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Does he communicate this poorly within his own organizations? Clarity is the most basic quality in leadership.

alkibiades 8y ago
in my experience most tech ceos just use platitudes constantly. having worked at a few large companies, they do it internally too. that way they have latitude to do anything they want
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  From the Machiavellian / realpolitik view, there is just little incentive for them to be fully transparent. Partly, because we can't hold them to account anyhow, but also because many of us cannot handle the truth, i.e. 'we don't want to see how the sausage is made.' Twitter now has the utterly impossible task of minding/nannying the language used by millions of people, in social and legal context. Whenever they get it 'wrong' (by some journalists standard) they get blasted. It's possible they could be doing it better, but it's nary an impossible challenge, at least not without some fundamental changes to the service.
  - alkibiades 8y ago
    i’m more worried journalists will bully them into completely abandoning any precept of free speech
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      Well yes, this is a huge concern. Do we really want Jack and Zuck having the final say on what we can and cannot do? I'm sure they do not want this responsibility. They've just painted themselves into a corner with it. Given how deeply contextualized information is ... I'm even doubtful AI is on the horizon. And may of the 'decisions' made to ban posts/accounts theoretically require some heavy and contemplate deliberation, and even legal analysis. It just doesn't work, we need to re-think all of this.
      - Mindwipe 8y ago
        > I'm sure they do not want this responsibility. They've just painted themselves into a corner with it. Indeed, they needed to be more honest upfront and say that the demands from certain quarters aren't possible. That's a hard thing to be honest about, but at least you'd be setting realistic expectations.
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        From a PR perspective, they can never say that. The 'correct answer' is "We're not doing so well, but we're working on it". Just pretend to be humble and waive your hands until the press moves onto some other narrative.
      - ahartman00 8y ago
        "I'm even doubtful AI is on the horizon" Agreed. I dont think this paper was the one I was looking for, but it will do. [1] The authors are working on handling negation in sentiment analysis. Ie, this movie is good, this movie is not good, this movie is not very good. "One of the most important sub tasks in sentiment analysis is to determine the sequence of words affected by negation. Most of the existing sentiment analysis systems used traditional methods based on static window and punctuation marks to determine the scope of negation. However, these methods do not offer satisfactory performance due to variability in the negation scope, inability to deal with linguistic features and improper word sense disambiguation. " [2] [1] Sorry to be in a hurry, i just think this point is important given the hype around AI, and all the talk about using AI to "manage" human conversations. Look up AI winter if you want to learn about hype, AI, and expectations :) [2] http://www.jcomputers.us/vol12/jcp1205-11.pdf http://www.jcomputers.us/vol12/jcp1205-11.pdf
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        Those are good points. But the more important issue will be context. For example, in order for sentiment to be 'racist' - the ethnic nature of the participants may have to be known. So it's not about 'analyzing a statement' so much as it is understanding so much about people, individuals, current thresholds for tolerance, current events. Etc. etc.. It's impossible to look at a 'post' in total isolation, it has to be put in the context of the real world which is way beyond AI today. So it's not possible to 'train' AI simply by putting 'sentiment' as an input parameter. You'd have to 'train' NN's with inputs that include the entirety of CNN, Wikipedia and pop culture!
keerthiko 8y ago
i feel like clarity is the rarest quality in tech leadership.
- VectorLock 8y ago
  Couched is the lingua franca.

in my experience most tech ceos just use platitudes constantly. having worked at a few large companies, they do it internally too. that way they have latitude to do anything they want

sonnyblarney 8y ago
From the Machiavellian / realpolitik view, there is just little incentive for them to be fully transparent. Partly, because we can't hold them to account anyhow, but also because many of us cannot handle the truth, i.e. 'we don't want to see how the sausage is made.' Twitter now has the utterly impossible task of minding/nannying the language used by millions of people, in social and legal context. Whenever they get it 'wrong' (by some journalists standard) they get blasted. It's possible they could be doing it better, but it's nary an impossible challenge, at least not without some fundamental changes to the service.
- alkibiades 8y ago
  i’m more worried journalists will bully them into completely abandoning any precept of free speech
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Well yes, this is a huge concern. Do we really want Jack and Zuck having the final say on what we can and cannot do? I'm sure they do not want this responsibility. They've just painted themselves into a corner with it. Given how deeply contextualized information is ... I'm even doubtful AI is on the horizon. And may of the 'decisions' made to ban posts/accounts theoretically require some heavy and contemplate deliberation, and even legal analysis. It just doesn't work, we need to re-think all of this.
    - Mindwipe 8y ago
      > I'm sure they do not want this responsibility. They've just painted themselves into a corner with it. Indeed, they needed to be more honest upfront and say that the demands from certain quarters aren't possible. That's a hard thing to be honest about, but at least you'd be setting realistic expectations.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        From a PR perspective, they can never say that. The 'correct answer' is "We're not doing so well, but we're working on it". Just pretend to be humble and waive your hands until the press moves onto some other narrative.
    - ahartman00 8y ago
      "I'm even doubtful AI is on the horizon" Agreed. I dont think this paper was the one I was looking for, but it will do. [1] The authors are working on handling negation in sentiment analysis. Ie, this movie is good, this movie is not good, this movie is not very good. "One of the most important sub tasks in sentiment analysis is to determine the sequence of words affected by negation. Most of the existing sentiment analysis systems used traditional methods based on static window and punctuation marks to determine the scope of negation. However, these methods do not offer satisfactory performance due to variability in the negation scope, inability to deal with linguistic features and improper word sense disambiguation. " [2] [1] Sorry to be in a hurry, i just think this point is important given the hype around AI, and all the talk about using AI to "manage" human conversations. Look up AI winter if you want to learn about hype, AI, and expectations :) [2] http://www.jcomputers.us/vol12/jcp1205-11.pdf http://www.jcomputers.us/vol12/jcp1205-11.pdf
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        Those are good points. But the more important issue will be context. For example, in order for sentiment to be 'racist' - the ethnic nature of the participants may have to be known. So it's not about 'analyzing a statement' so much as it is understanding so much about people, individuals, current thresholds for tolerance, current events. Etc. etc.. It's impossible to look at a 'post' in total isolation, it has to be put in the context of the real world which is way beyond AI today. So it's not possible to 'train' AI simply by putting 'sentiment' as an input parameter. You'd have to 'train' NN's with inputs that include the entirety of CNN, Wikipedia and pop culture!

keerthiko 8y ago

i feel like clarity is the rarest quality in tech leadership.

VectorLock 8y ago
Couched is the lingua franca.