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This issue reminds me a lot of what we do in security and privacy, which are ostensibly engineering disciplines, but are really technology governance functions.

This issue reminds me a lot of what we do in security and privacy, which are ostensibly engineering disciplines, but are really technology governance functions. Ethical AI is also a governance function, and like hackers in security, there is an invisible yet stark limit to the value activists can provide in actual governance roles. Litigating demands is just not how governance gets done. The irony of Google hiring so many smart people is that they get a cluster people who were institutionalized by academia, and now they have a CEO who has to act like an institutional dean. Hackers hold your products to their standards, and ideally that adds value to your customers. Ethical AI people seem to do the same. The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good. That the company is dealing with factions of what are essentially student activists issuing demands seems like an inflection point where any further growth is going to be a function of market domination and not their ability to align to make things.

throwaway201606 6y ago
I wish I had more upvotes to give for this comment. It gave me multiple upsights about how to clean up my approach thinking about the issues here: + framing an analogy using technology governance functions - whose functions and values can be clearly quantified and measured by many independently - with a ethical (moral) functions - whose values and results are much more nebulous + drawing a parallel between hackers - whom many technologists 'understand'- and value activists - whom many technologists don't 'understand + pointing out the now-self-evident axioms that i) activists, like hackers, hold you to 'their' standard, not yours and ii) will fight you 'their' way when you fail to meet those standards + the point about academia and corporate leaders needing to act as deans and dealing with navigating conflict resolution in a new 'tribe' they don't understand. Not forgetting they currently deal with multiple other tribes - investors, media, government etc. I would like to add a couple of small points: + Personal risk to executives is the change in the mix with highest impact. This becomes more important as this risk is transferred up the corporate ladder. So, leaders examining issues, from this 'new' perspective, in a balanced nuanced way while still considering profits, politics, strategy, foresight, ability to manage change ( et al, ad nauseam ) increasingly becomes a key career soft skill. Especially if decisions are delivered in communication styles that are still clearly understood by all relevant other tribes they deal with in situations like this. +. I would like to suggest that some folks are missing PART of the point (not all of it, just an important small nuance) No single party gets to frame this debate. Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Just consider that every side of the debate has their perspective and the other side is "crazy" from this viewpoint. E.g a key tool for academics with leadership is demanding the removal of leaders with a "or we go " chaser - this is normal in that world and it would be crazy not to use the tool as part of a "normal" negotiation. But it is not normal in the corporate world. Point being everyone's normal is some version of some other person's crazy. Well, these folks are from another 'tribe". The way things are done in their world is different'. Corp is the one behaving in a way that "does not make sense" from their perspective. Just considering that the view from someone else's vantage point could be different would go a long way here.
- aabhay 6y ago
  > Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Do you believe this is a viable trend? This debacle seems to point to the death of 'Ethics research' inside of corporations. What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? My guess is that the model will go back to using CSR budget to invest in 'social good' non-profits and think tanks that stay at a safe distance while still mentioning you as a 'Platinum Sponsor' and bringing you in for fireside chats. (this is not me advocating against ethics research, or against bringing ethics into AI research; I'm just trying to be as cynically realist as possible)
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? The same thing media companies’ gain from controlling content rating systems plus the same thing any company gains from dominating research relevant to it's product area; if they do a good enough job at pretending to care, they forestall state regulation, and even if they don't succeed at that, the more influence they have over the research field, the more any outside regulation will be dependent on information that they have the ability to at least subtly spin before it is even published.
  - throwaway201606 6y ago
    > What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? Trying to tackle both questions at once: this is a viable trend and companies do stand to gain. If the market is saying that you have to consider other motivations and goals aside from profits and growth, and you have built this machine that is super-efficient and effective at delivering on growth and profits irrespective of all else, you need outside skills to change. To give a specific example, take the Norway Sovereign Fund which is one of the biggest investors in the world: it has indicated that it is incorporating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into their decision-making, So, if you want to get their investment, you have to have these goals in the your corp. leadership and performance management mandate. To enable this, you need folks with these skills, who currently are not management, in the fold ( meaning folks like social scientists, ethicists etc. having really significant corp leadership roles and authority ).
googlethrow3134 6y ago
The irony of Google hiring so many smart people Citation needed. It’s a pretty known fact that the majority of folks in ethics AI at Google come from sociology backgrounds who have been indoctrinated by marxists/leftist philosophies. So it’s no surprise you’re seeing the current blow up. Most Googlers are liberal, but the level of leftism rampant in the AI ethics group is another level
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
pron 6y ago
> The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good. But the very outcome that this is just your company rather than yours and theirs is, itself, a result of decades of activism; it's not a law of nature, nor is it the law in all Western countries. Company executives and shareholders are themselves activists (Google certainly is), only they have more power. Why is it reasonable for management to be political activists but not the workers?
- sershe 6y ago
  Because management (or rather, shareholders) pay workers to do work, and not the other way around. Abstractly, workers telling shareholders how to run the company (out of the scope of what shareholders hired them for) would be similar to shareholders telling workers how to spend their paycheck.
  - pron 6y ago
    I don't see why it's like that at all, but you realise that this is not how it's always been, even in America, and certainly not elsewhere? What seems "logical" to you is merely a current snapshot of a social construct that's been built built over decades of political activism by shareholders.
    - sershe 6y ago
      The only "social construct" involved here is "private property". If I hire someone to install carpet and pay them $X, we sign a contract about that and that only. They don't tell me how I should paint my walls; and I don't tell them how to spend their money. That's kind of the idea. If they start issuing ultimatums about painting my walls pink, or agitate with the painters that it's wrong to not do it, I'm going to fire them. Apparently, in the old days, by custom that was not like that, and you were expected to paint your walls pink if they insist; perhaps in other places it was even mandated by law. Then Milton Friedman showed up and said "Hey, you just acceded to your walls being painted pink but, by the rules, you didn't have to do that!" If getting this notion across is activism, then I guess I'd stop thinking of activism as a dirty word. I thought it was more like education on a common-sense notion. Come think of it, an alternative structure you seem to be advocating is also a solved problem in this scheme - it's called a co-op, and there are many successful ones around, from farms to clothing stores. Go found an internet search coop, and as a co-owner you'd be able to decide how it should be run.

