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Google launches an AI contest for social good
- backpropaganda 8y agoI hate the term "AI for social good", because it reminds me that the default use of AI today is actually far from being a social good. I wish "AI for social good" was not a thing, and default use cases of AI was for good, social or otherwise.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y agoI’ll just leave this here. https://www.faception.com/ https://www.faception.com/
- viivaux 8y agoThat is horrifying. I don't suppose there'd be any way to know if companies are using this neo-phrenology during interviews?
- bassman9000 8y agohttps://www.faception.com/about-us https://www.faception.com/about-us
- renholder 8y ago>...Our technology allows predictive screening solutions and enables Preventive Actions in the public safety, smart cities and homeland security... That could never run into problems, whatsoever. /s
- MarsAscendant 8y agoSounds like the plot of Condor, the recent TV series, waiting to happen.
- Lucadg 8y agoThey claim to be able to recognize a terrorist. Seems more like an joke to me.
- paganel 8y agoWhat they probably do (among other things) is racial profiling: brown person with beard -> bigger chances of being a terrorist, white person with hipster glasses -> less chances of being a terrorist.
- rutthenut 8y agoMadness! I guess with images of this sort, it might judge that the person could be dangerous, but just on the looks of your face alone, that is just stereotyping done as a [very suspect] business. https://www.google.com/search?q=silence+of+the+lambs+hannibal&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjumMGG-f7fAhViSxUIHZdPDc0Q_AUIDigB&biw=946&bih=1147 https://www.google.com/search?q=silence+of+the+lambs+hanniba...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- i_am_nomad 8y agoPlenty of research suggests that the human brain already does this, and does so effectively, like it or not. But translating this into an algorithm is disturbing.
- taneq 8y agoOf course it does - "I don't like the look of that guy". "Dodgy looking fellow". "He had an honest face". etc. The basic principle as a first-pass heuristic is tried and tested. Kneejerk reactions to this kind of tech always seem to completely ignore the question of whether it's actually effective.
- toufiqbarhamov 8y agoI think people do realize that it’s codifying the “science” of “Ah reckon” and realize that same heuristic is famously terrible. Coding bias intentionally into an algorithm seems more like a thin justification for pre-existing profiling than any breakthrough in reading faces. It’s not hard to imagine the same behavior we seem today, but now with the excuse that “The algorithm did it.”
- Nasrudith 8y agoCynically I suspect that may be the point. I refer to such things as bias laundering. There is a very long history of "objective" measures that were tailor made to collar hated groups.
- Nasrudith 8y agoReally we have enough problems with prejudices based on stupid gut feelings without adding in Garbage In Garbage Out from magical thinkers misusing machine learning.
- Nasrudith 8y agoI must dispute the effective part greatly. Sociopaths know how to play the system and there are many fooled by style over substance - who listen 99% to how it is said and ignore the content. I have found it shocking what complete bullshit people fall for that if repeated verbatim is incredibly stupid.
- username223 8y agoIt's impossible to tell if this is a joke, or YC '19. Exciting verticals!
- chii 8y agoi thought it was a joke/satire on AI and facial recognition tech. Now i can't tell either!
- craigsmansion 8y agoIt could be it started out as a social satire ("faception", really?), but then someone send them an genuine inquiry about how many terrorists their system could catch for umptheen million dollars. How many would resist the temptation to throw some code together, ship it, and pretend it's real? After all, who's going to argue with top-notch scientific facts like: "Researchers previously knew that genetics played a large role in determining face shape, since identical twins share DNA." Criminals and terrorist-sympathisers, that's who!
- 873847892374 8y agoWhy are the Israelis behind so many dystopian technologies?
- chei0iaV 8y agoWhy are the Israelis behind so many dystopian ventures?
- 238478927349 8y agoWhy are the (i-s,r,a,e,l,i,-s) behind so many dystopian ventures? Seems like there is a comment filter around that word.
- 8972349081287 8y agoWhy are the Israelis behind so many dystopian ventures?
- yumraj 8y agoI'm curious if after they founded the company, and developed the technology, did they run their technology on their founders and employees to find out who is what - and perhaps got rid of people who were flagged.
- backpropaganda 8y agoThis example didn't even come to my mind when writing the above comment. I think even run-of-the-mill applications of AI and ML such as feed "personalization" in Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook are pretty evil. They're clearly not optimizing for value for the user but for monetizability even if the user is being shown garbage content to get them addicted. I'm a deep learning researcher, and these applications make me seriously re-consider my choices and the impact I'm having in the world.
- ai_ia 8y agoIs this for real? Or a satire like that "fake a vacation for instagram" kind of thing?
- rememberlenny 8y agoSummary: $25M for projects in a wide array of categories. Grants are $500K to $2M for one to three years of deliverables. Application of questions can be found here: https://ai.google/static/documents/impact-challenge-application.pdf https://ai.google/static/documents/impact-challenge-applicat...
