6 ms·

I wanted to write to address your point about the technical assertion, without getting into your request that Gebru empathize with one of the most prominent fig

by cxw 6y ago

I wanted to write to address your point about the technical assertion, without getting into your request that Gebru empathize with one of the most prominent figures in science. LeCun focused on the narrow technical question of statistical bias. Gebru and many many others have raised the point that an algorithm which works equally well for all skin tones will still have a societal impact, and they want to question that impact. How does a given new technology shift power? In whose favor, and at whose expense? That's the question which is arguably more important than some accuracy on a benchmark -- which as LeCun points out is easily solved with a more representative dataset. Have you engaged with any of the critical study of AI, from Gebru or others, like the AI Now Institute at NYU or Ruha Benjamin at Princeton, or one of the lots of other scholars even in that one Twitter thread? The results of their work have included the recent IBM and Amazon moratoria on the sale of computer vision technology, and likely others to come. The fact that LeCun refused to engage with a valid and deep criticism of a paper (which was not even his), to me at least, indicates a lack of willingness to engage critically with the social impacts of computer vision. Gebru's tweet pointed out that lack of willingness and her frustration with it, and also the fact that LeCun has had ample time to hear of it (it is in the news a lot, especially after these Amazon and IBM announcements, but groups like AI Now have been describing this for years.) How about some empathy for Gebru? I would argue that she actually has more on the line than the single most celebrated individual in computer vision in this situation.

mc32 6y ago
If the problem is that the system is too efficient or too good (people need slack in their tethers —only catch 75% of tax cheats, deadbeat parents, etc.), I’m sure they can tweak the system to be “as efficient or accurate as people” but cheaper.
- cxw 6y ago
  That's not the problem. To get a sense of it, let me punt to people who know more than me. - https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm... - https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-faulty-automated-background-checks-freeze-out-renters https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-fa... - https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2019_Report.pdf https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2019_Report.pdf I can recommend more if you get through those.
tinyhouse 6y ago
But that's the point, Lecun didn't reject the social impact, he was just not interested in that discussion. He was interested in a scientific discussion on the main cause of the bias. That was the all purpose of his first tweet. Then her reaction was about listening to marginalized people, which had nothing to do with the discussion - he never denied that those systems have bias and social impact.
- cxw 6y ago
  He has the privilege to ignore that discussion. That doesn't mean everyone else does, or that other people can't be frustrated with that choice.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I think it does mean that other people can't be frustrated with that choice. It's very toxic behavior for me to jump into a conversation and tell people they're bad for not discussing other topics I find more important.
    - cxw 6y ago
      To be fair, LeCun started a discussion around bias in ML -- Gebru's reply is on topic, since statistical bias in ML is a narrow way of understanding the social impact of an algorithm. Gebru is one of the foremost scholars on that issue.
  - axaxs 6y ago
    Wait...ignoring a discussion on Twitter is a privilege now? Some people don't have the privilege to do so? Just...put down your phone? I guess that makes me super privileged, seeing as I don't visit that cess pool of a site.
    - cxw 6y ago
      I'm not talking about ignoring the Twitter thread itself, but rather ignoring the issue it discusses. What I was getting at when I used the word "privilege" is that LeCun is not a member of a group which tends to experience negative effects from these kinds of technological tools -- quite the opposite. If you're a member of one of those marginalized groups, as Gebru is, those issues might become a little more interesting to you. For instance, these kinds of issues, https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm..., https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-faulty-automated-background-checks-freeze-out-renters https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-fa..., https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I can certainly empathize with Gebru. I also feel frustrated when people post bad takes on Twitter, especially when I know they know better. That doesn't mean we should condone her decision to start yelling about it. Shouting matches are a bad thing, even when they take place on Twitter instead of a hallway - most people don't want to work in fields where disputes are resolved through shaming and caps lock.
megiddo 6y ago
"The social impacts of computer vision" says more about the hype around the subject matter than anything. It's marketing, not science. Computer vision isn't that cool, yet. Running a deep convolutional network is a sales pitch by AWS to sell GPUs by the second. I actually sell computer vision software - specifically designed to help reduce subjective evaluation of aesthetic material performance. Most computer vision is real prosaic. It's not scifi. You read a bunch of papers about horrible things done to marmot eyeballs in the 60s, build a discrete model because neural networks are notoriously hard to support in real-world applications where you have to explain yourself to a chemist, and move on. Her work is justifiably marginal.
- cxw 6y ago
  I also work in computer vision (for biological sciences). I use deep convnets every day, and certainly they are increasingly central in biology (https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00421 https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00421), proteomics (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3837439/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3837439/, https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-scientific-discovery https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-sci...), astronomy (https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05965 https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05965), chemistry (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-019-0086-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-019-0086-7, https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/sc/c8sc04228d#!divAbstract https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/sc/c8sc0...), many other sciences. I think it's great, they're enabling progress in lots of really tough scientific problems. And for what it's worth, people are still doing horrible things to mice, salamanders, zebrafish, haha, being a model organism is not a good gig, but of course it's still a huge part of neuroscience... Personally, I don't think that an interest in the social impacts of one's work as a researcher should be considered hype -- shouldn't one be interested in their impact on the world? For computer vision in particular, these systems are widely deployed. Also, they are just part of a larger apparatus of automatic decision systems that everyone now interacts with every single day, from getting your insurance rates to getting a loan to... Those have now become prosaic too -- certainly not scifi.

