14 ms·

Yep, blockers like: - should we do this? - who do we hurt by doing this? - oh god people are hurting why are we still doing this?

nh23423fefe 4y ago
inventing harms to prevent like arsonist firefighters.
- slantedview 4y ago
  And here I thought it was a given that everyone understood the harm of social media, for example, to children and teenagers.
  - danrocks 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children#:~:text=Logical%20fallacy,-In%20their%202002&text=Ethicist%20Jack%20Marshall%20described%20%22Think,succeeds%20in%20preventing%20rational%20debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children#:~:text=....
    - kemotep 4y ago
      We have verifiable evidence of Facebook as a platform being used to instigate genocide[0] among other issues. Dismissing a concern that a platform could be used for harm against children as fallacious reasoning is a fallacy fallacy if you have no additional points to add to the discussion as to why you feel that is relevant. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934
      - noptd 4y ago
        I'm no fan of Facebook but I have a hard time understanding why Facebook is singled out for this. If what FB did is illegal, then they can be charged for their crimes. However if we're critizing from purely a moral standpoint, how is this any different than claiming that cell phone carriers should be preventing this type of thing over phone calls or texts? For the record, I don't find that to be a convincing argument either but it's the inconsistency of perspective that irks me.
        kemotep 4y ago
        That’s fair but again the post in question was essentially responding with “fallacy” and no further comment or context.
      - danrocks 4y ago
        The Rwandan genocide was spawned by radio propaganda from RTLM. Classifying social media as especially harmful to children when damage can be made from any sort of mass media is disingenuous.
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    That's exactly why I'm skeptical of whether a team like this could have been addressing real harms. If I heard about a nutrition team at Frito-Lay, I would assume they're working on nonsense until proven otherwise, because how could you meaningfully improve nutrition under the constraint that your company needs to sell lots of potato chips?
  - nh23423fefe 4y ago
    But they actually care about > [getting] the Facebook dating team’s ... to avoid including a filter that would let users target or exclude potential love interests of a particular race you see, you have to just ignore those people in the feed, you can't filter them, its better and not racist that way. and who knows, you might become not racist if you see a pretty girl/boy you like, but actually that's probably just racist fetishizing responsible innovation is doing the same dei doublespeak
nosianu 4y ago
Did you come up with the list or do you actually know what that team actually did? I think only the latter provides a valuable entry point for discussion. In the case of the former, we end up fighting each others imagined scenarios - and imagination is limitless. It sure leads to a lot of discussion, none of it bound by reality though. It would be nice, but would require an inside person to dare make potentially traceable (by their contents alone) public comments so it's unlikely, to know what the team actually tried to do, did do, and what it achieved. Without actual facts the discussion will just end up a free-for-all.
- wpietri 4y ago
  Funny that the "you don't actually know" critique comes in response not to the nakedly disparaging post that kicked this off, but the comment arguing for responsible software development. We of course don't know enough of the specifics, because Facebook works hard to keep it that way. But we do know that Facebook has a body count. If you're looking for a "valuable entry point for discussion", maybe start with Facebook's well-documented harms.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - paganel 4y ago
    And because I Ctrl+F-ed it and couldn’t find anything, one of those documented harms is the Rohingya Genocide. Putting this here so that we know what we’re talking about. Seeing devs non-ironically complain about internal departments like this one which was set up in order not to let that happen again kind of saddens me a lot. No, productivity and work is not more important than making sure that that work doesn’t enable a genocide campaign in a specific corner of the world.
    - thegrimmest 4y ago
      I think people fundamentally disagree here. I would attribute the entire (read 100%) responsibility for the Rohingya Genocide or other similar events to the perpetrators. Facebook is just another tool, and its creators bear no more blame for the actions of their users in the real world than the manufactures of the vehicles driven by the Burmese military.
hedora 4y ago
My experience is that most people in engineering organizations are not sociopaths, but some are. The problem is trying to get people that think everything you listed is obvious and boring to spend 40 hours a week staying out of the way 99% of the time, but also being politically savvy enough to get a few CxO’s fired each year. Also, since the office is normally doing nothing (unless the office has already completely failed), the people in it need to do all of that, and continuously justify their department’s existence when their quarterly status updates range from “did nothing” to “cut revenue by 5% but potentially avoided congressional hearings 5 years from now” to the career-killing “tattled to the board and tried to get the CEO fired”. If you know how to hire zero-drama, product- and profit-focused people that can effectively do that sort of thing, consider a job as an executive recruiter.
jayd16 4y ago
Already a pretty bad list. It should at least be "how can we do thing we want to do in a responsible way." You can guarantee no harm by doing nothing but that's not a good enough answer.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  If I consult with you on how to kill my wife in a responsible way, I hope you'll tell me that there's no way for me to kill my wife in a responsible way.
mint2 4y ago
Here’s a good example where engineers needed a team like this: - should we name this device we want to put in every house after one of the most common American female names?! engineers and ceo: I see no issue with that! Several millions people named Alexa now have everyone from toddlers to their friends yelling their name ordering them to do stupid tasks and “Alex stop” repeatedly. The name cratered in popularity for good reason. Yet Amazon still has not renamed their dumb speaker
- danrocks 4y ago
  Alexa was only the 32nd most popular name in the US for girls. A little over 6k babies were named Alexa in the US prior to the speaker's launch. The "Alexa stop" thing, is it a real or invented harm? My name happens to match the lead character of Karate Kid and I constantly asked to do the crane pose when I was 7. Doesn't seem to have traumatized me.
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Alexa was only the 32nd most popular name in the US for girls. 32nd most popular is not exactly obscure. Why did they have to give the computer a human name in the first place? Probably because it helps people form some sort of parasocial relationship to the product, which is gross, but probably good for business.
    - danrocks 4y ago
      I used to work there, after the launch (and therefore, of the name). One of the reasons given was that Alexa was a distinctly suitable word for proper recognition by the ASR model embedded on the device software. Also probably because it was good for business.
  - mint2 4y ago
    The popularity of the name cratered after launch. That doesn’t signify anything to you? That anecdote is nice but honestly it sounds like you survived a less frequent and more temporary somewhat similar but much milder version so now you’re stating everyone else needs to get over themselves?

