how bad they are because you like them. Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'…

>Imagine I wanted to have somebody killed and I hired a hitman to kill them and when I go to pay the hitman I accidentally wire the money to the wrong place and inadvertantly pay off the victims mortgage instead of paying the hitman. Now the victim doesn't die and gets their mortgage paid off. I'm not a good guy what I did is not a good thing, I just fucked up, that's all. That's an odd analogy considering the the wo…

> comparing Google's actions to murder

you think people weren't/wouldn't be killed off intel gathered from the project?

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