5 ms·

Hey HN, I'm the author of this article (also the precursor predicting this, which was on the front page yesterday). My impression is that the best place to look

by nosseo 8y ago

Hey HN, I'm the author of this article (also the precursor predicting this, which was on the front page yesterday). My impression is that the best place to look for an explanation is actually the facebook post by Luciano Floridi: https://www.facebook.com/floridi/posts/10157226054696031 https://www.facebook.com/floridi/posts/10157226054696031. My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Obviously, protests by Google employees played a role too.

geofft 8y ago
> My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Well, that's the point, isn't it? If the AI ethics council is meeting four times a year for a couple hours at most, and and has people who can't even agree on "Which bathroom should this person use," how are they going to produce productive advice for actual hard questions that haven't been well-explored? There is a place for debate between people who don't agree on worldview. This council was never going to be it.
- mc32 8y ago
  Presumably there would be many more issues beside bathroom policies. Moreover one person isn’t s majority among eight.
- yalue 8y ago
  You're right about all of that, but shouldn't a meaningful board at least make some show of trying to include diverse opinions? The key word of course is "meaningful", and I think you're right on the money that Google wasn't interested in having a panel to discuss meaningful issues in the first place; it seems more likely that they wanted to be able to point to a source of "external" "unbiased" opinions to justify what they were planning to do already. (Obviously the people who complained about a prominent right-wing figure would just argue something hypocritical like "only the right kind of diversity of opinion", but that's beside the point; the panel was a dumb idea to begin with, coming from a group with so much of a stake in trying to advance AI for the sake of advertising)
  - durability 7y ago
    Diversity is great! Putting someone who advocates for not using AI on an AI ethics board is diversity. Putting someone who advocates for more/less/self regulation is diversity. Putting someone hostile towards the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ rights? That’s not diversity. That has no place in 2019.
    - yalue 7y ago
      Sure, but if they're not debating that topic, why should it be an issue? Not that I think such a person belongs on the panel, but the reason they're not invited should be, as you said, that they have few or no qualifications to discuss either ethics or AI. The fact that they don't agree with the others on LGBT rights should only be an issue if they insist on trying to espouse their unrelated viewpoints using the panel, in which case by all means kick them off.
      - durability 7y ago
        Because you can’t look at these beliefs in a vacuum. Someone who’s against LGBTQ rights isn’t against it for the hell of it, they have some underlying reason such as religious ideology. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with religion, but when you believe that a man and a man together is unnatural and a sin against nature, then I have to wonder what other backwards regressive medieval beliefs they hold as well.
        yalue 7y ago
        (Note that I'm not trying to straw-man you here, because I know you're only talking about the specific instance of this panel, which I've already agree was a farce to begin with. However,...) I still think it's harmful to society as a whole to try to use someone's views on any given topic as an excuse to refuse to work with them on something unrelated. Say, for instance, that you're asked by a supervisor to collaborate with a Muslim living in a middle eastern country on writing a piece of software. For the sake of argument, say that this particular person believed that the laws recently enacted in Brunei were in line with the commands of Islam, and therefore just. (For the sake of argument only--obviously not everybody in those categories is like this at all--but clearly at least some must be or we wouldn't have situations like this recent one.) Would it be right to refuse to work with this person on writing say, some python code, when the topic of "sharia law" is never going to be a factor? Furthermore, by your argument, would you be willing to trust this person's judgement on software architecture when they have exhibited a, in your view, extreme lack of good judgement in another field? Second, you can even take this argument to a higher level. You admit that the opposing party has a reason to believe what they believe, and I'd imagine that you'd even grant that they probably believe that their reasons for their particular position are good reasons. Leaving aside whether the positions themselves are good or not, how do you evaluate whether someone's reasons for holding a particular position are good? After all, a religious person may believe that one day an omniscient being will call them to answer for why they failed to keep holy commands in their life. To the holder of such a view, that's a pretty good reason to do some twisted stuff. If anything, (if their religion is right) such a reason for them holding their particular position (fear of eternal condemnation) may even be better to them than your reasons for your position are to you!
