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I respect the gesture but I think it would be more useful if accompanied with some plan of action for improving the current state of ethics in CS. It's a field

I respect the gesture but I think it would be more useful if accompanied with some plan of action for improving the current state of ethics in CS. It's a field-wide problem, not a Google specific problem. Also, let's be clear here on who bears the brunt of these actions - when a lab is short on funding, it's the grad students who lose out first. Vijay tweeted as much, saying he'd rather his grad students need to TA an extra semester or two rather than take Google's money.

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago
Dude isn't a CS professor per-se. Just look at his website. He comes out of sociology, not CS.
tablespoon 6y ago
> I respect the gesture but I think it would be more useful if accompanied with some plan of action for improving the current state of ethics in CS. It's a field-wide problem, not a Google specific problem. That's a really odd comment. Sure it would be nice if he could come up with such a plan, but it's a non sequitur to couple that to a decision to decline a grant. It's like saying, "Joe bought an electric car because he's concerned about global warming, but it would have been useful if he solved the worldwide problem, too...and developed a warp drive."
airhead969 6y ago
It seems unreasonable to demand industry/field leadership and a plan for turning down a grant out of moral courage. I would advocate "be the change you seek" rather than expecting everyone else to throw their energy into solving complex, systemic problems. Also, you can't make people more ethical with a course. It doesn't work like that. People either have a semblance of a moral compass or they don't, and unfortunately I think there is less and less big-picture moral courage and critical thinking amongst the majority of knowledge workers. Maybe it's the way people were raised in the past 30 years, e.g., latchkey kids who grew up feral without mentors or active parental involvement due to two full-time working parents.

FooBarBizBazz 6y ago

Dude isn't a CS professor per-se. Just look at his website. He comes out of sociology, not CS.

tablespoon 6y ago

> I respect the gesture but I think it would be more useful if accompanied with some plan of action for improving the current state of ethics in CS. It's a field-wide problem, not a Google specific problem. That's a really odd comment. Sure it would be nice if he could come up with such a plan, but it's a non sequitur to couple that to a decision to decline a grant. It's like saying, "Joe bought an electric car because he's concerned about global warming, but it would have been useful if he solved the worldwide problem, too...and developed a warp drive."

airhead969 6y ago

It seems unreasonable to demand industry/field leadership and a plan for turning down a grant out of moral courage. I would advocate "be the change you seek" rather than expecting everyone else to throw their energy into solving complex, systemic problems. Also, you can't make people more ethical with a course. It doesn't work like that. People either have a semblance of a moral compass or they don't, and unfortunately I think there is less and less big-picture moral courage and critical thinking amongst the majority of knowledge workers. Maybe it's the way people were raised in the past 30 years, e.g., latchkey kids who grew up feral without mentors or active parental involvement due to two full-time working parents.