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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

#421

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”.

Oh, I have OPINIONS about why this might be, as someone who was one of the teenagers on LJ back when this weird ideology (the bastardization of intersectionality/identity politics that's taken over all non-right discussions) started. I'm a disabled lesbian, so I get a front row seat to how some forms of discrimination 'matter' more than others.

It boils down to a few things:

1.) A lot of this identity politics is coming from upper-middle class people of color OR white queer people, who are using it to make money and boost their careers. The disabled are, in America at least, far less likely to have careers to boost. This is why the type of disability activism you see in identity politics is usually limited to mental illnesses.

2.) The disabled, to some degree, disprove some of the ideological underpinnings of modern identity politics. Modern identity politics is based on the idea that if we change society/fix discrimination, then everybody (all groups) will have the same rates of success. But even if social discrimination didn't exist, those of us who are disabled literally can't do things able-bodied people can do. There's an undercurrent of 'discrimination is bad BECAUSE all these groups can be normal/productive/participate in capitalism' and the disabled make people confront that they don't actually believe all people are equal. They believe all PRODUCTIVE people are equal, but they can't say that, because then they sound like those 'horrible' right wingers.

3.) Fighting on behalf of the disabled doesn't make people feel like they're 'on the right side of history'. I've experienced a shit ton of sexism and homophobia from right-wingers, but most conservatives would be horrified at insulting me for having MS and agree that I should get help if I need it. They just disagree on how it should be done. That's harder to fight about, which means it's harder for the media to turn into a frenzy, and that's where people on both sides get their 'marching orders'.

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

#423
post #13

One of the reasons I left google is that their "content moderation team" (the folks who make you take down wrongthink memes) is so far out of touch, that somebody had to explain to them there are people in the world who are discriminated against, but aren't black. They simply didn't know that was the case! And if that's the people who are moderating content... I said motherboard all the time in meetings and chats, ne…

> somebody had to explain to them there are people in the world who are discriminated against, but aren't black. As a Russian, this is amusing to read. For me and most people I know, when you meet a black person, it's totally normal to ask them "where are you from" because they can't possibly be local. Our society just doesn't have the concept of racism it seems because of the exceeding rarity of people who aren't Eu…

A black person could not have been born and raised in a Russian city?

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

#424
post #79
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're sure it's in a List, but the point is that the List is not uniformly enforced, and "motherboard->mainboard" definitely seems like one to go to bat against because it Doesn't Make Sense to get rid of it.

> We're sure it's in a List, but the point is that the List is not uniformly enforced The fact that it’s in a list at all should make you reconsider your employment with them. The inmates run the asylum at Google, just because they haven’t come for your corner/fiefdom yet doesn’t mean they won’t.

The list it is on is about what words to use in external product documentation and marketing. Not some "if you use these words internally the word police are going to come after you" list.

I'm going to be charitable and suggest this person is just accidentally leaving out context, rather than deliberately trying to rile people up because they disagree with something :)

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

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use proprietor?

Because it leads to confusion. Example: Is the proprietor of a bar the person running it or the landlord who owns the building?

Actually, it is generally understood that the owner/proprietor of a bar is the business owner (aka license owner) -- and that this in general is not the same person who owns the bricks.

A more clearcut case of semantic confusion I can see a crappy AI creating out of the blue would be:

"My proprietor said if I didn't pay the rent soon she was gonna ..."

Which clearly has a very different (and basically nonsensical) meaning than a the more natural formulation using the now thankfully forbidden L-word.

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

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not use proprietor?

Why not use Landlord, a word everyone understands?

Because it promotes wrong and harmful thinking. And must therefore be extinguished.

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

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Main is better. Master/slave has uncomfortable connotations. This one isn't a big deal.

Slavery was horrible and should not be forgotten. Erasing all related words so that we can all comfortably forget it ever happened seems … wrong? That’s another way of looking at it, anyway.

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

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”.

Trans people are frequently in tech. Go to any college and you'll see the CompSci department is the one with the most amount of LGBT individuals. The same can't be said for people who are blind or deaf.

LGBT people or trans people?

I'd bet the theater kids gave CS a run for its money. Or the art kids. Just fewer gay men and lesbians in CS.

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

#429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> somebody had to explain to them there are people in the world who are discriminated against, but aren't black. As a Russian, this is amusing to read. For me and most people I know, when you meet a black person, it's totally normal to ask them "where are you from" because they can't possibly be local. Our society just doesn't have the concept of racism it seems because of the exceeding rarity of people who aren't Eu…

While I'm sure the shape of discrimination in your culture is different and not heavily racial, it's unwise to conclude that racial discrimination isn't happening just because you don't see the textbook version of it in front of you. The assumption that a black person can't possibly be local can lead some people to act in a discriminatory way that would produce bad outcomes. A good example would be some of the pieces…

> Also, if people get discriminated against based on their nationality and you just said a black person can't possibly be From Here...

The nationality thing is more about those who work customer-facing jobs here. Like, you call a taxi, it arrives but you can't find where. You call the driver to ask where they stopped, but the driver is from Tajikistan or Uzbekistan and barely speaks any Russian. It is frustrating when you can't use your native language in your home country for something as mundane as asking the taxi driver where they are. Besides, they usually do their jobs much more shoddily, get paid less, and have lower standards. So, yes, these people have this kind of reputation, but every rule has its exceptions.

But then if someone is a foreign student for example, they are never treated like that. So I guess this discrimination is not against the nationality per se, but against people bringing their customs into someone else's society and refusing to blend in?

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

#430
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…

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

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iKcWu0tsiZM

A short-film/parody on how an extreme obsession with inclusive speech makes it impossible to communicate clearly without consequences.

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