- gubbrora 8y ago
  Why should they agree? They could have produced advice of the form "from perspective A we should do x but from perspective B we should do y".
  - geofft 8y ago
    The point of debate is to test ideas by argument and logic and strengthen the strong ones and reject the weak ones. If you just say "Here are our thoughts," then the "what about robust debate" rationale doesn't hold up, and we can get to the direct question of whether James' worldview is moral or immoral, because the people taking the "advice" are going to have to pick either perspective A or perspective B. And if you're going to pick one in the end, why not get everyone from that worldview? There are lots of Roman Catholic theologians, for instance, that they could have included. I don't personally agree with them either, but they absolutely have a rich history of thinking about ethics, and they mostly also don't believe in trans people. Why leave James to fend for herself?
    - gubbrora 8y ago
      Well in the hypothetical, whoever takes their advice would need to make a synthesis of it somehow. E.g. most perspectives agree so let's do it this way. Or this question doesn't matter that much from most perspectives and according to this one it matters a lot so let's go with that one. Or even just ignoring them from time to time.
- qmanjamz 8y ago
  It seems to me that if they limited their recommendations to only things the entire board could agree on, they could still be productive. For example, they may not agree on how bathrooms should be organized, but they probably all agree that bathrooms should exist. The fact that the board had wildly varying opinions is a feature, not a bug. The outputs of this board should be widely agreed upon. If they make declarations that half the country disagrees with, they're going to lose credibility fast. Having an ideologically diverse board helps to secure their credibility.
  - geofft 8y ago
    But the board is there to advise Google on hard questions, not easy ones. Is it unethical, for instance, to use AI to detect and block potential child pornography and flag it for potential referral to law enforcement? Probably not, but anyone can tell you that. Is it unethical to use AI to identify "gender ideology propaganda" and refer that to law enforcement in places where it's illegal? Depends on whether you think such laws are ethical. If the council can't answer that, what use is it? (If the point of the council is to tell you things that anyone with a functioning conscience could tell you, then the fact that it's needed is a serious indictment of Google management. I'd like to think the council is here for the hard questions.)
    - qmanjamz 8y ago
      If you stack your council with people of entirely one viewpoint, there's little point in having a council at all. Create a board entirely of Muslims and it's going to say we should fast during Ramadan. If Google tries to cite that board as an ethical authority to justify a policy of mandatory fasting, they're not going to convince many people. With a diverse board, the answers to some questions are going to be inconclusive. But that doesn't mean the board shouldn't exist at all. And it certainly doesn't mean we should eliminate all diversity in the board.
      - educationdata 7y ago
        How many conservatives do they have on the board? I feel viewpoint diversity should at least be close to nationwide percentage.
- educationdata 7y ago
  Is "Which bathroom should this person use" an easy question? If it is really easy, why it is so controversial? You may think it is an easy question, in reality it is an actual hard question.
  - kevingadd 7y ago
    It's a very easy question, almost all countries have resolved answers for it. They don't all agree, but it was very easy to answer. Many of them have clear, objective standards on how to apply the rules (that people choose to ignore or argue over), though some certainly are determined to make it as fuzzy as possible for their own agendas. You can easily find local regulations addressing this topic pretty easily for most parts of the US and european countries, also some other countries like Japan. There's also the standard fallback answer for "which bathroom": if you make them all single occupancy, it doesn't matter which one. Sometimes that's the solution used in situations like schools. So maybe pick a better example of a hard question that seems easy. (Though I get the relevance here, given the decried panelist's history and views)
  - matt4077 7y ago
    „Some say you shouldn’t exist. Others say you have a right to live. Hard question“
    - 93s6oz 7y ago
      That is polarising. An extreme take. I haven't seen anybody make the argument that trans people should be killed. Just that men should not be able to use women bathrooms. In this case, that's the argument. Turning it into something like that is not going to help anybody.
      - matt4077 7y ago
        It’s polarizing only if you accept the you-should-die part one of the poles, which is sort of the problem I was getting at. I would characterize it more as reductio ad absurdum.
      - 7y ago

