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Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

cnn.com

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Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#51

Post by fatbird »

_y5hn wrote: post #47
fatbird wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ Exactly. The secondary motivation is the possibility of benefiting from some basic research. It's ultimately a credibility play, which makes their handling of the whole affair so mind-bogglingly dumb. There would have been no problem at all for Gebru to have presented her supposedly anti-Google paper; zero practical consequence for Google.

On the contrary: The research paper is evidence of knowingly committing later wrongdoings.

As we debate this, Google has been credibibly accused of the most basic and wide-ranging antitrust violations, and whether they actually pay a price for it, assuming the accusations are true, isn't a slam dunk.

Knowingly committing ethical violations with AI seems likely pretty low on their list of concerns.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#52

Post by _y5hn »

baryphonic wrote: post #31
bnjms wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ridiculous. It’s completely unnatural and can’t be worked into the language in a day to day way. They should have chosen another vowel like the short ‘e’, latiné.

Truly astounding when the rallying cry to "end white supremacy" and "give representation to underprivileged/underrepresented groups" involves light-skinned Anglophone people dictating to darker-skinned Spanish-speaking people how the Spanish language should work, and in a way that betrays total ignorance of actually communicating in Spanish.

See the new series, The Long Story, it's hillarious and sad.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#53

Post by bisectable »

watisgoingon wrote: post #35
OneGuy123 wrote: post #5

Why is "black" being spelled with a capital "B"?

why is it even being mentioned? i miss hacker culture from the early internet, where it didnt matter your age, your sexuality, your "race"; we're all human beings :/ here's a conjecture: maybe racism is not real, maybe it's something that seems real but isn't, like "evil". it just seems so easy to find counterexamples to racist ideas. hate black people? surely i can introduce you to one who is pretty cool. hate white…

Yugoslavia is a cautionary tale. Humans (and possibly much older than humans) have an builtin in-group / out-group mechanism which, left unchecked, leads to widespread ethnic hatred. It doesn't take much to prime the bomb besides a steady dose of confirmation of the other group's evil ways, of which we have an ample supply thanks to the proliferation of sensationalistic (social) media. Our lives have become an incessant outrage stream. The clock is ticking...

Hacker culture was born at the zenith of American liberalism, just after its ideals had triumphed over Soviet Union's self-destructing spiral. Those times may never come back, and liberalism itself is on life support :(

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#54

Post by ergocoder »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #46
thenightcrawler wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it public before she got fired?

It was, yes. Public statements she made before getting fired include: > A Black woman can't survive around here doing any type of research let alone research thats designed to make those in the majority uncomfortable. And guess who can apparently unilaterally order you to do things without even thinking you're someone they should converse with. ( https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824 ) > [The VPs…

While we are at it, she also called out Jeff Dean 6 months ago to have Jeff Dean say "personal attacks are not okay".

https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360

The whole interaction is so cringey and screams toxicity.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#55

Post by oh_sigh »

shoo wrote: post #30

One thing I've wondered: what is the purpose of Google's ethical AI group? What utility does it provide to the corporation? I suspect the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ (or less kindly, corporate propaganda) - to help mitigate damage to Google's brands and reputation by public concern surrounding artificial intelligence. It is well understood that it can be difficult to get someo…

Doesn't the obvious, honest answer make the most sense? Someone in Google management doesn't want their products acting unethically - merely because it is unethical?

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#56

Post by m463 »

shoo wrote: post #30

One thing I've wondered: what is the purpose of Google's ethical AI group? What utility does it provide to the corporation? I suspect the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ (or less kindly, corporate propaganda) - to help mitigate damage to Google's brands and reputation by public concern surrounding artificial intelligence. It is well understood that it can be difficult to get someo…

There's one other use for it - and maybe this qualifies as PR - hiring.

Super-intelligent folks are the target of google's hiring.

I suspect these types of people can work anywhere, they get to pick and choose.

If they can pick and choose, they will have other motivations, like being able to make a difference, and not blindly create a dystopia for everyone on the planet.

So... having an Ethical AI group lets people join google, look themselves in the mirror every day, and know their employer is trying to do things right.

I don't know what the reality is of an Ethical AI group. But having a good one that works might make the difference hiring exceptional people.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #7
OneGuy123 wrote: post #5

Why is "black" being spelled with a capital "B"?

This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It emphasises blackness as an identity, i.e. it is a proper noun, the name of an ethnic group, and not just an adjective describing their skin colour. I can't say I agree that society should be fracturing into more identities instead of fewer, or that people should strongly identify with their race, but that's the trend and that's we're at with…

> This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets.

It's not particularly new; labels used as names of racial identity groups have been capitalized for a long time; “Black” as a proper noun or proper adjective in that context has been capitalized for a long time (used as a common adjective describing skin color it isn't, and the usages can be hard to differentiate otherwise.)

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#58

Post by ergocoder »

mooneater wrote: post #37

> accepted her resignation immediately In saying "resignation", CNN is presenting the management framing -- as many people have pointed out, she was fired. Bloomberg states both sides of that: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-ai... As does The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158501/timnit-gebru-tea...

I have no idea why this matters. Timnit gave an ultimatum (i.e. do this or I'll leave). Google agreed to her condition of parting way.

This is like I go to my boss and ask for a $1 billion dollars. Otherwise, I'll leave. Then, my boss decides that I should leave since the boss can't give me $1b. Then, I keep telling my friends that "well, I'm actually fired.". huh?

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#59

Post by throwawaysea »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #39
themacguffinman wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an editorial style that some publications (including CNN) are adopting in service of racial sensitivity. CNN has mandated that all staff must capitalize both "Black" and "White" [1]: > Both words denote a racial or ethnic identity and therefore should be upper case when referring to a person, community, culture, etc., in the same way CNN capitalizes other descriptors of race, ethnicity and shared identity, inclu…

At least CNN is being consistent. NY Times is capitalizing Black but not White, and they seem to be using tortured logic in my opinion to explain the discrepancy: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black...

The AP similarly used mental gymnastics to justify capitalizing black but not white: see https://apnews.com/article/7e36c00c5af0436abc09e051261fff1f and https://apnews.com/article/9105661462

It’s remarkable that journalists can claim, as the AP does, that white peoples don’t have a shared culture when they also write articles ascribing a culture to white people and blaming it for all of society’s problems. The obvious inconsistency just seems like racism against white people.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#60

Post by TakuYam »

doubleunplussed wrote: post #7
OneGuy123 wrote: post #5

Why is "black" being spelled with a capital "B"?

This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It emphasises blackness as an identity, i.e. it is a proper noun, the name of an ethnic group, and not just an adjective describing their skin colour. I can't say I agree that society should be fracturing into more identities instead of fewer, or that people should strongly identify with their race, but that's the trend and that's we're at with…

Is blackness an identity though? I feels rather racist to diminish substantial cultural differences and experiences just because a group of people may have one common physical characteristic.
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