throwaway201606 6y ago

I wish I had more upvotes to give for this comment. It gave me multiple upsights about how to clean up my approach thinking about the issues here: + framing an analogy using technology governance functions - whose functions and values can be clearly quantified and measured by many independently - with a ethical (moral) functions - whose values and results are much more nebulous + drawing a parallel between hackers - whom many technologists 'understand'- and value activists - whom many technologists don't 'understand + pointing out the now-self-evident axioms that i) activists, like hackers, hold you to 'their' standard, not yours and ii) will fight you 'their' way when you fail to meet those standards + the point about academia and corporate leaders needing to act as deans and dealing with navigating conflict resolution in a new 'tribe' they don't understand. Not forgetting they currently deal with multiple other tribes - investors, media, government etc. I would like to add a couple of small points: + Personal risk to executives is the change in the mix with highest impact. This becomes more important as this risk is transferred up the corporate ladder. So, leaders examining issues, from this 'new' perspective, in a balanced nuanced way while still considering profits, politics, strategy, foresight, ability to manage change ( et al, ad nauseam ) increasingly becomes a key career soft skill. Especially if decisions are delivered in communication styles that are still clearly understood by all relevant other tribes they deal with in situations like this. +. I would like to suggest that some folks are missing PART of the point (not all of it, just an important small nuance) No single party gets to frame this debate. Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Just consider that every side of the debate has their perspective and the other side is "crazy" from this viewpoint. E.g a key tool for academics with leadership is demanding the removal of leaders with a "or we go " chaser - this is normal in that world and it would be crazy not to use the tool as part of a "normal" negotiation. But it is not normal in the corporate world. Point being everyone's normal is some version of some other person's crazy. Well, these folks are from another 'tribe". The way things are done in their world is different'. Corp is the one behaving in a way that "does not make sense" from their perspective. Just considering that the view from someone else's vantage point could be different would go a long way here.