by nosseo 8y ago

geofft 8y ago

> My sources at Google just couldn't see the panelists constructively working together on a panel at this point. Well, that's the point, isn't it? If the AI ethics council is meeting four times a year for a couple hours at most, and and has people who can't even agree on "Which bathroom should this person use," how are they going to produce productive advice for actual hard questions that haven't been well-explored? There is a place for debate between people who don't agree on worldview. This council was never going to be it.

mc32 8y ago
Presumably there would be many more issues beside bathroom policies. Moreover one person isn’t s majority among eight.
yalue 8y ago
You're right about all of that, but shouldn't a meaningful board at least make some show of trying to include diverse opinions? The key word of course is "meaningful", and I think you're right on the money that Google wasn't interested in having a panel to discuss meaningful issues in the first place; it seems more likely that they wanted to be able to point to a source of "external" "unbiased" opinions to justify what they were planning to do already. (Obviously the people who complained about a prominent right-wing figure would just argue something hypocritical like "only the right kind of diversity of opinion", but that's beside the point; the panel was a dumb idea to begin with, coming from a group with so much of a stake in trying to advance AI for the sake of advertising)
- durability 7y ago
  Diversity is great! Putting someone who advocates for not using AI on an AI ethics board is diversity. Putting someone who advocates for more/less/self regulation is diversity. Putting someone hostile towards the LGBTQ community and LGBTQ rights? That’s not diversity. That has no place in 2019.
  - yalue 7y ago
    Sure, but if they're not debating that topic, why should it be an issue? Not that I think such a person belongs on the panel, but the reason they're not invited should be, as you said, that they have few or no qualifications to discuss either ethics or AI. The fact that they don't agree with the others on LGBT rights should only be an issue if they insist on trying to espouse their unrelated viewpoints using the panel, in which case by all means kick them off.
    - durability 7y ago
      Because you can’t look at these beliefs in a vacuum. Someone who’s against LGBTQ rights isn’t against it for the hell of it, they have some underlying reason such as religious ideology. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with religion, but when you believe that a man and a man together is unnatural and a sin against nature, then I have to wonder what other backwards regressive medieval beliefs they hold as well.
      - yalue 7y ago
        (Note that I'm not trying to straw-man you here, because I know you're only talking about the specific instance of this panel, which I've already agree was a farce to begin with. However,...) I still think it's harmful to society as a whole to try to use someone's views on any given topic as an excuse to refuse to work with them on something unrelated. Say, for instance, that you're asked by a supervisor to collaborate with a Muslim living in a middle eastern country on writing a piece of software. For the sake of argument, say that this particular person believed that the laws recently enacted in Brunei were in line with the commands of Islam, and therefore just. (For the sake of argument only--obviously not everybody in those categories is like this at all--but clearly at least some must be or we wouldn't have situations like this recent one.) Would it be right to refuse to work with this person on writing say, some python code, when the topic of "sharia law" is never going to be a factor? Furthermore, by your argument, would you be willing to trust this person's judgement on software architecture when they have exhibited a, in your view, extreme lack of good judgement in another field? Second, you can even take this argument to a higher level. You admit that the opposing party has a reason to believe what they believe, and I'd imagine that you'd even grant that they probably believe that their reasons for their particular position are good reasons. Leaving aside whether the positions themselves are good or not, how do you evaluate whether someone's reasons for holding a particular position are good? After all, a religious person may believe that one day an omniscient being will call them to answer for why they failed to keep holy commands in their life. To the holder of such a view, that's a pretty good reason to do some twisted stuff. If anything, (if their religion is right) such a reason for them holding their particular position (fear of eternal condemnation) may even be better to them than your reasons for your position are to you!
gubbrora 8y ago
Why should they agree? They could have produced advice of the form "from perspective A we should do x but from perspective B we should do y".
