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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

mjburgess wrote: post #240
tempnow987 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you could say, "following *this news* and other comments, I feel like my language is going to be constantly policed by my colleagues and this is a level of cognitive and emotional burden I dont want in my workplace". Though, I agree.. inquisitions and dogma are honeytraps for free-thinkers, by signalling dissent you are exposing that you arent under their ideological control. Disagreeable sorts should, wheree…

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

#312

Post by [deleted] »

tedsanders wrote: post #272
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This attempt at "de-offensive-izing" all language has the effect of turning clear, evocative phrases to mush. George Carlin's skit couldn't be more timely: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isMm2vF4uFs

Putting myself in the shoes of a kid learning about computers, I find some of these phrases to be more clear, not less clear. Two examples: Allowlist and denylist are much clearer to a kid learning about computers than whitelist or blacklist. If you've never heard of whitelist before, it's sounds like a list of things that are white. If you've never of allowlist, it's pretty obvious what it means - a list of things t…

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

#314

Post by gdulli »

dylan604 wrote: post #202
gdulli wrote: post #29

I spent many years in the bluest corner of a very blue state. But still I can't imagine any objection to the word "landlord" outside of (1) a right wing attempt to satirize the left, (2) a Google product brainstorming meeting, or (3) a rare sincere outlier or concern troll. In any of those cases I don't think this is necessary. That said, if the word "landlord" organically fell out of favor and out of usage to be rep…

What if your 3) was in 2) pushing 1) only it backfired and people in 2) took it seriously?

As possible a reason for #2 going wrong as any other. But #2 thinking they know what's best for humanity is an established enough pattern that I imagine it happens organically as well.

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

#315

Post by DontMindit »

augustuspolius wrote: post #72
krastanov wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am incredulous at the "mother" to "birthing person" requirement. I have seen one or two people with such prescriptive views on language but the vast majority of people I know consider it ridiculous. And I am in an incredibly "woke" social bubble.

Encountering this aspect of the culture war always makes me wonder why are tech companies so focused on these gender minorities and not, say, on the disabled groups. There are more blind, deaf, mute (etc, etc) people in the US than transgender people who will bear a child. It would be equally incoherent to attempt to replace all usages of “see”, “hear” with “perceive”.

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

#317

Post by tiborsaas »

valeness wrote: post #281
tryptophan wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its worse because suddenly 20 years worth of tutorials are slightly 'wrong' and will confuse new users even more for no reason. "Why does my git say main and not master? Did I break it?" "Why cant I push to master like the 100x tutorials show? I get errors!"

Does this mean we should never make progress or change anything? Also if your tutorials are using a base repository to work from, then you can still have the branch "master" it's just not default. So your existing repos should still work. And if you changed your repo then you should be responsible for updating your documentation to reflect that. It's just good practice.

What about giving master a new meaning? Actively banning it conservers its original meaning. Probably nobody today thinks about woman sitting in a room doing calculations when we speak about computers.

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

#318

Post by tempnow987 »

xg15 wrote: post #264
tempnow987 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Wasn't the x originally a gender thing? As in "folks" is gender neutral while "folx" actively acknowledges non-heteronormative genders.

Thank you, very interesting. I'd always taken gender neutral to include non-heteronormative genders. But I started seeing things like folx - confusing because I hadn't understood the word to be gendered or only gender normative.

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

#319

Post by dekhn »

olalonde wrote: post #42
mgraczyk wrote: 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…

Reminds me of when GitHub stopped using "master" for the default branch because it was somehow offensive.

When I built a distributed system, I wanted to avoid the terms "master and slave" for the "coordinator and worker", so instead I chose something I thought was relatively less controversial- daimyo, honcho, and peasant. Only later did I realize I had merely recapitulated the power structure of feudal japan.

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

#320

Post by elpakal »

tempnow987 wrote: post #220
cato_the_elder wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yep, I understand this could backfire and thank you for pointing it out. It's probably best to let it simmer on HN.

It's just my anecdotal experience with this kind of mentality that the people looking to enlighten us simple minded folk are also using any questioning or opposition of their enlightenment as an opportunity to shame those people that question or oppose. Some kind of twisted competition I guess.

(not to say I don't support enlightenment of certain issues, I do, but with limits)

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