5 ms·
I'd like it if you were a bit more specific :). This will remain a matter of interpretation and, while my reasoning may be sound, your interpretation may diffe
by ipsa 8y ago
I'd like it if you were a bit more specific :).
This will remain a matter of interpretation and, while my reasoning may be sound, your interpretation may differ (much like those employees that pose that designing and developing a censored and spying China search engine app is consistent with "organize the world's information...").
First off, some premises:
- Information Retrieval, Ranking, Spam filtering, etc. are part of AI. Dragonfly applies to these principles.
- Publishing the AI at Google Principles and packaging it the way they did, allows me as an outsider to hold Google accountable to these principles, question their leadership, and critique them if they apparently skirt these principles.
- China's government spying on political dissidents violates international norms on surveillance.
- Google shut out privacy and security teams from evaluating project Dragonfly.
- Shutting out security teams makes it harder to build projects designed and tested for user security.
- Shutting out privacy teams makes it harder to build projects designed and tested for user privacy. Censored search terms are not transparent. You don't control which data of yours get shared with the government.
- Sundar Pichai lied to employees when he said the project was just an innocent proof-of-concept. There was no room for many voices in that conversation, because people lacked moral authority to form an opinion on the matter (they were kept in the dark).
- A fully operational Dragonfly project would make it impossible for Chinese users to use Google to find information about this very controversy (AKA: Google and its behavior itself becomes part of censorship)
- Human Right Organizations were correct in denouncing Dragonfly for its potential to do damage to Human Rights.
- Getting in trouble with the government over search terms that may denote a political preference opposed to the government causes an unjust impact.
- Censored search terms (without showing a notice: "Some results may have been censored it accordance with Chinese law") remove control from humans without any recourse or opportunity for feedback (or choosing another company). By facilitating a censored search engine Google can't point at a government and say: It was entirely their fault.
- A Chinese Google Search Engine which leaks user data to the government is easily adaptable to harmful usage (with little power for Google to push back/notice/monitor once deployed).
- A Chinese Google Search Engine will have significant impact.
- Google is deeply involved, making a custom solution, which enlarges their duties and responsibilities.
- The (user) benefits do not substantially outweight the potential for grave harm
- A censored and spying government-controlled search engine can be viewed as an information warfare weapon.
With these premises in mind, I see them violating all the principles, but one.
- Buge 8y agoCalling a search engine AI seems a little strange. >violates international norms The international norm (Microsoft, Apple, every other big company) is to obey China's command. > Google shut out privacy and security teams from evaluating project Dragonfly. From the article it sounds like that happened in 2017, before the AI principles existed. >would make it impossible for Chinese users to use Google to find information about this very controversy It wouldn't make it impossible, it's already impossible. (Assuming you don't use a VPN.) > The (user) benefits do not substantially outweight the potential for grave harm What grave harm would be caused that doesn't already exist?
- ipsa 8y ago> Calling a search engine AI seems a little strange. It's standard in industry. Search is an AI problem. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370299000752 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000437029... > The international norm (Microsoft, Apple, every other big company) is to obey China's command. No that's what companies without AI guidelines do. Violating international norms is when the US, Germany, and Japan would complain when their governments would surveil as much and as invasive as China is doing. China's surveillance apparatus is NOT the international norm! > From the article it sounds like that happened in 2017, before the AI principles existed. Yes. So Sundar Pichai introduced those guidelines, knewing full well that they were dead in the water. > It wouldn't make it impossible, it's already impossible. One of the scariest conclusions. Really pause and take it in. How significant is this? > What grave harm would be caused that doesn't already exist? This is a weird reasoning for me. It reads to me as similar to: People are going to die anyway, what grave harm would be caused by murdering them by your own hands?
- fulafel 8y agoSearch is definitely one of the canonical AI applications.