Part of my code makes Copilot crash • Hacker News Board

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#221

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 4:52 AM UTC

onionisafruit wrote: post #146

fny wrote: post #122

So I've just tested it, and I can confirm, yes, copilot refuses to give suggestions related to gender. Now I know a lot of people are calling this absurd, but looking more closely, there are two PR nightmare scenarios. 1. Copilot makes a suggestion that implies gender is binary, a certain community explodes with anger and an entire news hype cycle starts about how Microsoft is enforcing views on gender with code. 2.…

Those aren’t the only options. You can just let it suggest what it is going to suggest. Copilot is a product for adults who should be able to comprehend what machine learning is. Anybody who throws a fit about it will only be exposing themselves as a fool.

That implies corporations are ruled by adults that aren't confusing twitter with the real world and aren't afraid to tell the screeching activists to leave them alone. Nothing we've seen in the latest decade suggests it is even close to being the case.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#222

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 4:52 AM UTC

eyelidlessness wrote: post #90

Thorentis wrote: post #61

Quoted post unavailable.

How is this relevant? Or, who can you not criticize because of this?

No post body was provided.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#223

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 4:55 AM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #51

staticassertion wrote: post #3

Content filters on ML feel so silly. I assume the goal is to avoid bad press? Because the... "attack" would be someone generating offensive material, which they could just write themselves, not to mention I have serious doubts that any filter is going to be a serious barrier. For images/ video I can see merit, ex: using that nudity inference project on images of children, but text seems particularly pointless.

The point is because sometimes even a perfectly reasonable inference from an ML model would be considered a big mistake due to societal considerations that are unknown to the model. For example, a couple years ago, there was a big hubbub over a Google Image labeler that labeled a black man and woman as "gorillas". A mistake for sure, but the headlines about the algorithm being "racist" were wrong. The algorithm was c…

[deleted]

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#224

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:00 AM UTC

uhtred wrote: post #23

If you told me 10 years ago that gender would be such a hot topic in 2022 I'd have thought you were crazy.

Why is it a hot topic? There are a range of opinions. It's a manageable little fire. Thats fine.

Except some people want to punish others for their opinions. That is the gasoline. And Microsoft is selling gas cans.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#225

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

antiquark wrote: post #29

Quoted post unavailable.

Went woke, code broke.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#226

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:01 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #198

lmm wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Removing your face-recognition function because it's less effective on black faces is certainly a substantial ideological commitment. Deploying your face-recognition function for something critical that impacts user quality of life, even if it doesn't recognize black faces well, is an ideological commitment by default. > That's not generally true. It's absolutely generally true. We generally call people by the name…

No post body was provided.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#227

Post by nonethewiser » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:02 AM UTC

subjectsigma wrote: post #44

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if something like this was intentional, or that they intentionally filtered the word "gender" and an unintentional side effect was the program crashing. You literally can't make any statements about gender, no matter how benign, without pissing at least a few of your users off.

The problem is giving a shit about such users.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#228

Post by mlyle » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:04 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #219

mlyle wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing your face-recognition function because it's less effective on black faces is certainly a substantial ideological commitment. Deploying your face-recognition function for something critical that impacts user quality of life, even if it doesn't recognize black faces well, is an ideological commitment by default. > That's not generally true. It's absolutely generally true. We generally call people by the name…

Quoted post unavailable.

> In terms of how much difference it makes to someone going to dinner with them in a casual social context? Yes, it probably is.

Anyone can date whomever they want based on whatever criteria they want.

But if someone wants to be called "he" despite not being born with a penis-- what's the big deal? Are you being harmed so much by complying?

> > if they don't like us referring to their race or features in a certain way, we stop.

> Maybe to their face.

Well, here we're talking about the code we're writing that will presumably be telling them "to their face" in some context. And, polite company defers to wishes of people even behind their back and doesn't insist on trivializing their deepest insecurities once they're out of earshot, or being able to call someone the n-word when they're not there.

> particularly characteristics that gave someone an advantage

Do you think being deeply uncomfortable with your birth-assigned gender and wanting to be called "he" gives you a big advantage? (Please don't bring up the sports thing, because it's not what we're talking about and that's a completely different kettle of fish).

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#229

Post by magicalist » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:06 AM UTC

Mo3 wrote: post #197

magicalist wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lament people becoming extreme in their views above and then go full moral panic in this post. Maybe try to remember previous gay panics (or pick an alternate target group) that society has gone through in the past, remember what that ended up amounting to, and maybe reevaluate your media sources if you've suddenly been convinced groomers make up a large portion of the population.

Sorry, but this is not comparable to anything seen before. I can't remember 6 year olds taking hormones and 16 year olds having their breasts removed. There was no 4000% increase in teenagers claiming to be gay. There were no attempts to change core language concepts and there were no gays attacking and discriminating against other gays. I also can't remember scientists and medical professionals being gaslighted and…

> On the other hand I'm not sure where you see moral panic here, I'm really just expressing knowledge and my opinion. Not very emotionally so.

Think of the children, etc etc. I feel like we could flip a few key words here and have this be straight from the 90s.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#230

Post by pseudalopex » Thu, Aug 04, 2022, 5:09 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #219

mlyle wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Removing your face-recognition function because it's less effective on black faces is certainly a substantial ideological commitment. Deploying your face-recognition function for something critical that impacts user quality of life, even if it doesn't recognize black faces well, is an ideological commitment by default. > That's not generally true. It's absolutely generally true. We generally call people by the name…

Quoted post unavailable.

I never had a reason to call people ugly behind their backs. Calling Romani Romani not a word they don't like isn't dishonest, strange, or rude. I don't know anything about the birth genitals of most people I dine with.