aabhay 6y ago
> Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Do you believe this is a viable trend? This debacle seems to point to the death of 'Ethics research' inside of corporations. What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? My guess is that the model will go back to using CSR budget to invest in 'social good' non-profits and think tanks that stay at a safe distance while still mentioning you as a 'Platinum Sponsor' and bringing you in for fireside chats. (this is not me advocating against ethics research, or against bringing ethics into AI research; I'm just trying to be as cynically realist as possible)
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? The same thing media companies’ gain from controlling content rating systems plus the same thing any company gains from dominating research relevant to it's product area; if they do a good enough job at pretending to care, they forestall state regulation, and even if they don't succeed at that, the more influence they have over the research field, the more any outside regulation will be dependent on information that they have the ability to at least subtly spin before it is even published.
- throwaway201606 6y ago
  > What do companies stand to gain from hiring ethics researchers who are a liability to the shareholders? Trying to tackle both questions at once: this is a viable trend and companies do stand to gain. If the market is saying that you have to consider other motivations and goals aside from profits and growth, and you have built this machine that is super-efficient and effective at delivering on growth and profits irrespective of all else, you need outside skills to change. To give a specific example, take the Norway Sovereign Fund which is one of the biggest investors in the world: it has indicated that it is incorporating environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues into their decision-making, So, if you want to get their investment, you have to have these goals in the your corp. leadership and performance management mandate. To enable this, you need folks with these skills, who currently are not management, in the fold ( meaning folks like social scientists, ethicists etc. having really significant corp leadership roles and authority ).

googlethrow3134 6y ago

The irony of Google hiring so many smart people Citation needed. It’s a pretty known fact that the majority of folks in ethics AI at Google come from sociology backgrounds who have been indoctrinated by marxists/leftist philosophies. So it’s no surprise you’re seeing the current blow up. Most Googlers are liberal, but the level of leftism rampant in the AI ethics group is another level

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

pron 6y ago

> The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good. But the very outcome that this is just your company rather than yours and theirs is, itself, a result of decades of activism; it's not a law of nature, nor is it the law in all Western countries. Company executives and shareholders are themselves activists (Google certainly is), only they have more power. Why is it reasonable for management to be political activists but not the workers?

sershe 6y ago
Because management (or rather, shareholders) pay workers to do work, and not the other way around. Abstractly, workers telling shareholders how to run the company (out of the scope of what shareholders hired them for) would be similar to shareholders telling workers how to spend their paycheck.
- pron 6y ago
  I don't see why it's like that at all, but you realise that this is not how it's always been, even in America, and certainly not elsewhere? What seems "logical" to you is merely a current snapshot of a social construct that's been built built over decades of political activism by shareholders.
  - sershe 6y ago
    The only "social construct" involved here is "private property". If I hire someone to install carpet and pay them $X, we sign a contract about that and that only. They don't tell me how I should paint my walls; and I don't tell them how to spend their money. That's kind of the idea. If they start issuing ultimatums about painting my walls pink, or agitate with the painters that it's wrong to not do it, I'm going to fire them. Apparently, in the old days, by custom that was not like that, and you were expected to paint your walls pink if they insist; perhaps in other places it was even mandated by law. Then Milton Friedman showed up and said "Hey, you just acceded to your walls being painted pink but, by the rules, you didn't have to do that!" If getting this notion across is activism, then I guess I'd stop thinking of activism as a dirty word. I thought it was more like education on a common-sense notion. Come think of it, an alternative structure you seem to be advocating is also a solved problem in this scheme - it's called a co-op, and there are many successful ones around, from farms to clothing stores. Go found an internet search coop, and as a co-owner you'd be able to decide how it should be run.