5 ms·

Interrogating corporate behavior and publicly embarrassing the corporation are two totally different things. You can employ someone and have them develop and e

by D13Fd 6y ago

Interrogating corporate behavior and publicly embarrassing the corporation are two totally different things. You can employ someone and have them develop and even publicly espouse ethics principles, while also instructing them to keep their criticism of corporate behavior confidential to the corporation. This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea.

croissants 6y ago
> This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea. I'd be interested in reading about guidelines for people tasked with "enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior" in other industries, do you have any references?
- D13Fd 6y ago
  It's a huge field, but the core rules for lawyers are here: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_contents/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili... As one of many, many examples, leaders in the employment law field regularly write publicly about fair employment practices (particularly when it comes to discrimination, whether racial, age-related or disability-related), and strive for changes in the law and in employers' practices. At the same time, they also counsel their employers or clients about the rules and about compliance. That's fine. But a lawyer generally cannot publicly critique their employer/client without permission. Public disclosure of an employer's or client's confidential information without permission violates, for example, ABA model rule 1.6, and is a great way to get yourself disbarred (or at least face disciplinary action).
thirtyseven 6y ago
These were researchers though, their jobs were to publish papers externally.
wpietri 6y ago
I suppose that depends on whether you think an "Ethical AI" group's job is as window dressing or to actually make an ethical impact. If the former, then they probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place; PR people are cheaper and more tractable. If the latter, then there's only so long you can ask good people to stay quiet. Enabling ethical failure is also an ethical failure. Your analogies don't really work, I'm afraid. The job of corporate lawyers isn't to force some sort of ethical or legal standard. It's to give confidential advice so a company can do what it wants without anybody going to jail. Accountants do maintain a standard that is quasi-ethical, but they do it by controlling their own work. Auditors are closer to the Ethical AI relationship, but they're specifically external, so as to avoid the conflicts of interest in Google trying to police itself. And both accountants and auditors drop a dime on people all the time, and even have protection under law for doing so: https://www.accountingtoday.com/whistleblower https://www.accountingtoday.com/whistleblower
- solveit 6y ago
  I think the one thing both sides can agree on is that there should be whistleblower protections enshrined in law for people reporting ethics breaches. (I'm not going to try and suggest how it should be implemented, that's legitimately difficult)
  - prepend 6y ago
    No one in this scenario reported an ethics breach right? So how would it apply? There are whistleblower laws now but they apply to illegal actions.
    - wpietri 6y ago
      The heart of the matter is what the ethics experts see as an attempt to suppress criticism of ethical problems with Google's technology. So yes, it's very much an ethics breach. Whistleblowing need not be only about crime. It can just be about harm. [1] Indeed, with new technologies, regulation often has yet to be written, so whistleblowing can only be about harm. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engineers-become-whistleblowers/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engin...
moistly 6y ago
> This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea. It has not worked out well. Making employees keep unethical behaviour on the down-low has resulted in immense, catastrophic harm. If we are to maintain a healthy society we need a lot more whistleblowing. We need to put work into being better.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

by D13Fd 6y ago

croissants 6y ago

> This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea. I'd be interested in reading about guidelines for people tasked with "enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior" in other industries, do you have any references?

D13Fd 6y ago
It's a huge field, but the core rules for lawyers are here: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/model_rules_of_professional_conduct_table_of_contents/ https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibili... As one of many, many examples, leaders in the employment law field regularly write publicly about fair employment practices (particularly when it comes to discrimination, whether racial, age-related or disability-related), and strive for changes in the law and in employers' practices. At the same time, they also counsel their employers or clients about the rules and about compliance. That's fine. But a lawyer generally cannot publicly critique their employer/client without permission. Public disclosure of an employer's or client's confidential information without permission violates, for example, ABA model rule 1.6, and is a great way to get yourself disbarred (or at least face disciplinary action).

thirtyseven 6y ago

These were researchers though, their jobs were to publish papers externally.

wpietri 6y ago

I suppose that depends on whether you think an "Ethical AI" group's job is as window dressing or to actually make an ethical impact. If the former, then they probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place; PR people are cheaper and more tractable. If the latter, then there's only so long you can ask good people to stay quiet. Enabling ethical failure is also an ethical failure. Your analogies don't really work, I'm afraid. The job of corporate lawyers isn't to force some sort of ethical or legal standard. It's to give confidential advice so a company can do what it wants without anybody going to jail. Accountants do maintain a standard that is quasi-ethical, but they do it by controlling their own work. Auditors are closer to the Ethical AI relationship, but they're specifically external, so as to avoid the conflicts of interest in Google trying to police itself. And both accountants and auditors drop a dime on people all the time, and even have protection under law for doing so: https://www.accountingtoday.com/whistleblower https://www.accountingtoday.com/whistleblower

solveit 6y ago
I think the one thing both sides can agree on is that there should be whistleblower protections enshrined in law for people reporting ethics breaches. (I'm not going to try and suggest how it should be implemented, that's legitimately difficult)
- prepend 6y ago
  No one in this scenario reported an ethics breach right? So how would it apply? There are whistleblower laws now but they apply to illegal actions.
  - wpietri 6y ago
    The heart of the matter is what the ethics experts see as an attempt to suppress criticism of ethical problems with Google's technology. So yes, it's very much an ethics breach. Whistleblowing need not be only about crime. It can just be about harm. [1] Indeed, with new technologies, regulation often has yet to be written, so whistleblowing can only be about harm. [1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engineers-become-whistleblowers/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/when-engin...

moistly 6y ago

> This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea. It has not worked out well. Making employees keep unethical behaviour on the down-low has resulted in immense, catastrophic harm. If we are to maintain a healthy society we need a lot more whistleblowing. We need to put work into being better.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]