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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

#891

Post by goatlover »

oh_sigh wrote: post #26
mgraczyk wrote: 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…

As someone fairly familiar with the SJWs in a variety of FANGs, motherboard/mainboard doesn't even offend me any more. I kind of get it, even though it is lame logic. I'm waiting until they start marking "Latino" as non-inclusive, and start forcing "Latinx".

I've only ever heard it from a few white people and NPR.

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

#892

Post by alpaca128 »

creakingstairs wrote: post #866
ajyotirmay wrote: post #836

I still wonder, how blacklist/whitelist or master/slave has helped or promoted slavery and racism. And how many devs who are from black communities offended by the use of these terms, at least before it was made to be an issue in mainstream. Because right now I feel like this is a "woke feminist" issue. And I'm not a white person. I've never thought otherwise of these words, but maybe that can be because of the mixed…

The biggest annoyance for me is that the word/woke policing throws out the most important thing: context. We don’t punish people for crimes until we’ve had a look at the context and establish their specific intention (Strict liability withstanding) so why are we not doing the same with words and sentences? Master/slave debacle is a prime example. Yes it can be used offensively. But for gods sake, look at the context!…

Exactly, that's the big problem with so many of these ideas - they ignore common sense, making them look like tone-deaf measures created in bad faith. Which they probably are.

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

#893

Post by ZeroGravitas »

rayiner wrote: post #746
tomp wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with “white” and everything to do with regressive left. Here is Kamala Harris, an Indian-Black American, pushing “Latinx”: https://mobile.twitter.com/kamalaharris/status/1290733001320...

You can’t overlook the role that white progressives play in selectively amplifying minority voices. I can’t get on CNN to give the “Bangladeshi guy take” on rising crime by saying stuff most Bangladeshi people agree with. I have to provide a Bangladeshi perspective that is appealing to the white progressives that make the decisions at CNN. There’s a deep synergy here that exploits the fact that most Americans have li…

So, progressive groups support minorities, and then promote minorities with progressive opinions, and you don't like that because you're a minority with non-progressive views and feel underrepresented?

I'm not sure I see the problem here? If there is a problem isn't it because minority groups that support regressive politics (say like the 'log cabin Republicans') don't get promoted by their fellow regressives as much? Shouldn't Republicans be amplifying the voice of African-American homophobes, and Gay racists more so that everyone can see that not all minorities are progressive and some want to work together to hold back minority groups they aren't part of?

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

#894

Post by goatlover »

foota wrote: post #651
cowl wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if we think that we should describe mothers as birthing persons Mother definitely does not mean birthing person. The easiest example is adoption. Would would you call the mother in that case? Adoptive Female Parent goes again against the 'rule' because it has female in there. Parent 1/Parent 2? no it has Hierarchy.

I think you're looking for the word parent?

A female parent is a mother. That's what their children call them, not "parent", with allowances for foster children and older adopted kids calling them by their first name.

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

#895

Post by olyjohn »

elihu wrote: post #558
dekhn wrote: 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.

Does "motherboard" even make sense as a term? It's not like a motherboard gives birth to little baby boards that eventually grow up to be mother and father boards of their own. It's just one of those weird words we accept because it's been part of a shared vocabulary for so long. I don't particularly see any harm in assigning a gender role to a hardware device, but I don't see anything is particularly gained either.…

Not all mothers give birth to their children. Seems like you're not being very inclusive to parents of adopted children.

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

#896

Post by jhugo »

aendruk wrote: post #715
ridaj wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nudging system like this better have a much higher signal to noise ratio otherwise it really amps up the clippy-like annoyance. Keep in mind this isn't something you have to go turn on in a menu for "help me write inclusively", it's enabled by default for all; and while I might personally appreciate the reminders when they do work, I'm not sure as many users of the software think playing word police should be a pri…

Yes. I worry that I’m being misunderstood. - It would be nice to improve our antiquated language. I’m thankful that other people have the time and expertise to work on this. - Changing language by decree from our tech overlords is dystopian. Google in particular I don’t trust to act in good faith. Both thoughts can be held simultaneously.

> - It would be nice to improve our antiquated language. I’m thankful that other people have the time and expertise to work on this.

Language constantly evolves through use, and historically this has worked very well. Why is it suddenly necessary for people to "work on" it?

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

#897

Post by jhugo »

n8ta wrote: post #869
astrange wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While it's hilarious, it's understandable IMHO - just basic statistics, she is more often used in front of pretty/ugly. It's showing a glitch in our society more than a glitch in Google AI. Well, this doesn't necessarily show you facts about society because there's no particular reason to think the training set distribution is the same as anything in the real world.

You don't think it's reasonable to think the training set comes from the real world? Why not? Seems like a reasonable assumption to me. The alternative is they are carefully curating a training set (google historically unwilling to do anything manually) or writing one themselves???

They said the training set distribution.

It's frankly impossible that they have a training set without any biases, though I'm sure they worked to eliminate the ones they could think of (which itself would have bias).

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

#898

Post by jhugo »

sacrosancty wrote: post #799
johnnyanmac wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still unironically want a singular variant to rise in popularity, don't particularly care what. There are so many times when "they" comes up and I have no clue if we're talking about a person or a group. There's already enough pronoun ambiguity when talking about single subjects without intoducing a dimension of plurality ambiguity.

If you think that's bad, you should see how ambiguous the plurality of the gender-neutral 2nd person pronoun is!

New Zealand (maybe Australia too?) has a solution for that in informal speech: yous!

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

#899

Post by anonymoushn »

wchar_t wrote: post #669
pvillano wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if only English had a gender neutral pronoun that could be used by default when the gender of the subject isn't provided :thinking:

Many folks I know use "they". Works well enough, I think.

Shall we write "they is pretty" or shall we wonder how many people we are talking about?

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

#900

Post by anonymoushn »

sacrosancty wrote: post #799
johnnyanmac wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still unironically want a singular variant to rise in popularity, don't particularly care what. There are so many times when "they" comes up and I have no clue if we're talking about a person or a group. There's already enough pronoun ambiguity when talking about single subjects without intoducing a dimension of plurality ambiguity.

If you think that's bad, you should see how ambiguous the plurality of the gender-neutral 2nd person pronoun is!

In some geographic areas, we have "you", "y'all" and "all y'all" which correspond to "tú", "vosotros", and "todos vosotros".
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