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People are protesting it because she's unqualified and holds abhorrent positions on issues like climate change and LGBTQ rights. This is a board concerned with

People are protesting it because she's unqualified and holds abhorrent positions on issues like climate change and LGBTQ rights. This is a board concerned with AI Ethics, and so diversity isn't really an important part of the game. If she forwards positions which are unethical, and would forward a vision of AI that is unethical, then she should not be on the board. Google shouldn't be so meek as to pretend that she has a valuable perspective on these issues merely being being conservative. Conservatives have been wrong on incredibly important issues many times before.

Robelius 8y ago
Isn't the point of having different viewpoints so that they can argue over what is ethical? What's the point of a board to make decisions if everyone fundamentally believes the same thing? At that point, you already made your decisions and are trying to reinforce them in an echo chamber. When some people say they want a diverse field of thought, what they really mean is they want a diverse field of thought that they agree with. I don't agree with some of her views, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have a voice.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Ar-Curunir 8y ago
  Not every viewpoint deserves equal space or time. One such useless viewpoint is that "Trans people shouldn't exist"
  - true_religion 8y ago
    The UN human rights council has Saudi Arabia and the US on it, and they vehemently disagree on issues all the time.
    - woodruffw 8y ago
      This appears to be a better argument for excluding Saudi Arabia from the UN HRC than the position that all viewpoints are worth hearing. It's the Human Rights Council after all, not the Human Rights Skeptics Council.
    - rat87 8y ago
      I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons the UN human rights council is considered a useless organization
    - mike00632 8y ago
      This fact is normally used to discredit the UN Human Rights Council.
  - Bendingo 8y ago
    Did the ex board member actually say this exact statement? Or are you paraphrasing and dramatising for effect? Such an inflammatory quote should surely have a reference to be taken seriously
    - Ar-Curunir 8y ago
      From the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497
      - repolfx 8y ago
        That tweet doesn't include anything even close to "trans people shouldn't exist"
      - tree_of_item 8y ago
        What's wrong with this tweet? This is a common view. Gender identity is a very extreme concept that erases sex as a protected characteristic.
      - Bendingo 8y ago
        Just as I suspected, she said nothing like "Trans people shouldn't exist" - you simply made up that quote. You are clearly not arguing in good faith.
      - thundergolfer 8y ago
        Unfortunately everyone that replied to you was unable to understand clear bigotry when it isn't stated in comically brazen form.
  - throwawaysea 8y ago
    I often see this hyperbolic statement ("Trans people shouldn't exist") being attached to anyone that doesn't go along with the entirety of the far-left progressive views on trans people. Most people who they attribute such a statement to are not saying "these people should not exist". There is a wide spectrum of views, most of which agree that trans people have a right to exist without threats to their person. The push back on the modern trans movement is often about nuances like whether trans women are women or a different category of their own. I won't bother listing out the various reasons people might have to disagree with the modern trans movement. But attaching hyperbolic statements to make someone out to be genocidal is not appropriate and seems like a bad-faith rhetorical attack.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    I've never seen anyone believe "Trans people shouldn't exist". The arguments tend to be around when and to what extent others must accept a trans person's gender identification. No one wants to erase trans people from existence Thanos style.
    - Ar-Curunir 8y ago
      From the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497
      - ummonk 8y ago
        I grep'd for the words "exist" and "trans" in there and got zero matches. Please try again.
jazzyjackson 8y ago
Your emphasis on ethics is telling - you suppose there's just the one correct version? And diverse opinions are wrong opinions?
pdonis 8y ago
You're assuming that you know what "the" ethical position is, or at least that Google does. If that were really true, AI ethics, and indeed ethics in general, would not be an issue, and there would be no need for this board. Everyone would just consult the ethics authority to tell them what was ethical. Do I need to spell out the problems with that?
- woodruffw 8y ago
  You don't have to be absolutely confident in any particular moral system to have an extremely high degree of confidence that all sensible moral systems tell us to treat LGBT individuals with basic dignity (and to not destroy the planet, for that matter). The point of an ethics board is, presumably, to work out the hard problems in ethics.
  - pdonis 8y ago
    > You don't have to be absolutely confident in any particular moral system to have an extremely high degree of confidence that all sensible moral systems tell us to treat LGBT individuals with basic dignity This assumes that you know what "basic dignity" means. But that's what the disagreement in the case you mention (LGBT) is about. To people who fundamentally oppose LGBT-ness, LGBT people are making a serious ethical mistake, one that affects society as a whole, not just them as individuals, and treating them with basic dignity requires taking that into account. > The point of an ethics board is, presumably, to work out the hard problems in ethics. All problems in ethics are hard problems. Thinking that that isn't true, that there are some ethical questions that are so obvious that a board of AI ethics doesn't need to consider them, is itself, I would say, an ethical mistake.
    - woodruffw 8y ago
      > This assumes that you know what "basic dignity" means. It does indeed. And I do, indeed: basic dignity entails treating a person as an end in themselves, and never merely as a means. > All problems in ethics are hard problems. I don't think this is true. It's not particularly hard for me to answer that skinning cats alive for pleasure, pointlessly hurting other human beings, and irrationally loathing oneself are all obvious moral wrongs, in the sense we would not be willing to accept any moral system that permits them (much less encourages them). As you mentioned in your parent comment, an ethics board should have a point. In order to have a point, we need to admit of at least some ethical baseline[1]. If not, we'll continue the most pointless ethical pursuit of all: re-litigating arguments that reduce to the ones we give philosophy undergraduates for practice. We have bigger fish to fry. [1]: Even, as I have said, if that ethical baseline adheres to no particular moral system.
throwawaysea 8y ago
> This is a board concerned with AI Ethics, and so diversity isn't really an important part of the game. This reads a lot like "diversity doesn't matter all of a sudden, because I disagree with some of the diverse views represented here"
- thundergolfer 8y ago
  It supposed to emphasise that in matters of ethics, when we have strong arguments for a particular position their isn't a need to invite weak arguments for position on the basis of promoting 'thought diversity'. For instance on an Animal and Food ethics board it doesn't make sense to accomodate someone who denies the moral relevance of animals, because that is an indefensible view in modern philosophy. Their increasing the "diversity" of the viewpoints on the board would be of negative value, not positive value. It is the same sort of situation here.

