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Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

theguardian.com

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Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#71

Post by Aurornis »

rkagerer wrote: post #19

Google used AI to summarize the ~200 questions its employees posed ahead of this meeting regarding its DEI and AI policies. The final two paragraphs of the article are telling: The third-most-popular question employees asked was why the AI summaries were so bad. “The AI summaries of questions on Ask are terrible. Can we go back to answering the questions people actually asked?” it read. I thought summarization was a…

Summarization can be okay when letting you know the general content of a longer document or conversation.

Summarization is universally disappointing when it tries to reduce a lot of different pieces of information (like answers to a lot of different questions) into a much smaller number of bullet points.

It’s simply not possible to compress a lot of disparate pieces of information into a much smaller set of sentences.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#72

Post by sympil »

whimsicalism wrote: post #61
sympil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEI is not about preferential hiring. It’s the opposite. It’s about broadening the perspectives so that one group that has enjoyed historical preferential hiring no longer gets preferential treatment.

is affirmative action preferential? idk what to tell you, the way it plays out in practice is preferential on the basis of race. maybe that’s okay, but that is absolutely what it means

White men in the U.S. have a hard time coming to grips with living in a society where women have sexual autonomy and where they are subjected to genuine competition for jobs. Every POC hire over a white man must be becuase of DEI!

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#73

Post by edmundsauto »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #58
CharlieDigital wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these programs turned into a hub of biased discriminatory behavior Professional sports went through a "DEI" phase. Despite some rough patches, I'd say that it worked out for the better as a whole if you look at it in retrospect. Similarly, individual companies may have fumbled DEI initiatives, but years on, I think it will have had a (small) positive impact.

How does professional sports go through a DEI phase?? Professional sports are one of the few true meritocracies in the world, where the best players, no matter their race, religion or gender, will play.

I have a more nuanced take on whether professional sports are actually a meritocracy. It depends on the level at which you look. Yes, in any given event it’s generally fair to say the rules are equitable. However, look at golf - we can either accept white people have some genetic advantage, or that access is not equal and the best talent never got a chance to develop. This could be extended to other leagues as well.

Do you see it differently?

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#74

Post by kbrannigan »

For Many people on Hacker News, DEI has become synonymous with unqualification, implying that if a non‑white person works at a company, they're only there because of these programs, and are taking opportunities away from more qualified white men.

In their view, these employees don't truly deserve their positions.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#75

Post by whimsicalism »

sympil wrote: post #72
whimsicalism wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is affirmative action preferential? idk what to tell you, the way it plays out in practice is preferential on the basis of race. maybe that’s okay, but that is absolutely what it means

White men in the U.S. have a hard time coming to grips with living in a society where women have sexual autonomy and where they are subjected to genuine competition for jobs. Every POC hire over a white man must be becuase of DEI!

not sure who you are talking to, but it certainly isn’t stuff in my comment.

have a good one, maybe spend a little less time on the news

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#76

Post by Aachen »

whimsicalism wrote: post #65
Aachen wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's an aa? I get American Airlines when I duck it and I know of libaa but that doesn't fit the context either

affirmative action. you can also generally just copy and paste into chatgpt and it will be able to answer your question

(And burn a tree in the process as compared to a human answer) Thanks for clarifying!

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#77

Post by whimsicalism »

Aachen wrote: post #76
whimsicalism wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

affirmative action. you can also generally just copy and paste into chatgpt and it will be able to answer your question

(And burn a tree in the process as compared to a human answer) Thanks for clarifying!

a chatgpt query is like 10x a google query (before they added LLM summary), you’d have more impact cutting out meat or taking fewer flights

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#78

Post by cauch »

whimsicalism wrote: post #61
sympil wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DEI is not about preferential hiring. It’s the opposite. It’s about broadening the perspectives so that one group that has enjoyed historical preferential hiring no longer gets preferential treatment.

is affirmative action preferential? idk what to tell you, the way it plays out in practice is preferential on the basis of race. maybe that’s okay, but that is absolutely what it means

I think the point is that a big bunch of studies really point to the fact that if you have two persons with a real merit score of 8/10 (for example), the one from a minority will be considered, due to unconscious biases, as having a score of 7/10 instead.

So, yes, there is a correction and this correction is based on race because this is the correct variable to de-bias the evaluation. But does it mean "preferential"? The point is to correct the evaluation such that this evaluation is not preferential and is neutral with respect to the race.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#79

Post by trhway »

jdlyga wrote: post #52

DEI will be back under a different name because it's a problem that needs to be solved. It's like the huge backlash against affirmative action.

Solution of a problem starts from stating and understanding of the problem. The DEI statement and understanding of the problem was alike USSR’s “we have too many Jews in the University” and thus similar result.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#80

Post by tadfisher »

rl3 wrote: post #27

Microsoft interestingly enough appears to be standing their ground on DEI. [0] Yet, they hopped on the layoff train this time around with a particularly nasty twist. [1] Perhaps they were afraid they'd need to be sociopathic in at least one regard, lest they buck the wider ethos lately. Facebook for example, offered generous severance packages but threw DEI in the trash immediately. [2] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/20…

That is nothing new for Microsoft. I don't think they invented stack-ranking, but they were doing it basically from the 90s until Ballmer left. That's where you're required to cut the bottom 20% of your team every year.
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