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OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

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Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#291

Post by budman1 »

embedding-shape wrote: post #192
twister2920 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no need for wild speculation, we know that Raytheon is a US Defense contractor and we know that the US targets civilians (including US citizens) abroad for extrajudicial assassinations, starts destabilizing wars without meaningful strategic objectives, supports genocide etc. These things are all extremely well documented, for those paying attention the existence of Raytheon is inherently unethical

> paying attention the existence of Raytheon is inherently unethical Lets do assume this is true, then again, wouldn't Raytheon be the best place to actually have a ethics department, if anyone?

The ethics department at Raytheon is focused on questions like "Is it OK to give a bribe to the president if we call it a donation to the ballroom?"

They don't have anything to do about using the products they sell. Neither does Boeing, or Lockheed, or Tesla, or SpaceX.

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#292

Post by [deleted] »

a2ff6eeb0 wrote: post #287
madrox wrote: post #247

In five years, I'd love to read a book about the history of AI ethics. I suspect it will read like Voltaire. My sense is that it is radically shifting from a fluffy marketing arm to a department expected to contribute meaningfully to development and justify its impact. I would expect an ethics team to build frameworks that can help train/eval the model that the company spend millions of dollars and months training is…

Hahaha, what an insane take. No, anyone that gets in the way of the money machine is going to have to rapidly get out of the way, or get fired.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#293

Post by gizajob »

madrox wrote: post #247

In five years, I'd love to read a book about the history of AI ethics. I suspect it will read like Voltaire. My sense is that it is radically shifting from a fluffy marketing arm to a department expected to contribute meaningfully to development and justify its impact. I would expect an ethics team to build frameworks that can help train/eval the model that the company spend millions of dollars and months training is…

I think you’re confusing Voltaire with the Marquis de Sade and Machiavelli

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#295

Post by felooboolooomba »

walrus01 wrote: post #256
cmiles8 wrote: post #252

Head of ethics at Meta then head of Ethics at OpenAI. Sorry, but if that doesn’t scream useless puffy PR positioning then I don’t know what does. What’s next? Head of ethics for United Healthcare?

Head of Ethics at Palantir, obviously.

Head of not too much Ethics at Palantir, minimal really, obviously

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#296

Post by Alive-in-2025 »

madrox wrote: post #247

In five years, I'd love to read a book about the history of AI ethics. I suspect it will read like Voltaire. My sense is that it is radically shifting from a fluffy marketing arm to a department expected to contribute meaningfully to development and justify its impact. I would expect an ethics team to build frameworks that can help train/eval the model that the company spend millions of dollars and months training is…

The goal of an ethics team will be to provide cover for problems created by decisions or suggestions of an llm. They will need to be able to say "We trained it to consider ethical considerations by " . We tested by .

They will use "industry standard practices", they will have tested it somehow, and will be sure to be on the board of some group that is building toothless "ai ethical tests" for llms.

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#297

Post by alexashka »

wxw wrote: post #200

> Previously, she was chief ethicist at Meta. She spent 6 years at Meta. I get the sense there are other factors at play than "ethics departments are just PR stunts". There's no way she isn't already aware of that. Unfortunately, the article is light on any other details.

She probably had the epiphany that life is short and she's already rich.

It takes a surprising amount of time for nepo babies to realize life is about more than making sure you're doing at least as good as other nepo babies you grew up with.

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#299

Post by sillyfluke »

walrus01 wrote: post #256
cmiles8 wrote: post #252

Head of ethics at Meta then head of Ethics at OpenAI. Sorry, but if that doesn’t scream useless puffy PR positioning then I don’t know what does. What’s next? Head of ethics for United Healthcare?

Head of Ethics at Palantir, obviously.

Subsequently named Head of Post-Ethics at Palantir.

Re: OpenAI’s head of ethics leaves less than a year after joining

#300

Post by pessimizer »

teiferer wrote: post #250
madrox wrote: post #247

In five years, I'd love to read a book about the history of AI ethics. I suspect it will read like Voltaire. My sense is that it is radically shifting from a fluffy marketing arm to a department expected to contribute meaningfully to development and justify its impact. I would expect an ethics team to build frameworks that can help train/eval the model that the company spend millions of dollars and months training is…

> if the model requires retraining for ethics reasons. Haha, how refreshingly naive. What do you think is more likely: this or the other way around: getting the "ethics team" to align with investor goals? Hint: Where does the money come from? > The people in AI ethics who spent years thinking their job was marketing or publishing thinkpiece papers may be having to adapt quickly or get out of the field. Or it's exactl…

It's funny, but Scientologists were innovators on this front. They use the word "ethics" a lot, but they've specifically redefined it to mean productivity at work (people who aren't productive are stealing a living.)

Being "downstat" (iirc) is when you're not productive in comparison to your coworkers, which makes you "outethics" and a "potential trouble source (PTS)." If you're outethics, then you get called in for "auditing" which is when they interrogate you with a lie detector to find out if you're associating with "suppressive people (SP)" (who are people who are causing you to be downstat because they despise human happiness.) If those people can't be found, then the problem is obviously in your "withholds" (again, iirc) which are your secret deep-down desires to destroy the organization that you may not even be aware of. You see, your "reactive mind" is raging at being forced to be "ethical." The conclusion is that either you find the SP and "disconnect" from them, you discover the nature of your withhold and admit that you were plotting against the organization and why, or you're the SP and you get declared and ejected from the organization.

Welcome to "ethics." The original AI alignment scholars.

The specific, named people who run these organizations are moral black holes. Anybody that they're hiring for "ethics" they're hiring to define an ethics for their own benefit.

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