Robelius 8y ago

Isn't the point of having different viewpoints so that they can argue over what is ethical? What's the point of a board to make decisions if everyone fundamentally believes the same thing? At that point, you already made your decisions and are trying to reinforce them in an echo chamber. When some people say they want a diverse field of thought, what they really mean is they want a diverse field of thought that they agree with. I don't agree with some of her views, but that doesn't mean she shouldn't have a voice.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Ar-Curunir 8y ago
Not every viewpoint deserves equal space or time. One such useless viewpoint is that "Trans people shouldn't exist"
- true_religion 8y ago
  The UN human rights council has Saudi Arabia and the US on it, and they vehemently disagree on issues all the time.
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    This appears to be a better argument for excluding Saudi Arabia from the UN HRC than the position that all viewpoints are worth hearing. It's the Human Rights Council after all, not the Human Rights Skeptics Council.
  - rat87 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's one of the reasons the UN human rights council is considered a useless organization
  - mike00632 8y ago
    This fact is normally used to discredit the UN Human Rights Council.
- Bendingo 8y ago
  Did the ex board member actually say this exact statement? Or are you paraphrasing and dramatising for effect? Such an inflammatory quote should surely have a reference to be taken seriously
  - Ar-Curunir 8y ago
    From the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497
    - repolfx 8y ago
      That tweet doesn't include anything even close to "trans people shouldn't exist"
    - tree_of_item 8y ago
      What's wrong with this tweet? This is a common view. Gender identity is a very extreme concept that erases sex as a protected characteristic.
    - Bendingo 8y ago
      Just as I suspected, she said nothing like "Trans people shouldn't exist" - you simply made up that quote. You are clearly not arguing in good faith.
    - thundergolfer 8y ago
      Unfortunately everyone that replied to you was unable to understand clear bigotry when it isn't stated in comically brazen form.
- throwawaysea 8y ago
  I often see this hyperbolic statement ("Trans people shouldn't exist") being attached to anyone that doesn't go along with the entirety of the far-left progressive views on trans people. Most people who they attribute such a statement to are not saying "these people should not exist". There is a wide spectrum of views, most of which agree that trans people have a right to exist without threats to their person. The push back on the modern trans movement is often about nuances like whether trans women are women or a different category of their own. I won't bother listing out the various reasons people might have to disagree with the modern trans movement. But attaching hyperbolic statements to make someone out to be genocidal is not appropriate and seems like a bad-faith rhetorical attack.
- ummonk 8y ago
  I've never seen anyone believe "Trans people shouldn't exist". The arguments tend to be around when and to what extent others must accept a trans person's gender identification. No one wants to erase trans people from existence Thanos style.
  - Ar-Curunir 8y ago
    From the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497
    - ummonk 8y ago
      I grep'd for the words "exist" and "trans" in there and got zero matches. Please try again.

