Everybody is making this out to be about the membership...it seems far simpler than that. It seems poorly thought out from the start. Not in membership but in m

Everybody is making this out to be about the membership...it seems far simpler than that. It seems poorly thought out from the start. Not in membership but in mandate. The (minimal) description that Goog provides seems to put this group somewhere between an institutional review board (IRB) and a strategic advisory board. What is their role? is it make to policy, provide guidance, provide rulings on ethical reasonableness What is their authority? can they make suggestions, shut down programs, implement restrictions What are their boundaries/goals? Who's authority do they act with? Every element of what goog provided on this is incredibly vague. I am absolutely willing to bet that there were mixed messages occurred to the mix of people coming from academia (where IRBs are a thing) and industry (where IRBs are not a thing). Also, this paragraph from the vox article: "Next, the ethics panel — as has been the case with ethics panels at other top tech companies — does not have the power to do anything. Google says “we hope this effort will inform both our own work and the broader technology sector,” but it’s very unclear who, if anyone, at Google will rely on these recommendations and which decisions the board will get to make recommendations about." Really bothers me. It summarizes a statement from google incorrectly. Google doesn't say they have no power - it simply doesn't say. That difference is subtle but important to the entire discussion here...and google hurt itself by writing an incredibly vague statement from start to finish. What these companies need is an independent IRB - but that will never happen, and the fact that it won't tells you everything you need to know about their commitment to ethical development of AI. What they are doing now is conflating visioning, strategy, and tactics as if for AI they suddenly become the same But to end by diving into the politicized portion of this...everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but your opinion is not entitled to place or space. That especially includes opinions that differ over the basic humanity of a certain group of people. We've done that many times over our species history - it's time to stop. That opinion is not valid. More directly, having contrary viewpoints is not an inherent value - having useful disagreements is. Putting a flat earther on the NASA science board is likely to create 'vehement disagreement' but it does not contribute to 'real and meaningful progress' (with apologies to naasking who I am quoting as an example rather than a nexplicit critque). The effort to encompass all viewpoints is inherently problematic in the formation of the AI review boards - because it undermines the fundamental concept of ironclad rules that have undergirded research ethics since failures like Miligan, Nazi experimentation, the Tuskegee experiment, and others.