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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

#451

Post by impendia »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #449
vintermann wrote: post #435

I'm a broken record on this, but I'd like to reiterate: 1. Academic ethics is the theoretical study of what you can get away with. (Law is the applied branch). Professors in ethics are not experts at being good, or knowing what is good, they're experts in how to get away with things. If you want an expert in being good, you need a saint, not an academic studying ethics. Saints are in short supply. 2. That said, ethic…

People confuse morals with ethics. It can be perfectly acceptable, ethically, to do something that is morally reprehensible.

How are you distinguishing them?

I had the impression they were essentially synonyms, and this was borne out by two university courses in philosophy which I took. That said, googling "morals vs ethics" turns up quite an interesting mess. A variety of contrasting perspectives showed up:

- Ethics come from an external source, whereas morals come from within

- Ethics are rational and structured, whereas morals are more emotional

- Ethics is a philosophy or code of behavior, whereas morals refers to beliefs and conduct

- Ethics and morals are used interchangeably

It seems nobody agrees on what the words mean. Which, on reflection, tracks. For me, the idea of an HR training session on ethics is laughable, but for someone who thinks of the word differently it could certainly make sense.

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

#452

Post by crnkofe »

madrox wrote: post #335
NBJack wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regret to say such a book may end up as a pamphlet. I don't see much going into it.

I find that hard to believe. Between AI doomerism and the drama at Google years ago between some researchers and Jeff Dean alone you can get at least 500 pages.

I wonder if this book will eventually be bought up by LLM companies, scanned, shredded and become a source of ethics info for the future generations. Who knows...

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

#453

Post by bandrami »

seanhunter wrote: post #399

Organisationally it never works to have a group whose only job is to say no to some other group. The incentives are diametrically opposed and as a structure it can’t last. If you had an AI company and want it to be ethical you have to find a way to make ethics everyone’s responsibility, and have the consequences of poor ethics bite the people who make those bad decisions. If you just outsource it to the ethics group…

Hard disagree, as someone whose main job is telling developers "no". If it's everybody's responsibility it is in fact nobody's responsibility.

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

#454

Post by bandrami »

softwaredoug wrote: post #241
bashtoni wrote: post #229

COO just resigned too. Coincidence? https://xcancel.com/bradlightcap/status/2087211567012032862

I don't know. Every big tech company I worked at has a lot of turnover. Then every Blind post says "its so over" or "everything is going to change" But that doesn't happen. It's hard to read anything into it.

A year ago everybody in San Francisco was saying the entire world was about to be blindsided by the fundamental changes that would happen in the next 8-12 months and, well, that just hasn't happened.

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

#455

Post by mlrtime »

madrox wrote: post #329
Avicebron wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because 1) ethics aren't universal. It's perfectly easy to frame ethics for the outcome you want depending on your a priori assumptions. 2) it's blatantly obvious that the business "needs" will supersede any ethical concerns or the ethics will be framed in a way that aligns with the primary goal of gaining money and power.

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"

I would eat my shorts if we could get alignment in a HN thread on what the top 25 "don't be evil" required ethical items for a AI lab would even look like.

The first 10 maybe easy, but we'd see so much disagreement even without money nothing would get done.

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

#456

Post by mlrtime »

vintermann wrote: post #435

I'm a broken record on this, but I'd like to reiterate: 1. Academic ethics is the theoretical study of what you can get away with. (Law is the applied branch). Professors in ethics are not experts at being good, or knowing what is good, they're experts in how to get away with things. If you want an expert in being good, you need a saint, not an academic studying ethics. Saints are in short supply. 2. That said, ethic…

Thank you for this, there is a a lot of speculation in this thread [Not surprisingly] but very little on the definitions, objective goals. Maybe I'm the one that's uneducated in this specific field, but I don't see anyone talking about what this actually means other than "be good".

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

#457

Post by plaidfuji »

seanhunter wrote: post #399

Organisationally it never works to have a group whose only job is to say no to some other group. The incentives are diametrically opposed and as a structure it can’t last. If you had an AI company and want it to be ethical you have to find a way to make ethics everyone’s responsibility, and have the consequences of poor ethics bite the people who make those bad decisions. If you just outsource it to the ethics group…

If this were true, food companies wouldn’t have a Regulatory team. Except every single one of them does, and they function similarly to how you describe, but without dissolving. They’re treated as a constraint that must be checked before major projects can advance. Sometimes they’re the longest-lead item on a new project and if you don’t get them involved early, your project can sink at a late stage after great expense.

The only difference is AI isn’t regulated, so they just have a vague “ethics” department with no real teeth because it’s essentially PR and has no legal consequences to back up their stance.

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

#458

Post by [deleted] »

plaidfuji wrote: post #457
seanhunter wrote: post #399

Organisationally it never works to have a group whose only job is to say no to some other group. The incentives are diametrically opposed and as a structure it can’t last. If you had an AI company and want it to be ethical you have to find a way to make ethics everyone’s responsibility, and have the consequences of poor ethics bite the people who make those bad decisions. If you just outsource it to the ethics group…

If this were true, food companies wouldn’t have a Regulatory team. Except every single one of them does, and they function similarly to how you describe, but without dissolving. They’re treated as a constraint that must be checked before major projects can advance. Sometimes they’re the longest-lead item on a new project and if you don’t get them involved early, your project can sink at a late stage after great expen…

[deleted]

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

#459

Post by expedition32 »

chii wrote: post #437
close04 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between "ethics" and "security and compliance" is that the latter is something that hits inside the company, while the former usually hits outside of the company. Poor security practices harm your teams, your data, and usually you make moderate savings at best. Poor ethics "only" harm your customers while making bank for the company. This is the real problem with ethics in a large corporation. You're n…

This is exactly why ethics doesnt work, and it is why laws work. If ethics worked, we'd have no need for laws.

Slavery ended with gunfire not hugs.

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

#460

Post by [deleted] »

plaidfuji wrote: post #457
seanhunter wrote: post #399

Organisationally it never works to have a group whose only job is to say no to some other group. The incentives are diametrically opposed and as a structure it can’t last. If you had an AI company and want it to be ethical you have to find a way to make ethics everyone’s responsibility, and have the consequences of poor ethics bite the people who make those bad decisions. If you just outsource it to the ethics group…

If this were true, food companies wouldn’t have a Regulatory team. Except every single one of them does, and they function similarly to how you describe, but without dissolving. They’re treated as a constraint that must be checked before major projects can advance. Sometimes they’re the longest-lead item on a new project and if you don’t get them involved early, your project can sink at a late stage after great expen…

[deleted]
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