jazzyjackson 8y ago

Your emphasis on ethics is telling - you suppose there's just the one correct version? And diverse opinions are wrong opinions?

pdonis 8y ago

You're assuming that you know what "the" ethical position is, or at least that Google does. If that were really true, AI ethics, and indeed ethics in general, would not be an issue, and there would be no need for this board. Everyone would just consult the ethics authority to tell them what was ethical. Do I need to spell out the problems with that?

woodruffw 8y ago
You don't have to be absolutely confident in any particular moral system to have an extremely high degree of confidence that all sensible moral systems tell us to treat LGBT individuals with basic dignity (and to not destroy the planet, for that matter). The point of an ethics board is, presumably, to work out the hard problems in ethics.
- pdonis 8y ago
  > You don't have to be absolutely confident in any particular moral system to have an extremely high degree of confidence that all sensible moral systems tell us to treat LGBT individuals with basic dignity This assumes that you know what "basic dignity" means. But that's what the disagreement in the case you mention (LGBT) is about. To people who fundamentally oppose LGBT-ness, LGBT people are making a serious ethical mistake, one that affects society as a whole, not just them as individuals, and treating them with basic dignity requires taking that into account. > The point of an ethics board is, presumably, to work out the hard problems in ethics. All problems in ethics are hard problems. Thinking that that isn't true, that there are some ethical questions that are so obvious that a board of AI ethics doesn't need to consider them, is itself, I would say, an ethical mistake.
  - woodruffw 8y ago
    > This assumes that you know what "basic dignity" means. It does indeed. And I do, indeed: basic dignity entails treating a person as an end in themselves, and never merely as a means. > All problems in ethics are hard problems. I don't think this is true. It's not particularly hard for me to answer that skinning cats alive for pleasure, pointlessly hurting other human beings, and irrationally loathing oneself are all obvious moral wrongs, in the sense we would not be willing to accept any moral system that permits them (much less encourages them). As you mentioned in your parent comment, an ethics board should have a point. In order to have a point, we need to admit of at least some ethical baseline[1]. If not, we'll continue the most pointless ethical pursuit of all: re-litigating arguments that reduce to the ones we give philosophy undergraduates for practice. We have bigger fish to fry. [1]: Even, as I have said, if that ethical baseline adheres to no particular moral system.

throwawaysea 8y ago

> This is a board concerned with AI Ethics, and so diversity isn't really an important part of the game. This reads a lot like "diversity doesn't matter all of a sudden, because I disagree with some of the diverse views represented here"

thundergolfer 8y ago
It supposed to emphasise that in matters of ethics, when we have strong arguments for a particular position their isn't a need to invite weak arguments for position on the basis of promoting 'thought diversity'. For instance on an Animal and Food ethics board it doesn't make sense to accomodate someone who denies the moral relevance of animals, because that is an indefensible view in modern philosophy. Their increasing the "diversity" of the viewpoints on the board would be of negative value, not positive value. It is the same sort of situation here.