3 ms·

Pet peeve, articles that use "untested" as a critism when testing something is the point.

monktastic1 6y ago
It may be the point for Google, but not for Toronto citizens, who surely want a better city more than they want to be a science experiment. I'd say the usage is purposeful and correct.
- concordDance 6y ago
  Any new idea has to start somewhere. We'll eternally stay at local maxima without experimentation.
  - monktastic1 6y ago
    This is still missing the point. The sentence is about Toronto's current priorities. While the world surely benefits from guinea pigs, any individual guinea pig may not want to be one.
  - routerl 6y ago
    You're right. But you're missing an argument about why Toronto should be the one to take that hit.
routerl 6y ago
The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of life, actually. Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_. It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's shareholders.
- patcon 6y ago
  This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing the deal. I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for which the term was invented to explain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 They lacked certain diversity of views that would have allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They got caught up in their good intentions.
Barrin92 6y ago
This is a city with real people in it, not a new gadget Google can throw out of the window like half of its projects two years later. When it comes to the physical environment of people 'untested' in particular of the tech sector variety is a very legitimate criticism in an of itself.
patcon 6y ago
Nothing wrong with "testing" imho. But like in any grand real-world experiment -- except tech, which has split from science in terms of ethics norms, perhaps in its own meta-experiment of sorts -- in experiments, the public should have ability to consent or withhold consent to be tested on. The Sidewalk Toronto public consultations did not have a way to say "no" and withhold consent. The consultation was of the format of "getting to yes", which is all-too-common but the low bar for public consultations. It's the sort that property developers run hand-in-hand with cities who really want to just build something. Initiatives running meaningful and fair public consultations don't do that. tl;dr - The fact that there was no lever to decline to participate was a major criticism of the whole effort.

It may be the point for Google, but not for Toronto citizens, who surely want a better city more than they want to be a science experiment. I'd say the usage is purposeful and correct.

concordDance 6y ago
Any new idea has to start somewhere. We'll eternally stay at local maxima without experimentation.
- monktastic1 6y ago
  This is still missing the point. The sentence is about Toronto's current priorities. While the world surely benefits from guinea pigs, any individual guinea pig may not want to be one.
- routerl 6y ago
  You're right. But you're missing an argument about why Toronto should be the one to take that hit.

routerl 6y ago

The point is to improve our city and its residents' quality of life, actually. Edit for clarity: This was a project _of the city of Toronto_. It is _only incidentally_ an Alphabet project _as well_. The City of Toronto has no fiduciary obligation to Alphabet's shareholders.

patcon 6y ago
This was a big point of its critics: the City was ostensibly a partner, but had very poor literacy and so Sidewalk Labs was essentially taking lead. When the City did seek their own third-party supports, they naively sought only supportive tech partners. There were whole classes of consultants they never engaged with, as they were naively focussed on sealing the deal. I read it as maybe something like Bay of Pigs groupthink (for which the term was invented to explain): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glUUmsBb_58 They lacked certain diversity of views that would have allowed them to better see where this plan was flawed. They got caught up in their good intentions.

Barrin92 6y ago

This is a city with real people in it, not a new gadget Google can throw out of the window like half of its projects two years later. When it comes to the physical environment of people 'untested' in particular of the tech sector variety is a very legitimate criticism in an of itself.

patcon 6y ago

Nothing wrong with "testing" imho. But like in any grand real-world experiment -- except tech, which has split from science in terms of ethics norms, perhaps in its own meta-experiment of sorts -- in experiments, the public should have ability to consent or withhold consent to be tested on. The Sidewalk Toronto public consultations did not have a way to say "no" and withhold consent. The consultation was of the format of "getting to yes", which is all-too-common but the low bar for public consultations. It's the sort that property developers run hand-in-hand with cities who really want to just build something. Initiatives running meaningful and fair public consultations don't do that. tl;dr - The fact that there was no lever to decline to participate was a major criticism of the whole effort.