nh23423fefe 4y ago

inventing harms to prevent like arsonist firefighters.

slantedview 4y ago
And here I thought it was a given that everyone understood the harm of social media, for example, to children and teenagers.
- danrocks 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children#:~:text=Logical%20fallacy,-In%20their%202002&text=Ethicist%20Jack%20Marshall%20described%20%22Think,succeeds%20in%20preventing%20rational%20debate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children#:~:text=....
  - kemotep 4y ago
    We have verifiable evidence of Facebook as a platform being used to instigate genocide[0] among other issues. Dismissing a concern that a platform could be used for harm against children as fallacious reasoning is a fallacy fallacy if you have no additional points to add to the discussion as to why you feel that is relevant. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934
    - noptd 4y ago
      I'm no fan of Facebook but I have a hard time understanding why Facebook is singled out for this. If what FB did is illegal, then they can be charged for their crimes. However if we're critizing from purely a moral standpoint, how is this any different than claiming that cell phone carriers should be preventing this type of thing over phone calls or texts? For the record, I don't find that to be a convincing argument either but it's the inconsistency of perspective that irks me.
      - kemotep 4y ago
        That’s fair but again the post in question was essentially responding with “fallacy” and no further comment or context.
    - danrocks 4y ago
      The Rwandan genocide was spawned by radio propaganda from RTLM. Classifying social media as especially harmful to children when damage can be made from any sort of mass media is disingenuous.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  That's exactly why I'm skeptical of whether a team like this could have been addressing real harms. If I heard about a nutrition team at Frito-Lay, I would assume they're working on nonsense until proven otherwise, because how could you meaningfully improve nutrition under the constraint that your company needs to sell lots of potato chips?
- nh23423fefe 4y ago
  But they actually care about > [getting] the Facebook dating team’s ... to avoid including a filter that would let users target or exclude potential love interests of a particular race you see, you have to just ignore those people in the feed, you can't filter them, its better and not racist that way. and who knows, you might become not racist if you see a pretty girl/boy you like, but actually that's probably just racist fetishizing responsible innovation is doing the same dei doublespeak

nosianu 4y ago

Did you come up with the list or do you actually know what that team actually did? I think only the latter provides a valuable entry point for discussion. In the case of the former, we end up fighting each others imagined scenarios - and imagination is limitless. It sure leads to a lot of discussion, none of it bound by reality though. It would be nice, but would require an inside person to dare make potentially traceable (by their contents alone) public comments so it's unlikely, to know what the team actually tried to do, did do, and what it achieved. Without actual facts the discussion will just end up a free-for-all.

