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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

#351

Post by madrox »

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…

I am not in the AI ethics field, but I've watched multiple tech-adjacent disciplines that say "that's what engineering and product are for" get subsumed by engineering and product, who don't really care for a group that sees themselves above implementation. Based on history alone, that's what I expect to happen whether you agree with that or not, and I suspect this tension is driving at least part of the role of AI ethics at companies trying to turn profit.

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

#352

Post by Terr_ »

moritzwarhier wrote: post #281
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…

> 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? From the (ethics) team obviously, because the investors just have goals and aren't a team! Big irony marker of course. But remarkably, in human history, this line of thinking would not be unheard of. Of course, I don't think it easily adapts to companies, so I…

I feel I missed some logical step in-between "corruptive power of money" and the elevator/stairway railing/banister thing.

> People will simply offer to buy you out, and that's not limited to founders and creatives.

A less-obvious failure case would be bankrupcy court, where all sorts of ethical promises and even explicit contracts may be voided in pursuit of recovering a buck for creditors.

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

#354

Post by unknownfuture »

madrox wrote: post #351
unknownfuture wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not in the AI ethics field, but I've watched multiple tech-adjacent disciplines that say "that's what engineering and product are for" get subsumed by engineering and product, who don't really care for a group that sees themselves above implementation. Based on history alone, that's what I expect to happen whether you agree with that or not, and I suspect this tension is driving at least part of the role of AI e…

I agree.

Specifically because in these companies they aren't optimizing for ethical behaviour.

They're optimizing for profit. And those damn ethicists just get in the way.

Funny thing: that doesn't typically happen to the internal legal counsel or accounting that's responsible for guiding processes/practices that are required for compliance or similar.

Why?

Because there's consequences.

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

#355

Post by unknownfuture »

skinfaxi wrote: post #349
unknownfuture wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> Haven't we seen from history that handing down policy from your ivory tower is a disservice to all involved?

I take it you've never worked with an in-house legal counsel, accounting department, or good ol' fashioned HR?

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

#356

Post by zem »

romanows wrote: post #350
zem wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think in this case it was more a plea to have his judgement valued when he said "dude, if the qa team has found this many bugs this is only going to harm our reputation with the client, and we are going to be the ones doing emergency bugfixes at midnight". but also the company had a pretty toxic culture where the CEO knew how to manipulate people to get his way. he definitely managed to guilt trip me into working overtime when he told clients we already had features that we didn't in order to close a sale, basically "we've worked so hard already and we really need to close this sale, can't you just work up a basic version of it over the weekend?"

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

#357

Post by [deleted] »

fn-mote wrote: post #343
alexashka wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#358

Post by antonvs »

jerf wrote: post #83
antonvs wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if we do the same for CEOs?

The same thing for both: Goodhart's Law.

That doesn’t apply in this scenario. If CEOs start trying to emulate ethics in order to avoid being 86’d, we still get a good outcome.

An issue arises when the metric isn’t a good proxy for the property being measured. But ethics would not be a simple numeric target. The comment above talked about a “score”, but the question is what goes into that score. It would need to be a list of items related to topics like discrimination, advocacy of inequality, tendency to circumvent regulations, etc. Set it up correctly, and even a CEO who’s willing to “fake it” would end up being better than most major company CEOs in e.g. finance, tech, or healthcare today.

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