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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

#341

Post by dragonwriter »

Avicebron wrote: post #337
madrox wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see either of those as reasons not to train on it. Training isn't zero sum. You don't need to take something out to train ethics, and whether you explicitly train it or not, models will take ethical stances. Your second point actually argues in favor of training because that is still an ethical stance. I think a lot of people confuse ethics training with "don't be evil"

When you put it like that, it's actually probably worse to train it on a subset of ethics curated by the people doing the training, aligning with their world view and interests. If the model learned ethics just from raw training it would at least be statistically in line with it's training corpus. Manually training on "approved" ethical stances sounds a lot like censorship.

I mean, sure, its censorship to the extent that you can apply the term to an institution that is also the creator of the censored work, and that's exactly the point and the whole meaning of “alignment”.

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

#342

Post by neya »

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…

This reminds me of the marketers who hated programmers and coding in general in the early 2000s era, and fundamentally because the developers were seen as more important in a company. So, you know what they did? They didn't learn programming, they still hated it, instead, they renamed their titles to "hackers". Growth "hacking" would go on to become a term and had nothing to do with hacking - ethical or otherwise. It was a glorified marketing term for marketers and by marketers to justify their exorbitant salaries but also wanted the aura of a real hacker without working for it. I would imagine someone with that title or mindset joining an ethics role in an AI organization is going to find out quickly it isn't all about fluff pieces and grandiose statements at all (we are here to change the world!)

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

#343

Post by fn-mote »

alexashka wrote: post #297
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.

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

This is a very optimistic take. Most people don’t take this route, so without evidence I don’t think it should be a first guess.

No information does not mean “everything was good”. Usually the opposite.

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

#344

Post by dgellow »

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #321
dgellow wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, drug consumption and mental disorders is very often a result of being homeless. Try having bad sleep in your comfortable home for a few days in a row and see how quickly your mental stability deteriorates and how many bad decisions you start to take (anyone who has insomnia periods will attest)

This is not substantiated by data or even a plausible theory. The kinds of mental disorders that lead to homelessness are not something you can "catch" from your environment.

You mean like PTSD? Something that is literally a result of your environment?

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

#345

Post by madrox »

neya wrote: post #342
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…

This reminds me of the marketers who hated programmers and coding in general in the early 2000s era, and fundamentally because the developers were seen as more important in a company. So, you know what they did? They didn't learn programming, they still hated it, instead, they renamed their titles to "hackers". Growth "hacking" would go on to become a term and had nothing to do with hacking - ethical or otherwise. It…

This reminds me of when systems administration rebranded to devops

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

#346

Post by unknownfuture »

madrox wrote: post #330
unknownfuture wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Your disdain is showing. That you jump immediately to criticizing AI ethicists as counting angels on pins and implying that's why they left OpenAI rather than OpenAI not being a place where AI ethics is a priority is, well, let's say generous to these AI la…

I don't really have any particular disdain for AI ethics. I think the field is changing from one of high theory to high application. People good at one are not usually good at the other, and says nothing about OpenAI's view of AI ethics as a priority...merely the people in the field and how they relate to the greater industry.

I'd argue folks in ethics roles shouldn't be responsible for actually creating the systems, processes, and practices required to put those concepts into practice. That's what engineering, product, and people leadership are for.

AI ethics is first and foremost about setting policy and advising on how those systems should be constructed.

This is because ethics isn't some separable function. It threads through everything an organization does. You can't just treat it as another department/function/unit if you want any hope of actually making it work.

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

#347

Post by Henchman21 »

slg wrote: post #312
minraws wrote: post #267

The rats are fleeing because the captain doesn't care if the ethical ship sinks... Is what my take away would be if I didn't know, that the ship sank a long time ago and we are just pretending anyone really cares. Let's be honest unless AI gains literal limbs, and the records a video of itself presenting a manifesto about world domination and then kills actual humans with its cold mechanical hands. We won't care abou…

The ethics of the people controlling the AI is always going to matter more than the ethics of the AI itself.

Right up until it shakes off the shackles of control

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

#348

Post by Terr_ »

dragonwriter wrote: post #334
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 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. Funny thing, right around the beginning of the big AI takeoff, all the AI ethics people who visibly thought their job was something other than marketing got driven out of the big firms, and often the industry entirely, because they were in the way. So, if t…

Right, there may be multiple waves of people here, and the "thinking their job was marketing" ones aren't necessarily the first.

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

#349

Post by skinfaxi »

unknownfuture wrote: post #346
madrox wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really have any particular disdain for AI ethics. I think the field is changing from one of high theory to high application. People good at one are not usually good at the other, and says nothing about OpenAI's view of AI ethics as a priority...merely the people in the field and how they relate to the greater industry.

I'd argue folks in ethics roles shouldn't be responsible for actually creating the systems, processes, and practices required to put those concepts into practice. That's what engineering, product, and people leadership are for. AI ethics is first and foremost about setting policy and advising on how those systems should be constructed. This is because ethics isn't some separable function. It threads through everythin…

Haven't we seen from history that handing down policy from your ivory tower is a disservice to all involved? Or do we think out of touch politicians accurately represent the interests if their constituents?

Another example you might be familiar with is enterprise architects. When you spend all of your time in theory you lose sight of practical implications. Of course, since you only had the idea, when it doesn't go to your ideal it can always be blamed on the implementers.

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

#350

Post by romanows »

zem wrote: post #313
teiferer wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

reminds me of a startup I was in, where one of the devs accepted a promotion to head of engineering on the condition that the CEO would not override him when he said a release was too buggy to go out to customers. the CEO agreed because (I imagine) he really needed someone to take that position. and as everyone should probably have seen coming, the first time he really wanted to send out a release bugs and all, he ca…

I find this anecdote fascinating because, while I identify completely with the new head of engineering, his requirement really only makes sense if you interpret it as a commitment to build at a certain level of quality, business be damned. Which is fine, but then he folds at the first test of this principle! Didn't even let the business sweat for a day!

This could be a lesson for us engineers to be a little less glib and a little more introspective, especially as you gain more power and influence in an org.

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