wpietri 4y ago
Funny that the "you don't actually know" critique comes in response not to the nakedly disparaging post that kicked this off, but the comment arguing for responsible software development. We of course don't know enough of the specifics, because Facebook works hard to keep it that way. But we do know that Facebook has a body count. If you're looking for a "valuable entry point for discussion", maybe start with Facebook's well-documented harms.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- paganel 4y ago
  And because I Ctrl+F-ed it and couldn’t find anything, one of those documented harms is the Rohingya Genocide. Putting this here so that we know what we’re talking about. Seeing devs non-ironically complain about internal departments like this one which was set up in order not to let that happen again kind of saddens me a lot. No, productivity and work is not more important than making sure that that work doesn’t enable a genocide campaign in a specific corner of the world.
  - thegrimmest 4y ago
    I think people fundamentally disagree here. I would attribute the entire (read 100%) responsibility for the Rohingya Genocide or other similar events to the perpetrators. Facebook is just another tool, and its creators bear no more blame for the actions of their users in the real world than the manufactures of the vehicles driven by the Burmese military.

hedora 4y ago

My experience is that most people in engineering organizations are not sociopaths, but some are. The problem is trying to get people that think everything you listed is obvious and boring to spend 40 hours a week staying out of the way 99% of the time, but also being politically savvy enough to get a few CxO’s fired each year. Also, since the office is normally doing nothing (unless the office has already completely failed), the people in it need to do all of that, and continuously justify their department’s existence when their quarterly status updates range from “did nothing” to “cut revenue by 5% but potentially avoided congressional hearings 5 years from now” to the career-killing “tattled to the board and tried to get the CEO fired”. If you know how to hire zero-drama, product- and profit-focused people that can effectively do that sort of thing, consider a job as an executive recruiter.

jayd16 4y ago

Already a pretty bad list. It should at least be "how can we do thing we want to do in a responsible way." You can guarantee no harm by doing nothing but that's not a good enough answer.

pessimizer 4y ago
If I consult with you on how to kill my wife in a responsible way, I hope you'll tell me that there's no way for me to kill my wife in a responsible way.

mint2 4y ago

Here’s a good example where engineers needed a team like this: - should we name this device we want to put in every house after one of the most common American female names?! engineers and ceo: I see no issue with that! Several millions people named Alexa now have everyone from toddlers to their friends yelling their name ordering them to do stupid tasks and “Alex stop” repeatedly. The name cratered in popularity for good reason. Yet Amazon still has not renamed their dumb speaker

danrocks 4y ago
Alexa was only the 32nd most popular name in the US for girls. A little over 6k babies were named Alexa in the US prior to the speaker's launch. The "Alexa stop" thing, is it a real or invented harm? My name happens to match the lead character of Karate Kid and I constantly asked to do the crane pose when I was 7. Doesn't seem to have traumatized me.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Alexa was only the 32nd most popular name in the US for girls. 32nd most popular is not exactly obscure. Why did they have to give the computer a human name in the first place? Probably because it helps people form some sort of parasocial relationship to the product, which is gross, but probably good for business.
  - danrocks 4y ago
    I used to work there, after the launch (and therefore, of the name). One of the reasons given was that Alexa was a distinctly suitable word for proper recognition by the ASR model embedded on the device software. Also probably because it was good for business.
- mint2 4y ago
  The popularity of the name cratered after launch. That doesn’t signify anything to you? That anecdote is nice but honestly it sounds like you survived a less frequent and more temporary somewhat similar but much milder version so now you’re stating everyone else needs to get over themselves?