- rum3 8y agoAre they going to patent the idea behind your back aswell?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- imrehg 8y ago> Who owns the intellectual property created by the grant recipients? > We believe that projects supported by our funding should be able to benefit everyone. If you are selected to receive a grant, the standard grant agreement will require any intellectual property created with grant funding from Google be made available for free to the public under a permissive open source license.
- gammateam 8y ago> be made available for free to the public under a permissive open source license. so nobody gets trade secrets and nobody gets patent rights which also sucks
- ryukafalz 8y agoI disagree. If the goal is to encourage people to build things that benefit everyone rather than just those who built it originally, this is a good way to do that. If it were me I would go a step further and require that it be released under a copyleft license rather than a permissive one, but Google seems fairly averse to copyleft licenses, and they're the ones funding this. I'm sure there are plenty of VCs out there that would fund the development of proprietary machine learning software. This is something different.
- MarsAscendant 8y agoDo you have any more info or reading on Google and copylefts?
- 8y ago
- rinchik 8y agoThis is awesome! "crowdsourcing" AI tech is a pretty smart business move, esp considering it's wrapped with "social good". This initiative can bring a lot of talented and sentimental minds together, and who knows.. it can possibly put a start to a next google product! And if nothing comes out of it.. who cares? Still a marketing win (assuming this gains some traction). I expected nothing less from the idle minds at this corp.
- rum3 8y agoBringing more talented minds to Google to work on another Google project will not benefit the social good. It seems this is just a PR trick to lure in more AI talent so they can put them to work on something that will not benefit people at all.
- drb91 8y agoYou said so much without pointing out any material benefits to humanity.
- krageon 8y agoI honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or ironic or serious here. The rules state I have to take the most charitable reading, which I guess would be sarcasm. In any case, it's very difficult to tell.
- rinchik 8y agoI'm a capitalist at heart and I despise Marxism and all dystopian theories and ideas that came out of it (Leninism.. and all that other socialist crap). Capitalism is not perfect but it's the only system that works. The only system that creates/generates value. My comment wasn't a bitchy remark against G, but more a "thinking out loud" kind of thing. EDIT: Capitalism was edited out from the comment above (in case if anyone's wondering what am I talking about).
- rum3 8y agoSorry I modified the post a bit late there. So far capitalism has destroyed the planet and brought us a bunch of shit we do not need, most of which is broken already because of the poor quality.
- theseadroid 8y agoOff the main topic, but I'm a scientific method believer at heart and I hope we can improve or invent a better system than capitalism one day. If we treat social science more like a science then there's no need to use words such as "crap" or "only". Instead we should keep our heart open for its improvements, maybe even borrowing ideas from existing theories such as socialism.
- rinchik 8y agoAbsolutely! All hands up for improvement (there are always opportunities for further enhancements) and keeping our minds (not hearts) open.
- drb91 8y agoYikes, keep this shit off HN, nobody wants to know what you think about this. I am partial to Marx myself, Capitalism is an amoral excuse for greed that has repeatedly destroyed itself and had to be saved many times, and I would hate to have to fight with people on the internet when I was hoping to enjoy today.
- rinchik 8y ago
- tchaffee 8y agoIs this anything like "don't be evil"? I want to try to not be cynical. But so much of ethical concern, especially regarding privacy, has come out of the Google corner in the past few years that the "for social good" part instantly makes me paranoid about what it will really eventually be used for. And the story [1] about Google patenting a person's work after an interview comes to mind. Having got that off my chest, hopefully the participants read the legal terms very carefully and might even consider having a lawyer review them. [1] https://patentpandas.org/stories/company-patented-my-idea https://patentpandas.org/stories/company-patented-my-idea
- lgleason 8y agoWhen Google advertises a project for "Social Good", it really means, "In line with our liberal progressive political beliefs". There are a lot of things that Google is, altruistic is not one of them.
- taneq 8y agoI don't imagine a whole lot of altruists donate significant sums of money to projects that run contrary to their beliefs.
- mrfusion 8y agoThe deadline for applications is in two days. January 22. Looks like this was launched a few months ago?
- joshvm 8y agoYes, this was online before Christmas (at least)
- LaserToy 8y agoWhat is AI?
- piyush_soni 8y agoThe negativity here is saddening. So what if it is for PR? How many other companies are doing these things even for that? Isn't it eventually promoting AI projects that have at least some social good in their objectives?
- tchaffee 8y agoWell that's not a rhetorical question really. I think based on recent past experience with Google people have actual concerns about whether it will be for social good in the long term. For me this is similar to what's happened in the GMO space. Potentially great technology that gets more of a bad name than it deserves because the players involved have done some really disturbing stuff before they ever got involved in GMO. Getting back to tech, would it be overly negative to have a little healthy paranoia about Facebook contributing to privacy research?
- mrep 8y agoI'm out of the loop. What has the food/GMO industry done that is disturbing?
- fixermark 8y agoThey managed to revolutionize agriculture and stave off the starvation apocalypse that the people of the '50s and '60s were predicting. ... oh, I misread your question; I thought you asked "How did the food / GMO industry save the world?"
- rum3 8y agoAnd now everybody has cancer and the food is tasteless.
