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Because there isn't a universal truth ), at least if there is we as a species don't (can't know it) especially as it relates to how we all interact not only wit

Because there isn't a universal truth ), at least if there is we as a species don't (can't know it) especially as it relates to how we all interact not only with each other but the planet, etc. You're version of good is another's version of bad, if we can't have neutrality, we're just building another machine to amplify whichever group builds it's values and right or wrong just depends on where you stand. To break it down, do we want to be neutral or do we want, SiliconValleyGPT? What happens when instead of that we get SaudiArabiaGPT? Or ChinaGPT? Or RussiaGPT? DeepSouthGPT? I just picked arbitrary places but you see my point, I hope.

MrJohz 4y ago
There's an assumption there that a neutral AI can exist, but I think a lot of people would challenge that central assumption. No set of training data can be truly neutral or unbiased. It may be well balanced between certain groups, but the choice of which groups to balance, how much to balance them, and the choice to add this balance in the first place are all ideological decisions that stem from certain beliefs and ideas. The AIs that get built will reflect the ideologies and values of the people who build them. It is therefore better for us ethically to be conscious of the values we are injecting.
danShumway 4y ago
These kinds of philosophy discussions are frustratingly restricted to bias against minorities. Nobody here commented on the "AI should protect your privacy" tenant with "but how do we know privacy is good? What if my definition of privacy is different from yours? What happens when a criminal has privacy?" Nobody wanted a concrete definition of agency from first principles, nobody wanted to talk about the intersection of agency and telos. "There's no universal truth" is basically an argument against "responsible" AI in the first place, since there would be no universal truth about what "responsibility" means. Mozilla's statement about responsible AI is inherently biased towards their opinion of what responsibility is. But again, the bias accusations only popped up on that last point. We're all fine with Mozilla having opinions about "good" and "bad" states of the world until it has opinions about treating minorities equitably, then it becomes pressingly important that we have a philosophy discussion.
- Avicebron 4y ago
  On the contrary, I think saying "there is no universal truth" is a foundation of for those discussions of first principles. I wasn't arguing against "responsible ai", I was replying to someone who made their implicit assumptions clear, even if I agreed with who I was responding to, which I do for the most part, I was trying to dig down to the granularity of their assertions. Because it's easy to make sweeping statements about what's 'good' and 'bad' (but who makes those distinctions in which context is more important than just saying it's one or the other). I didn't bring up anything to do with minorities at all, following my logic, the question is, "which minorities and where?" It's in line with what you say about privacy, "who's privacy, what's their definition of it"
  - danShumway 4y ago
    > I wasn't arguing against "responsible ai" That's what I'm saying. The fact that you didn't see "responsible AI" as something to question to the same degree is exactly the point I was making. That you don't realize that "neutrality" doesn't exist in a conversation about responsible AI is the point that sgift's comment was making. There is no purpose to going into a conversation about responsible AI trying to be fully neutral about what good and bad is. The word "responsible" implies that there is such a thing as a good and bad outcome, and that the good outcomes are preferable to the bad ones. But to restate GP's point, any conversation about user agency, privacy, equity, responsiblity, bias, accuracy, etc... all of it assumes an opinionated philosophy about what's good and bad -- and in fact, it is desirable to have those discussions working from the assumption that some things are good and some things are bad. It is impossible for any of that conversation to be neutral, nor should neutrality be a goal -- because a conversation about responsible AI is a conversation about how to influence and create those preferred world states, and how to bias an AI to create those world states. There is no such thing as a "neutral" aligned AI. AI alignment is the process of biasing an AI towards particular responses. ---- And again, I just want to point out, these types of conversations never crop up when we're talking about stuff like user agency and privacy. When I say "people should have privacy", nobody asks me to define ethics from first principles. And I mean, people can say "well, we just want to approach first principles in general, this isn't about minorities" -- but people can also read the thread on this page and they can see that all of this conversation spiraled out of someone complaining that Mozilla was calling out models that reinforced existing biases against minorities. That was the context. There is no sibling thread here where someone complained about the dichotomy between safety and agency. And people can take from that what they want, but it's a pattern on HN.

MrJohz 4y ago

There's an assumption there that a neutral AI can exist, but I think a lot of people would challenge that central assumption. No set of training data can be truly neutral or unbiased. It may be well balanced between certain groups, but the choice of which groups to balance, how much to balance them, and the choice to add this balance in the first place are all ideological decisions that stem from certain beliefs and ideas. The AIs that get built will reflect the ideologies and values of the people who build them. It is therefore better for us ethically to be conscious of the values we are injecting.

danShumway 4y ago

These kinds of philosophy discussions are frustratingly restricted to bias against minorities. Nobody here commented on the "AI should protect your privacy" tenant with "but how do we know privacy is good? What if my definition of privacy is different from yours? What happens when a criminal has privacy?" Nobody wanted a concrete definition of agency from first principles, nobody wanted to talk about the intersection of agency and telos. "There's no universal truth" is basically an argument against "responsible" AI in the first place, since there would be no universal truth about what "responsibility" means. Mozilla's statement about responsible AI is inherently biased towards their opinion of what responsibility is. But again, the bias accusations only popped up on that last point. We're all fine with Mozilla having opinions about "good" and "bad" states of the world until it has opinions about treating minorities equitably, then it becomes pressingly important that we have a philosophy discussion.

Avicebron 4y ago
On the contrary, I think saying "there is no universal truth" is a foundation of for those discussions of first principles. I wasn't arguing against "responsible ai", I was replying to someone who made their implicit assumptions clear, even if I agreed with who I was responding to, which I do for the most part, I was trying to dig down to the granularity of their assertions. Because it's easy to make sweeping statements about what's 'good' and 'bad' (but who makes those distinctions in which context is more important than just saying it's one or the other). I didn't bring up anything to do with minorities at all, following my logic, the question is, "which minorities and where?" It's in line with what you say about privacy, "who's privacy, what's their definition of it"
- danShumway 4y ago
  > I wasn't arguing against "responsible ai" That's what I'm saying. The fact that you didn't see "responsible AI" as something to question to the same degree is exactly the point I was making. That you don't realize that "neutrality" doesn't exist in a conversation about responsible AI is the point that sgift's comment was making. There is no purpose to going into a conversation about responsible AI trying to be fully neutral about what good and bad is. The word "responsible" implies that there is such a thing as a good and bad outcome, and that the good outcomes are preferable to the bad ones. But to restate GP's point, any conversation about user agency, privacy, equity, responsiblity, bias, accuracy, etc... all of it assumes an opinionated philosophy about what's good and bad -- and in fact, it is desirable to have those discussions working from the assumption that some things are good and some things are bad. It is impossible for any of that conversation to be neutral, nor should neutrality be a goal -- because a conversation about responsible AI is a conversation about how to influence and create those preferred world states, and how to bias an AI to create those world states. There is no such thing as a "neutral" aligned AI. AI alignment is the process of biasing an AI towards particular responses. ---- And again, I just want to point out, these types of conversations never crop up when we're talking about stuff like user agency and privacy. When I say "people should have privacy", nobody asks me to define ethics from first principles. And I mean, people can say "well, we just want to approach first principles in general, this isn't about minorities" -- but people can also read the thread on this page and they can see that all of this conversation spiraled out of someone complaining that Mozilla was calling out models that reinforced existing biases against minorities. That was the context. There is no sibling thread here where someone complained about the dichotomy between safety and agency. And people can take from that what they want, but it's a pattern on HN.