by cxw 6y ago

mc32 6y ago

If the problem is that the system is too efficient or too good (people need slack in their tethers —only catch 75% of tax cheats, deadbeat parents, etc.), I’m sure they can tweak the system to be “as efficient or accurate as people” but cheaper.

cxw 6y ago
That's not the problem. To get a sense of it, let me punt to people who know more than me. - https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm... - https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-faulty-automated-background-checks-freeze-out-renters https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-fa... - https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2019_Report.pdf https://ainowinstitute.org/AI_Now_2019_Report.pdf I can recommend more if you get through those.

tinyhouse 6y ago

But that's the point, Lecun didn't reject the social impact, he was just not interested in that discussion. He was interested in a scientific discussion on the main cause of the bias. That was the all purpose of his first tweet. Then her reaction was about listening to marginalized people, which had nothing to do with the discussion - he never denied that those systems have bias and social impact.

cxw 6y ago
He has the privilege to ignore that discussion. That doesn't mean everyone else does, or that other people can't be frustrated with that choice.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I think it does mean that other people can't be frustrated with that choice. It's very toxic behavior for me to jump into a conversation and tell people they're bad for not discussing other topics I find more important.
  - cxw 6y ago
    To be fair, LeCun started a discussion around bias in ML -- Gebru's reply is on topic, since statistical bias in ML is a narrow way of understanding the social impact of an algorithm. Gebru is one of the foremost scholars on that issue.
- axaxs 6y ago
  Wait...ignoring a discussion on Twitter is a privilege now? Some people don't have the privilege to do so? Just...put down your phone? I guess that makes me super privileged, seeing as I don't visit that cess pool of a site.
  - cxw 6y ago
    I'm not talking about ignoring the Twitter thread itself, but rather ignoring the issue it discusses. What I was getting at when I used the word "privilege" is that LeCun is not a member of a group which tends to experience negative effects from these kinds of technological tools -- quite the opposite. If you're a member of one of those marginalized groups, as Gebru is, those issues might become a little more interesting to you. For instance, these kinds of issues, https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm..., https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-faulty-automated-background-checks-freeze-out-renters https://themarkup.org/locked-out/2020/05/28/access-denied-fa..., https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/race-after-technology

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

I can certainly empathize with Gebru. I also feel frustrated when people post bad takes on Twitter, especially when I know they know better. That doesn't mean we should condone her decision to start yelling about it. Shouting matches are a bad thing, even when they take place on Twitter instead of a hallway - most people don't want to work in fields where disputes are resolved through shaming and caps lock.

megiddo 6y ago

"The social impacts of computer vision" says more about the hype around the subject matter than anything. It's marketing, not science. Computer vision isn't that cool, yet. Running a deep convolutional network is a sales pitch by AWS to sell GPUs by the second. I actually sell computer vision software - specifically designed to help reduce subjective evaluation of aesthetic material performance. Most computer vision is real prosaic. It's not scifi. You read a bunch of papers about horrible things done to marmot eyeballs in the 60s, build a discrete model because neural networks are notoriously hard to support in real-world applications where you have to explain yourself to a chemist, and move on. Her work is justifiably marginal.

cxw 6y ago
I also work in computer vision (for biological sciences). I use deep convnets every day, and certainly they are increasingly central in biology (https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00421 https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.00421), proteomics (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3837439/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3837439/, https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-scientific-discovery https://deepmind.com/blog/article/AlphaFold-Using-AI-for-sci...), astronomy (https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05965 https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05965), chemistry (https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-019-0086-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s42254-019-0086-7, https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/sc/c8sc04228d#!divAbstract https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2019/sc/c8sc0...), many other sciences. I think it's great, they're enabling progress in lots of really tough scientific problems. And for what it's worth, people are still doing horrible things to mice, salamanders, zebrafish, haha, being a model organism is not a good gig, but of course it's still a huge part of neuroscience... Personally, I don't think that an interest in the social impacts of one's work as a researcher should be considered hype -- shouldn't one be interested in their impact on the world? For computer vision in particular, these systems are widely deployed. Also, they are just part of a larger apparatus of automatic decision systems that everyone now interacts with every single day, from getting your insurance rates to getting a loan to... Those have now become prosaic too -- certainly not scifi.