4 ms·

Palantir's S-1 has a paragraph warning its AI technology may do unethical things

PeterStuer 6y ago
Why AI in particular? Wouldn't any non-AI based system that has 'a direct impact on human rights, privacy, employment or other social issues' tread the same waters? Besides, 'ethics" is a fairly fluent concept that has been reified very differently in different societies around the world, despite Silicon Valley seemingly denying this diversity and projecting their own instance as a global norm.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
Doesn’t that go without saying? It’s AI. It does not have ethics.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  A more poetic S-1 might have asked whether this unit has a soul.
- dbt00 6y ago
  Even if it did, all software has bugs...
  - smolder 6y ago
    It'd be more correct of course to say that nearly all non-trivial software will have bugs. Not all software has bugs. I think it's a distinction worth making only after considering the number of encounters I've had where someone takes "all software has bugs" as a literal, universal guarantee.
  - 1337biz 6y ago
    And with enough outrage every bug can be viewed as an intentional effort to discriminate. Probably just lawyer speak to be prepared for the next wave ouf outrage.
- buster 6y ago
  Being some form of "intelligence" may mean for some people to have ethics, I suppose.
pascah7 6y ago
It just says that "some scenarios present ethical issues". And follows by saying that their business model want's to mitigate those risks as to not experience brand or reputational harm. I feel like the title is just click bait...
- ralphstodomingo 6y ago
  I came to the same conclusion. The line itself was common sense to me. Palantir was never held in such high regard in the first place.
raxxorrax 6y ago
I would be fairly surprised if any current AI would have an ethical framework to evaluate its own actions or even any formalized rule system that comes close. So they warn that decisions by AI should be reviewed, they write "Some AI scenarios present ethical issues". Maybe just to protect themselves they state the obvious. Looking into the future I could imagine misbehavior to be blamed on AI. Having a handler in such cases might be a good idea, otherwise we might see a lot of cases where people try to shed responsibility.
dbt00 6y ago
A major portion of an S-1 is outlining every possible thing you think could possibly go wrong, so that someone can't sue you later for something going wrong you didn't warn them about. Given that, there's no incentive to calibrate these risks to real world probability (and sincerely, given the dual purpose of such a document, there shouldn't be), there's a lot of pretty wild possibilities included in S-1 filings. Although, just for fun, I just skimmed Uber's and they failed to acknowledge that an airborne illness resulting in a global pandemic could dramatically reduce their bookings and cause serious long term structural harm to their business. Maybe I should sue...
- twblalock 6y ago
  The incentive to go into all these wild possibilities is pretty strong -- companies must list everything that might ever conceivably happen so that nobody can point a finger at them later and say that they forgot to include something so now they're gonna be sued for millions. This is the same reason corporate PR statements sound the way they do, and it's the same reason politicians speak the way they do. People say they want openness and honesty, but then they punish businesses and politicians for even the slightest offense. Because of those mixed and contradictory incentives, this is the kind of communication we end up with.
syrusakbary 6y ago
I'm curious: why using Nitter instead of Twitter for the links? It seems content is replicated from Twitter: https://nitter.net/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 https://nitter.net/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 / https://twitter.com/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 https://twitter.com/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  I suppose because: "Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy." So no tracking I'd hope. https://nitter.net/about https://nitter.net/about
  - ralphstodomingo 6y ago
    Well I snooped around, and turns out there's no js on the front-end that one would count as 'tracking'. Even Wappalyzer reports it can't detect any specific third-party tech on it, which I found was pretty awesome.
    - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
      That's cool. I didn't go as far as snooping around, but I noticed there also was no cookie banner.
    - ffpip 6y ago
      Yes. It only has images and css. https://i.imgur.com/MDzq4MB.png https://i.imgur.com/MDzq4MB.png
- jchw 6y ago
  I think the main reason is probably just how utterly irritating Twitter’s website has gotten. If I try to visit any Twitter link on my phone I currently see “This is not available to you” (not paraphrased.) Before this started happening, I frequently hit errors that required refreshing the page once. And even when it does work, the site is irritating, requires JS and frequently messes with my scroll position. Nitter’s about page also provides some reasoning to use it: https://nitter.net/about https://nitter.net/about
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Does Facebook or Google's S-1 have similar caveats? I mean people have live streamed their shootings on the platform, and frequently it takes Facebook hours to take down (to use the same language) unethical content.
zxcb1 6y ago
It might help to think of Palantir itself, and all the other tech giants as artificial intelligences.
gandutraveler 6y ago
Even if their AI can do unethical things it knows how to organize society and what justice requires.
manicdee 6y ago
> Though our business practices are designed to mitigate many of these risks, if we enable or offer AI solutions that are controversial because of their purported or real impact on human rights, privacy, employment or other social issues, we may experience brand or reputational harm. As an example of the kinds of things that AI does when you don't know what you're doing: classifying black people as criminals because your law enforcement system polices black neighbourhoods more heavily, is more likely to arrest black people and is more likely to convict black people, and all your training data came from sampling populations in jails. As an example of the kinds of things that you are careful not to do yourself but you have no control over when a customer applies your tools to their problems: criminals ram-raiding supermarkets using your cars, or overzealous federal departments using AI to assist in mass surveillance of citizens. As an example of the kinds of things you are careful to not disclose but feel okay to do anyway: IBM helping the Nazi Party target Jews using census data. So it's up to you as an investor to figure out whether Palantir is warning investors of future hazards, or advising investors that there are actually human rights violations happening right now that Palantir are well aware of, and it's only a matter of time before the cat is let out of the bag.