- tchaffee 8y agoThe industry as a whole? I'm not sure I could make that claim. And I'm somewhat well informed having close family that work in agriculture. But take one major player as an example, Monsanto (now owned by Bayer): - Major producer of DDT. Evidence that DDT was causing widespread environmental damage was clear by the 1960s but it took the US government until the 1970s to finally ban it. Then the industry sued the US government to try to overturn the ban. Who tries to continue selling a product that has caused widespread environmental damage? - Producer of Agent Orange. Another "perfectly safe" chemical. Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems as a result of Agent Orange contamination. I'm not sure how many US veterans were affected. - Major producer of PCBs. Which are later banned due to being highly environmentally toxic, cause cancer in animals and probably humans too. - Producer of bovine growth hormone, another "perfectly safe chemical". rBST has not been allowed since at least 2000 on the market in Canada, or since 1990 the European Union. Other countries have banned it. I don't think the studies on how it might affect humans are conclusive but there are concerns. For sure the studies on how it can negatively affect cows are more solid. - They have been convicted of bribery in order to get government approval. At what point do you stop trusting? And again, I don't mean the science and GMOs themselves. I mean the company who is making claims that GMOs are perfectly safe for both humans and the environment. Scientists are not so bold. Read the studies to see disclaimers and healthy doubt in those studies. Usually specifically spelled out. Disclaimers and doubts that are never mentioned by Monsanto when they publicly speak about their products. If they started being far more careful with their "perfectly safe" rhetoric, I might change my mind about them. So far, that hasn't happened. I can't say if on the whole Monsanto has been somewhat responsible and well-behaved as a company. But I can say that based on just the list above, I would be very hesitant to trust any claims they make about the safety of any agricultural product, especially those involving chemicals. I'm sure that someone can / will come in with a defense of Monsanto or arguments about each point above. The devil surely is in the details. But who has time to sort through hundreds of studies and court cases? Fair or not, we will continue using heuristics to decide who we trust. Maybe Facebook does in fact treat my data ethically and each time they get caught with privacy concerns or taken to court it was "just an honest mistake". Are you willing to spend tens or hundreds of hours of your free time trying to figure that out? Or will you use a heuristic and just be cautious with trusting what Facebook will do with your data?
- ThomPete 8y agoAI for social good is one of those things that are kind of absurd in it's very premise. AI is not a thing we program to then deliver abstract terms like social good. It's a thing we program to do specific things which might then end up being used to do social good.
- BucketSort 8y agoYeah... who ever suggested "AI IS a thing we program to then deliver abstract terms like social good"? Are you refuting a notion that no one holds? Of course the contest at hand is to use AI technology to solve various problems we deem to be socially good. Not to rigorously define social good and have an AI solve it.
- Ibethewalrus 8y agoSpec work?
- Eli_P 8y agoExcerpted from their principles[1]: [...] we will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas: 1. that cause or are likely to cause overall harm [...] 2. [...] Weapons [...] 3. [...] that gather or use information for surveillance [...] 4. [...] whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights [...] [...] As our experience in this space deepens, this list may evolve. [...] The last sentence gave me a crack, it was definitely generated by some DeepMind-AI called DeepSarcasm. [1] https://ai.google/principles/ https://ai.google/principles/
- m0zg 8y agoQuick, someone suggest an AI-based project to defeat Chinese censorship. :-)
- 5partan 8y agoDrop the advertising business, social good automatically increases, no AI needed :)
- mac01021 8y agoAre you saying that the world was better off before google? Or that there's a practical, socially preferable way for google to sustain its search engine without ad revenue?
- exabrial 8y agoNo, Google in 2003 may have, but today's Google is only interested in exploiting your friends and family.
- d--b 8y agoThis is weird. 1. Why does it need AI? Why not just fund stuff that do social good? Instead of giving out computing credits that will eventually run out. 2. The successful projects joins a startup accelerator. Wtf? This guys really lost track of what charity means.
- __s 8y agore 1, rephrase that on funding mosquito nets specifically 1. Why does it need mosquito nets? Why not just fund stuff that do social good? Instead of giving out mosquito nets that will eventually deterioate
- throwaway2048 8y agoBecause its an obvious PR move to try to improve the standing of "AI" as mostly a technology for companies like Google to exploit your data with to your detriment.
- withhighprod 8y agoNLP AI is still doing “slot filling”. Big deal
- justin_evans 8y agoSome of the technical fields in which AI plays a significant part include speech recognition, learning, planning, and problem-solving. The progress in the Articifical domain has produced several AI-based applications in different fields. Here i found an article will be glad to hear from you: https://mobinspire.com/blogs/how-ai-is-influencing-mobile-technology/ https://mobinspire.com/blogs/how-ai-is-influencing-mobile-te...
- sudoaza 8y agoAI communism is here
- youtea 8y agoAs a small social enterprise with ambitions to use data to improve the work of local health/activity/wellbeing charities, the offer of help appeals to us so we're applying. I get the various arguments here but on balance, what would we achieve by denying their help.