- geofft 8y ago
  The point of debate is to test ideas by argument and logic and strengthen the strong ones and reject the weak ones. If you just say "Here are our thoughts," then the "what about robust debate" rationale doesn't hold up, and we can get to the direct question of whether James' worldview is moral or immoral, because the people taking the "advice" are going to have to pick either perspective A or perspective B. And if you're going to pick one in the end, why not get everyone from that worldview? There are lots of Roman Catholic theologians, for instance, that they could have included. I don't personally agree with them either, but they absolutely have a rich history of thinking about ethics, and they mostly also don't believe in trans people. Why leave James to fend for herself?
  - gubbrora 8y ago
    Well in the hypothetical, whoever takes their advice would need to make a synthesis of it somehow. E.g. most perspectives agree so let's do it this way. Or this question doesn't matter that much from most perspectives and according to this one it matters a lot so let's go with that one. Or even just ignoring them from time to time.
qmanjamz 8y ago
It seems to me that if they limited their recommendations to only things the entire board could agree on, they could still be productive. For example, they may not agree on how bathrooms should be organized, but they probably all agree that bathrooms should exist. The fact that the board had wildly varying opinions is a feature, not a bug. The outputs of this board should be widely agreed upon. If they make declarations that half the country disagrees with, they're going to lose credibility fast. Having an ideologically diverse board helps to secure their credibility.
- geofft 8y ago
  But the board is there to advise Google on hard questions, not easy ones. Is it unethical, for instance, to use AI to detect and block potential child pornography and flag it for potential referral to law enforcement? Probably not, but anyone can tell you that. Is it unethical to use AI to identify "gender ideology propaganda" and refer that to law enforcement in places where it's illegal? Depends on whether you think such laws are ethical. If the council can't answer that, what use is it? (If the point of the council is to tell you things that anyone with a functioning conscience could tell you, then the fact that it's needed is a serious indictment of Google management. I'd like to think the council is here for the hard questions.)
  - qmanjamz 8y ago
    If you stack your council with people of entirely one viewpoint, there's little point in having a council at all. Create a board entirely of Muslims and it's going to say we should fast during Ramadan. If Google tries to cite that board as an ethical authority to justify a policy of mandatory fasting, they're not going to convince many people. With a diverse board, the answers to some questions are going to be inconclusive. But that doesn't mean the board shouldn't exist at all. And it certainly doesn't mean we should eliminate all diversity in the board.
    - educationdata 7y ago
      How many conservatives do they have on the board? I feel viewpoint diversity should at least be close to nationwide percentage.
educationdata 7y ago
Is "Which bathroom should this person use" an easy question? If it is really easy, why it is so controversial? You may think it is an easy question, in reality it is an actual hard question.
- kevingadd 7y ago
  It's a very easy question, almost all countries have resolved answers for it. They don't all agree, but it was very easy to answer. Many of them have clear, objective standards on how to apply the rules (that people choose to ignore or argue over), though some certainly are determined to make it as fuzzy as possible for their own agendas. You can easily find local regulations addressing this topic pretty easily for most parts of the US and european countries, also some other countries like Japan. There's also the standard fallback answer for "which bathroom": if you make them all single occupancy, it doesn't matter which one. Sometimes that's the solution used in situations like schools. So maybe pick a better example of a hard question that seems easy. (Though I get the relevance here, given the decried panelist's history and views)
- matt4077 7y ago
  „Some say you shouldn’t exist. Others say you have a right to live. Hard question“
  - 93s6oz 7y ago
    That is polarising. An extreme take. I haven't seen anybody make the argument that trans people should be killed. Just that men should not be able to use women bathrooms. In this case, that's the argument. Turning it into something like that is not going to help anybody.
    - matt4077 7y ago
      It’s polarizing only if you accept the you-should-die part one of the poles, which is sort of the problem I was getting at. I would characterize it more as reductio ad absurdum.
    - 7y ago