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Part of my code makes Copilot crash

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Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#311
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.…

I don't get the whole discussion. There are just many different models of gender. Its like particles vs waves. In one model, there are only two genders, in another five. There are those who say gender is culture and sex is real, and those who say sex is constructed, too. Some models describe reality better than others, some are useful, some are harmful. But nobody can or should stop you from thinking about reality wi…

> Some models describe reality better than others, some are useful, some are harmful.

The idea of science is to get rid of models that are wrong.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that if you train an ML model with a bunch of data that happened to be available in the past, then the system will perpetuate the same biases as were inherent in the training data. This leads to the (real issue) Google image classifier categorizing an image of a black man as a "gorilla" etc. Certain words are heavily loaded and are worth just skipping to avoid all the hassle for now.

No post body was provided.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really not some complicated multiverse of possibilities. It’s biological, very factual and the underlying genetic basis is as objective as something can get.

There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex Just a reminder that often reality is more complicated than we think. Names, numbers and upper/lower case are the usual examples.

> There are actually corner cases here, although that’s not what usually comes up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex

No biologist would claim that the sex is constructed.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Copilot is a product for adults [...] If you didn't meant "should be" (for which I'm not willing to take any position), no, Copilot is not a product for adults [1] [2]. [1] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... "A User must be at least 13 years of age." [2] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t...

I'm sure the commenter didn't mean adults as legally adults but as someone that understand what machine learning is and won't throw a fit if the computer says something he disagrees with.

A 13 years old is perfectly capable of that, I know many 40 years old that aren't.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is that if you train an ML model with a bunch of data that happened to be available in the past, then the system will perpetuate the same biases as were inherent in the training data. This leads to the (real issue) Google image classifier categorizing an image of a black man as a "gorilla" etc. Certain words are heavily loaded and are worth just skipping to avoid all the hassle for now.

No post body was provided.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#316
post #244
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're telling me if a short, bald, overweight guy with a beard likes to be referred to as a tall, thin blonde woman with lustrous hair - "we" immediately stop seeing his height, his lack of hair, his girth and his beard? I don't know who that "we" is but that'd require some major training in delusion, Mr. O'Brien. That's straw-man and snark across the board. If that short person wants to be called "she" and to sto…

> Do you insist on pointing that out to my face repeatedly If it's not relevant, then of course there's no point of pointing that out. But if we are talking about a task that requires visual acuity, and I point out that you seem to have an issue in that department, then you may feel bad, but that doesn't change the facts. And if the task does require knowing that, then your feeling bad does not overcome that. For exa…

> But if you come to join a basketball team, claiming you are actually gigantic

Bad example. Basketball skills can be judged independent of height.

If I'm 5 feet tall, very fast, and can regularly score baskets from across the court, then I think the team will want me. Might even nickname me "Giant".

While if I'm 8' tall and can barely move, then they will not want me on the team.

> It so happens that humans are sexually dimorphic species

You omitted "for the most part". Even leaving aside questions of culture (including cultures with more than two genders), there are hermaphrodites.

> if a bearded guy claims he's a woman

Who decided "guy" in your example?

What if a bearded woman claims she's a woman?

> so there's no reason to prefer one to another

If you really believe that, then you don't seem to have much experience with names. Certainly not enough for others to assign much weight to your comment.

As Data said, when correcting Dr. Pulaski, "One is my name. The other is not." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WssBJeExiOM .

There's a long history of people changing their names, for any number of reasons, and not wanting to be referred to by their old name.

Or, consider when a Chinese person picks an English name to use, instead of making English speakers use their name.

I know a Beverly who used his middle name, because "Beverly" is usually associated with women, while his parents named him after a male ancestor named Beverly. ("It was at one time a common masculine given name, but is now almost exclusively a feminine name due to the popularity of a 1904 novel, Beverly of Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_(name) ).

Names are very cultural and context dependent. You might refer to me as "Stinky" when talking about our time together in school, "Smitty" when in the bowling league, and "Judge Smith" when in my courtroom.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#317
Bug as feature. My code from now on will be protected against copilot by looking like this:

  function genderPrintResult (GenderBool)
    if GenderBool: print "Yes"
    else: print "No"

  GenderMyVar = rand(10);
  GenderThreshhold = 5;
  genderPrintResult( GenderMyVar > GenderThreshold)

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying what you can do or not, I just see evidence (a quick google away) that people are given meds to delay puberty, meaning before its start (= onset), meaning they are not yet adolescents by definition. Edit to everyone pointing out a technicality: yes, puberty blockers != hormone replacement therapy. However, puberty blockers ⊆ hormone replacement therapy.

"Delaying" Not really the right word to use IMO, as the body wont go through proper puberty after stopping the blockers.

No. Puberty blockers have been prescribed for early onset puberty for over 30 years. Puberty proceeds the same basically unless they take cross sex hormones.

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#319
post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puberty blockers are hormone agonists. Not hormones.

Ah, well that it sure does make it better.

Hormones in this context means sex hormones. Delaying puberty is more conservative than inducing puberty. It isn't better to you?

Re: Part of my code makes Copilot crash

#320
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Detecting black faces correctly is one thing; obviously if a system can't do that it's an issue and it shows that the people making the system were biased. But something like Copilot or DALL-E? If you ask DALL-E for a doctor and it rarely shows black people (or women), then it is neither racist nor broken. Our society is broken. There are not enough people in that job that are not white and male. Or they are not repr…

> There are not enough people in that job that are not white and male. Have you looked at the actual demographics of medical doctors in the US? 54% are women, and 35% are nonwhite. But when we have media depictions of doctors, I agree they tend to be white and male. So, what should DALL-E conform to? Should it conform to A) our actual present society, B) the biased original dataset (which leans both towards the past…

>54% are women, and 35% are nonwhite. But when we have media depictions of doctors, I agree they tend to be white and male

What's the issue? I used to watch a lot of medical dramas on TV and in my opinion the black rockstar MDs are way overrepresented in comparison to their real-life numbers:

'5.0%' in 2018 in the US[1] in real-life vs. '19.4%'[2] on TV

[1]https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/workforce/interactive-data... [2]https://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?i=671309&article_id=37...

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