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Personally, I find it infuriating that Google seems to believe they are the arbiters of morality and truth simply because some of their predecessors figured out

Personally, I find it infuriating that Google seems to believe they are the arbiters of morality and truth simply because some of their predecessors figured out good internet search and how to profitably place ads. Google has no special claim to be able to responsibly use these models just because they are rich.

trention 4y ago
>Google has no special claim to be able to responsibly use these models Well, they do have the "special claim" of inventing the model and not owing its release to anyone.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  First, that isn't a claim of any kind regarding responsible use. If a child is the first one to discover a gun in the woods, that is no kind of claim that the child will use the gun responsibly. Second, Google's invention builds off of public research that was made available to them. They just choose to keep their iterations private.
  - trention 4y ago
    But there is a claim that not distributing guns to other children or giving them detailed instructions about how to get guns is more responsible than the reverse. Said "public research" didn't come with a requirement to release anything you build on top of it. This would pretty much be the research equivalent of compelled speech. Luckily, not happening.
- TigeriusKirk 4y ago
  It's trained on our data, and so its release is in fact owed to us.
  - Kiro 4y ago
    You are confusing this with OpenAI like everyone else in this thread.
kajecounterhack 4y ago
It's not that they are arbiters of morality and truth -- it's that they have a _responsibility_ to do the least harm. They spent money and time to train these models, so it's also up to them to see that they aren't causing issues by making such things widely available. They won't be using the models they train to commit crimes, for example. Someone who gets access to their best models may very well do that. It'd be really funny (lol, no) if Google's abuse team started facing issues because people are making more robust fake user accounts...by using google provided models.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  Ahh, how silly of me. Here I was thinking that Google kept their models private because they were hoping to monetize them. But now that you say it, it's obvious that this is just Google being morally responsible. Thanks Google! I'm sorry to be sarcastic. I generally try not to be, but I just can't fathom the level of naivete required to think that mega-corps act out of their moral responsibility rather than their profit-interest.
  - kajecounterhack 4y ago
    I'm sorry you feel so cynical about this. It's absolutely true that Google is profit-seeking, that these models are very expensive to build, and that if there's a competitive advantage to be had, Google should probably try to retain it. But even with that all being true, real people (typically some thoughtful researchers) build these models. And my point is: _there really are ethical reasons to keep large generative models trained on flawed data away from the general public until better safeguards are in place._ You can verify this for yourself by reading about ML bias and safety. Don't let cynicism keep you from internalizing that fact. OpenAI didn't make GPT-3 widely available for the same reason. At the end of the day, Google doesn't need an excuse like "we have ethical qualms" to not release the models. Stuff that is really secret sauce you won't hear about until many years later when it's not a competitive advantage anymore. Google _does_ need to cover its ass and not deal with its employees yelling that it helped perpetuate algorithmic racism, or surveillance state, or increased levels of inauthenticity on the internet. When I said "Google has a responsibility" -- I don't mean that the faceless entity feels responsibility, I mean the people who work on the specific things have a responsibility and they do feel & act on that. If you work on lifesaving drugs that could also be dangerous / addictive, it's kind of on you to be thoughtful about how to make them generally available, no?

trention 4y ago

>Google has no special claim to be able to responsibly use these models Well, they do have the "special claim" of inventing the model and not owing its release to anyone.

ALittleLight 4y ago
First, that isn't a claim of any kind regarding responsible use. If a child is the first one to discover a gun in the woods, that is no kind of claim that the child will use the gun responsibly. Second, Google's invention builds off of public research that was made available to them. They just choose to keep their iterations private.
- trention 4y ago
  But there is a claim that not distributing guns to other children or giving them detailed instructions about how to get guns is more responsible than the reverse. Said "public research" didn't come with a requirement to release anything you build on top of it. This would pretty much be the research equivalent of compelled speech. Luckily, not happening.
TigeriusKirk 4y ago
It's trained on our data, and so its release is in fact owed to us.
- Kiro 4y ago
  You are confusing this with OpenAI like everyone else in this thread.

kajecounterhack 4y ago

It's not that they are arbiters of morality and truth -- it's that they have a _responsibility_ to do the least harm. They spent money and time to train these models, so it's also up to them to see that they aren't causing issues by making such things widely available. They won't be using the models they train to commit crimes, for example. Someone who gets access to their best models may very well do that. It'd be really funny (lol, no) if Google's abuse team started facing issues because people are making more robust fake user accounts...by using google provided models.

ALittleLight 4y ago
Ahh, how silly of me. Here I was thinking that Google kept their models private because they were hoping to monetize them. But now that you say it, it's obvious that this is just Google being morally responsible. Thanks Google! I'm sorry to be sarcastic. I generally try not to be, but I just can't fathom the level of naivete required to think that mega-corps act out of their moral responsibility rather than their profit-interest.
- kajecounterhack 4y ago
  I'm sorry you feel so cynical about this. It's absolutely true that Google is profit-seeking, that these models are very expensive to build, and that if there's a competitive advantage to be had, Google should probably try to retain it. But even with that all being true, real people (typically some thoughtful researchers) build these models. And my point is: _there really are ethical reasons to keep large generative models trained on flawed data away from the general public until better safeguards are in place._ You can verify this for yourself by reading about ML bias and safety. Don't let cynicism keep you from internalizing that fact. OpenAI didn't make GPT-3 widely available for the same reason. At the end of the day, Google doesn't need an excuse like "we have ethical qualms" to not release the models. Stuff that is really secret sauce you won't hear about until many years later when it's not a competitive advantage anymore. Google _does_ need to cover its ass and not deal with its employees yelling that it helped perpetuate algorithmic racism, or surveillance state, or increased levels of inauthenticity on the internet. When I said "Google has a responsibility" -- I don't mean that the faceless entity feels responsibility, I mean the people who work on the specific things have a responsibility and they do feel & act on that. If you work on lifesaving drugs that could also be dangerous / addictive, it's kind of on you to be thoughtful about how to make them generally available, no?