Why AI in particular? Wouldn't any non-AI based system that has 'a direct impact on human rights, privacy, employment or other social issues' tread the same waters? Besides, 'ethics" is a fairly fluent concept that has been reified very differently in different societies around the world, despite Silicon Valley seemingly denying this diversity and projecting their own instance as a global norm.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

Doesn’t that go without saying? It’s AI. It does not have ethics.

inopinatus 6y ago
A more poetic S-1 might have asked whether this unit has a soul.
dbt00 6y ago
Even if it did, all software has bugs...
- smolder 6y ago
  It'd be more correct of course to say that nearly all non-trivial software will have bugs. Not all software has bugs. I think it's a distinction worth making only after considering the number of encounters I've had where someone takes "all software has bugs" as a literal, universal guarantee.
- 1337biz 6y ago
  And with enough outrage every bug can be viewed as an intentional effort to discriminate. Probably just lawyer speak to be prepared for the next wave ouf outrage.
buster 6y ago
Being some form of "intelligence" may mean for some people to have ethics, I suppose.

pascah7 6y ago

It just says that "some scenarios present ethical issues". And follows by saying that their business model want's to mitigate those risks as to not experience brand or reputational harm. I feel like the title is just click bait...

ralphstodomingo 6y ago
I came to the same conclusion. The line itself was common sense to me. Palantir was never held in such high regard in the first place.

raxxorrax 6y ago

I would be fairly surprised if any current AI would have an ethical framework to evaluate its own actions or even any formalized rule system that comes close. So they warn that decisions by AI should be reviewed, they write "Some AI scenarios present ethical issues". Maybe just to protect themselves they state the obvious. Looking into the future I could imagine misbehavior to be blamed on AI. Having a handler in such cases might be a good idea, otherwise we might see a lot of cases where people try to shed responsibility.

dbt00 6y ago

A major portion of an S-1 is outlining every possible thing you think could possibly go wrong, so that someone can't sue you later for something going wrong you didn't warn them about. Given that, there's no incentive to calibrate these risks to real world probability (and sincerely, given the dual purpose of such a document, there shouldn't be), there's a lot of pretty wild possibilities included in S-1 filings. Although, just for fun, I just skimmed Uber's and they failed to acknowledge that an airborne illness resulting in a global pandemic could dramatically reduce their bookings and cause serious long term structural harm to their business. Maybe I should sue...

twblalock 6y ago
The incentive to go into all these wild possibilities is pretty strong -- companies must list everything that might ever conceivably happen so that nobody can point a finger at them later and say that they forgot to include something so now they're gonna be sued for millions. This is the same reason corporate PR statements sound the way they do, and it's the same reason politicians speak the way they do. People say they want openness and honesty, but then they punish businesses and politicians for even the slightest offense. Because of those mixed and contradictory incentives, this is the kind of communication we end up with.

syrusakbary 6y ago

I'm curious: why using Nitter instead of Twitter for the links? It seems content is replicated from Twitter: https://nitter.net/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 https://nitter.net/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 / https://twitter.com/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019 https://twitter.com/tsimonite/status/1298711894241366019

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
I suppose because: "Nitter is a free and open source alternative Twitter front-end focused on privacy." So no tracking I'd hope. https://nitter.net/about https://nitter.net/about
- ralphstodomingo 6y ago
  Well I snooped around, and turns out there's no js on the front-end that one would count as 'tracking'. Even Wappalyzer reports it can't detect any specific third-party tech on it, which I found was pretty awesome.
  - read_if_gay_ 6y ago
    That's cool. I didn't go as far as snooping around, but I noticed there also was no cookie banner.
  - ffpip 6y ago
    Yes. It only has images and css. https://i.imgur.com/MDzq4MB.png https://i.imgur.com/MDzq4MB.png
jchw 6y ago
I think the main reason is probably just how utterly irritating Twitter’s website has gotten. If I try to visit any Twitter link on my phone I currently see “This is not available to you” (not paraphrased.) Before this started happening, I frequently hit errors that required refreshing the page once. And even when it does work, the site is irritating, requires JS and frequently messes with my scroll position. Nitter’s about page also provides some reasoning to use it: https://nitter.net/about https://nitter.net/about

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Does Facebook or Google's S-1 have similar caveats? I mean people have live streamed their shootings on the platform, and frequently it takes Facebook hours to take down (to use the same language) unethical content.

zxcb1 6y ago

It might help to think of Palantir itself, and all the other tech giants as artificial intelligences.

gandutraveler 6y ago

Even if their AI can do unethical things it knows how to organize society and what justice requires.

manicdee 6y ago

> Though our business practices are designed to mitigate many of these risks, if we enable or offer AI solutions that are controversial because of their purported or real impact on human rights, privacy, employment or other social issues, we may experience brand or reputational harm. As an example of the kinds of things that AI does when you don't know what you're doing: classifying black people as criminals because your law enforcement system polices black neighbourhoods more heavily, is more likely to arrest black people and is more likely to convict black people, and all your training data came from sampling populations in jails. As an example of the kinds of things that you are careful not to do yourself but you have no control over when a customer applies your tools to their problems: criminals ram-raiding supermarkets using your cars, or overzealous federal departments using AI to assist in mass surveillance of citizens. As an example of the kinds of things you are careful to not disclose but feel okay to do anyway: IBM helping the Nazi Party target Jews using census data. So it's up to you as an investor to figure out whether Palantir is warning investors of future hazards, or advising investors that there are actually human rights violations happening right now that Palantir are well aware of, and it's only a matter of time before the cat is let out of the bag.