5 ms·

Google's ethics board shut down

14 points by hdivider 8y ago

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
ethics? what's that?
jonny_eh 8y ago
What a bad headline, it's the AI ethics board specifically.
- 0815test 8y ago
  So what? All the decisions at Google that affect users are made by AIs of some sort. That's why they ask you all the time if you are a robot-- and why they don't give you any human support: that notion literally makes no sense to them.
123456789012346 8y ago
Yeah, great. Third time this story has appeared on the front page in the past 24 hours. Yes, multiple sources report the same thing. Reuters, Vox, BBC. They all said the same thing. Thanks for the reminder.
lemoncucumber 8y ago
2004: Don't be evil. 2019: Don't be ethical.
- rurban 8y ago
  2018: Don't be too scientific.
lallysingh 8y ago
That's a great headline with Google's name in it. Goes well with "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct" https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
jedberg 8y ago
> There had been an outcry over the appointment of Kay Coles James, who is president of conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation. Thousands of Google employees signed a petition calling for her removal, over what they described as "anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant" comments. And > At the weekend, board member Prof Alessandro Acquisti resigned, tweeting: "While I'm devoted to research grappling with key ethical issues of fairness, rights and inclusion in AI, I don't believe this is the right forum for me to engage in this important work." So it sounds like Google picked someone with a "dissenting" opinion (the conservative) who then was pushed out for her dissenting opinion, and then another board member decided to leave, either because they too worried about being pushed out for not toeing the line, or worried about having to debate the other person. Either way, it sounds like "diversity of opinion" was only lip service here. Isn't the whole point of an ethics board to have people who have different takes on the ethics of a situation? If the whole board is comprised of like minded individuals, doesn't that defeat the point?
- dragontamer 8y ago
  I think it is fair to say that there are conservatives out there who manage not to make anti-trans, anti-lgbtq comments out there. Anti-immigration... well... that's policy related and I think that's perfectly acceptable. As long as it isn't bigoted and remains practical, there's nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to close borders (I think its the wrong move but yeah, we can certainly talk policy). Kay Coles James had the following tweet, which was what set off the firestorm of criticism: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 > Today @heritage will critique gender identity @UN_CSW because powerful nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63 Part of this problem is the restrictive nature of Twitter: you can't open a can of worms like this without people seeing the worst in it. Based on her anti-trans statements in the past, people are reading into this as bigoted against transexuals (ie: Refusing to call people by their preferred gender). If someone is unable to keep an open mind about transgendered people, they probably shouldn't be allowed onto an ethics board. ---------- Its very difficult for me to find a non-bigoted interpretation of the above tweet. It seems pretty clearly cut to be anti-trans people. ------------- In any case, I appreciate the difficulty in setting up an ethics board. There are a diverse set of opinions in the USA, and the overriding "meta-opinion" of openness to new thoughts immediately comes into contradiction as soon as bigots arrive. So the question is: do you allow the transsexuals to enter your ethics board, or do you allow anti-trans opinions onto the board? In my eyes, there's one set of opinion that is more valuable.
RickJWagner 8y ago
This is why we can't have nice things. People must learn to get along.

14 points by hdivider 8y ago

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

ethics? what's that?

jonny_eh 8y ago

What a bad headline, it's the AI ethics board specifically.

0815test 8y ago
So what? All the decisions at Google that affect users are made by AIs of some sort. That's why they ask you all the time if you are a robot-- and why they don't give you any human support: that notion literally makes no sense to them.

123456789012346 8y ago

Yeah, great. Third time this story has appeared on the front page in the past 24 hours. Yes, multiple sources report the same thing. Reuters, Vox, BBC. They all said the same thing. Thanks for the reminder.

lemoncucumber 8y ago

2004: Don't be evil. 2019: Don't be ethical.

rurban 8y ago
2018: Don't be too scientific.

lallysingh 8y ago

That's a great headline with Google's name in it. Goes well with "Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct" https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-from-1826153393 https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...

jedberg 8y ago

> There had been an outcry over the appointment of Kay Coles James, who is president of conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation. Thousands of Google employees signed a petition calling for her removal, over what they described as "anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant" comments. And > At the weekend, board member Prof Alessandro Acquisti resigned, tweeting: "While I'm devoted to research grappling with key ethical issues of fairness, rights and inclusion in AI, I don't believe this is the right forum for me to engage in this important work." So it sounds like Google picked someone with a "dissenting" opinion (the conservative) who then was pushed out for her dissenting opinion, and then another board member decided to leave, either because they too worried about being pushed out for not toeing the line, or worried about having to debate the other person. Either way, it sounds like "diversity of opinion" was only lip service here. Isn't the whole point of an ethics board to have people who have different takes on the ethics of a situation? If the whole board is comprised of like minded individuals, doesn't that defeat the point?

dragontamer 8y ago
I think it is fair to say that there are conservatives out there who manage not to make anti-trans, anti-lgbtq comments out there. Anti-immigration... well... that's policy related and I think that's perfectly acceptable. As long as it isn't bigoted and remains practical, there's nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to close borders (I think its the wrong move but yeah, we can certainly talk policy). Kay Coles James had the following tweet, which was what set off the firestorm of criticism: https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 https://twitter.com/KayColesJames/status/1108365238779498497 > Today @heritage will critique gender identity @UN_CSW because powerful nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63 Part of this problem is the restrictive nature of Twitter: you can't open a can of worms like this without people seeing the worst in it. Based on her anti-trans statements in the past, people are reading into this as bigoted against transexuals (ie: Refusing to call people by their preferred gender). If someone is unable to keep an open mind about transgendered people, they probably shouldn't be allowed onto an ethics board. ---------- Its very difficult for me to find a non-bigoted interpretation of the above tweet. It seems pretty clearly cut to be anti-trans people. ------------- In any case, I appreciate the difficulty in setting up an ethics board. There are a diverse set of opinions in the USA, and the overriding "meta-opinion" of openness to new thoughts immediately comes into contradiction as soon as bigots arrive. So the question is: do you allow the transsexuals to enter your ethics board, or do you allow anti-trans opinions onto the board? In my eyes, there's one set of opinion that is more valuable.

RickJWagner 8y ago

This is why we can't have nice things. People must learn to get along.