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Is there any chance evidence to suggest that they hired Timnit merely as a PR show, rather than because they actually wanted a good product? Although it’s fun

Is there any chance evidence to suggest that they hired Timnit merely as a PR show, rather than because they actually wanted a good product? Although it’s fun to assume bad faith when it comes to every action by every company, she was not supposed to be an independent critic to launder evil. She was supposed to work in cooperation with them to make a high quality product. They don’t want to create something that causes suffering. Even if you don’t buy that their motivation was pure, doing so would obviously be bad for business. What good is a product that only works for white people? Instead of adding perspective and cooperatively furthering a unified goal, she was divisive and created dysfunction. She was in an incredibly privileged position to do good and shape the future of some civilization-changing technologies. Instead of shaping a better future, she threw hand grenades and stuck wrenches in gears. Now not only does the future of their tech lack her perspective, but they are unlikely to engage with anyone who even smells like they could be a bad-faith activist.

matthewdgreen 6y ago
> Is there any chance evidence to suggest that they hired Timnit merely as a PR show, rather than because they actually wanted a good product? I didn't mean to imply that the ethical AI team is empty PR. What I'm saying is that the obvious corporate justification for an (expensive!) AI ethics team is to reassure regulators and customers that Google's AI techniques will follow best ethical practices. Obviously the best way for Google to achieve that goal is to hire a bunch of really strong researchers, and then incorporate their recommendations into Google's products. And of course, to have those researchers publish their findings so that the world can see that a standard is being followed. But the flipside can also be true, and damaging the credibility of your ethical AI team comes at a cost. It would not surprise me if some observers have come to negative conclusions about the independence of Google's researchers, which means those people are more likely to mistrust Google's products in the future. The irony is that even if Google has the very best intentions, they might now find it harder to convince people of this. This does meaningful harm to Google, and nothing Google's gotten out of this mess has been worth that cost.

matthewdgreen 6y ago

> Is there any chance evidence to suggest that they hired Timnit merely as a PR show, rather than because they actually wanted a good product? I didn't mean to imply that the ethical AI team is empty PR. What I'm saying is that the obvious corporate justification for an (expensive!) AI ethics team is to reassure regulators and customers that Google's AI techniques will follow best ethical practices. Obviously the best way for Google to achieve that goal is to hire a bunch of really strong researchers, and then incorporate their recommendations into Google's products. And of course, to have those researchers publish their findings so that the world can see that a standard is being followed. But the flipside can also be true, and damaging the credibility of your ethical AI team comes at a cost. It would not surprise me if some observers have come to negative conclusions about the independence of Google's researchers, which means those people are more likely to mistrust Google's products in the future. The irony is that even if Google has the very best intentions, they might now find it harder to convince people of this. This does meaningful harm to Google, and nothing Google's gotten out of this mess has been worth that cost.