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(Unpopular opinion): I feel like ethics are made up laws that people try to enforce when they're just jealous someone else did something first. If something is

(Unpopular opinion): I feel like ethics are made up laws that people try to enforce when they're just jealous someone else did something first. If something is actually a problem for citizens, ask your legislators to make a law encompassing fair use and other compliance standards. Don't just make up new ethical rules and pretend barriers because you're jealous. If you thought of and executed ChatGPT, or Tindr, or Facebook, before their creators, would you still have the same "ethical" views that you claim should be followed? Also reading through the article, some of the author's propositions are insane. For example: > So, for in-house batch jobs, they are started and stopped by operations personnel No, the whole point of some of our work is to increase automation and reduce opex costs, so that companies don't need to hire people because people are expensive and risky. > Second, a computer should never lie or trick the users This requires users to be informed on what their device is doing. How many people actually read the terms and conditions of the services they use? If they can't even be bothered to read that, what's to say they're going to read another long, boring document that explains what every feature of your app does so they cannot claim they were "tricked"? Sure dark patterns are not very fantastic - we can absolutely address those. But creating an informed user-base is very challenging.

kazinator 3y ago
> If you thought of and executed ChatGPT, or Tindr, or Facebook, before their creators, would you still have the same "ethical" views that you claim should be followed? Publicly, the purveyors of all of the above purport to have ethics. OpenAI's models have safeguards in them against discussing some topics and providing certain information. I suspect it's just a social survival strategy for these companies, nothing more; not an actual commitment to ethics.
- peteradio 3y ago
  I assert that "commitment to ethics" is an empty statement without a specific set of ethics guidelines. I also assert ethics are always a "social survival strategy" and that isn't meant to besmirch the value of ethics.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    It can be empty even with a commitment to specifics, if the reasoning is "I don't care about harm, but some fraction of how the stock is doing depends on public perception".
    - peteradio 3y ago
      It doesn't matter, ethics is like a protocol who cares the reasoning behind it as long as we can agree to it.
rileymat2 3y ago
I think that you are missing that laws are much more a sort of minimum bright line black and white standard, where ethics can be much grayer and enforced more subjectively. Life has a lot of gray areas. Typically it is not someone just making them up out of jealousy, it is an organization that comes to consensus about how they want to be viewed as a group. This is a good thing. It is important to have both.
mitt_romney_12 3y ago
> How many people actually read the terms and conditions of the services they use? A big part of the reason no one reads them is because they're a giant legal document. If you want to inform your users you could say something like "Hey this is what kind of data we collect and what kinds of people we share it with" it doesn't cover everything but it gives people a much better idea of what they are actually agreeing to
- SamuelAdams 3y ago
  > it doesn't cover everything Therein lies the rub then. People can still claim they're "lied to" because there was no written document explaining something a particular service did. Which brings me back to my original argument, some of OP's claims are extremely difficult to actually implement.
  - mitt_romney_12 3y ago
    You're right that it's tough completely cover everything but a code of ethics isn't supposed to be a set of laws you follow to the letter but more a set of guidelines for how you should try and act. I think almost everyone would agree that a quick, plain English, summary is more honest to customers than a giant legal document. If you have to leave out some technical details for space that isn't "lying to your customers" but intentionally trying to cover up what you're doing with customer data definitely is.
II2II 3y ago
> If you thought of and executed ChatGPT, or Tindr, or Facebook, before their creators, would you still have the same "ethical" views that you claim should be followed? Do you mean in terms of developing the services, or in terms of scale? If you're talking about scale, I can assure you there are many people would never be confronted with that scenario since their ethics would have held them back. There is a world of difference between being successful and being a titan. Even though anyone can have questionable ethics, amassing power over others virtually ensures that one has questionable ethics.
KyeRussell 3y ago
[flagged]

kazinator 3y ago

> If you thought of and executed ChatGPT, or Tindr, or Facebook, before their creators, would you still have the same "ethical" views that you claim should be followed? Publicly, the purveyors of all of the above purport to have ethics. OpenAI's models have safeguards in them against discussing some topics and providing certain information. I suspect it's just a social survival strategy for these companies, nothing more; not an actual commitment to ethics.

peteradio 3y ago
I assert that "commitment to ethics" is an empty statement without a specific set of ethics guidelines. I also assert ethics are always a "social survival strategy" and that isn't meant to besmirch the value of ethics.
- kazinator 3y ago
  It can be empty even with a commitment to specifics, if the reasoning is "I don't care about harm, but some fraction of how the stock is doing depends on public perception".
  - peteradio 3y ago
    It doesn't matter, ethics is like a protocol who cares the reasoning behind it as long as we can agree to it.

rileymat2 3y ago

I think that you are missing that laws are much more a sort of minimum bright line black and white standard, where ethics can be much grayer and enforced more subjectively. Life has a lot of gray areas. Typically it is not someone just making them up out of jealousy, it is an organization that comes to consensus about how they want to be viewed as a group. This is a good thing. It is important to have both.

mitt_romney_12 3y ago

> How many people actually read the terms and conditions of the services they use? A big part of the reason no one reads them is because they're a giant legal document. If you want to inform your users you could say something like "Hey this is what kind of data we collect and what kinds of people we share it with" it doesn't cover everything but it gives people a much better idea of what they are actually agreeing to

SamuelAdams 3y ago
> it doesn't cover everything Therein lies the rub then. People can still claim they're "lied to" because there was no written document explaining something a particular service did. Which brings me back to my original argument, some of OP's claims are extremely difficult to actually implement.
- mitt_romney_12 3y ago
  You're right that it's tough completely cover everything but a code of ethics isn't supposed to be a set of laws you follow to the letter but more a set of guidelines for how you should try and act. I think almost everyone would agree that a quick, plain English, summary is more honest to customers than a giant legal document. If you have to leave out some technical details for space that isn't "lying to your customers" but intentionally trying to cover up what you're doing with customer data definitely is.

II2II 3y ago

> If you thought of and executed ChatGPT, or Tindr, or Facebook, before their creators, would you still have the same "ethical" views that you claim should be followed? Do you mean in terms of developing the services, or in terms of scale? If you're talking about scale, I can assure you there are many people would never be confronted with that scenario since their ethics would have held them back. There is a world of difference between being successful and being a titan. Even though anyone can have questionable ethics, amassing power over others virtually ensures that one has questionable ethics.

KyeRussell 3y ago

[flagged]