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It’s being politically sensitive to assert that this was obviously the intent of Google and that it demonstrates that they’re wholly consumed by the woke mind v

by _bohm 3y ago

It’s being politically sensitive to assert that this was obviously the intent of Google and that it demonstrates that they’re wholly consumed by the woke mind virus, or whatever, as many commenters have done. The sensible alternative explanation is that this issue is an overcorrection made in an attempt to address well-documented biases these models have when not fine tuned.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Jensson 3y ago
> The sensible alternative explanation is that this issue is an overcorrection made in an attempt to address well-documented biases these models have when not fine tuned. That is what all these people are arguing, so you agree with them here. If people didn't complain then this wouldn't get fixed.
- _bohm 3y ago
  There are some people who are arguing this point, with whom I agree. There are others who are arguing that this is indicative of some objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive.
  - Jensson 3y ago
    > There are others who are arguing that this is indicative of some objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. I never saw such a comment. Can you link to it? All people are saying that Google is refusing to generate images of white people due to "wokeness", which is the same explanation you gave just with different words, "wokeness" made them turn this dial until it no longer generates images of white people, they would never have shipped a model in this state otherwise. When people talk about "wokeness" they typically mean this kind of overcorrection.
    - _bohm 3y ago
      "Wokeness" is a politically charged term typically used by people of a particular political persuasion to describe people with whom they disagree. If you asked the creators of Gemini why they altered the model from it's initial state such that it produced the observed behavior, I'm sure they would tell you that they were attempting to correct undesirable biases that existed in the training set, not "we're woke!". This is the issue I'm pointing out. Rather than viewing this incident as an honest mistake, many commenters seem to want to impute malice, or use it as evidence to support their preconceived notions about the overall ideological stance of an organization with 100,000+ employees.
      - Jensson 3y ago
        "Wokeness" refers to this kind of over correction, that is what those people means, it isn't just people they disagree with. You not understanding the term is why you don't see why you are saying the same thing as those people. Communication gets easier when you try to listen to what people say instead of straw manning their arguments. So when you read "woke", try substitute "over correcting" for it and it is typically still valid. Like that post above calling "woke" people racist, what he is saying is that people over corrected from being racist against blacks to being racist against whites. Just like Google here over corrected their AI to refuse to generate white people, that kind of over correction is exactly what people mean with woke.
      - xanderlewis 3y ago
        > "Wokeness" is a politically charged term typically used by people of a particular political persuasion to describe people with whom they disagree. Wokeness describes a very particular type of behaviour — look it up. It’s not the catch-all pejorative you think it is, unlike, say, ‘xyz-phobia’. …and I probably don’t have the opinions you might assume I do.
        _bohm 3y ago
        Maybe my comment wasn't clear. I don't mean to say that wokeness is defined as "idea that I disagree with", but that it is a politically charged term that is not merely synonymous with "overcorrection", as the parent commenter seems to want to assert.
  - typeofhuman 3y ago
    > objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. When I asked Gemini to "generate an image of all an black male basketball team" it gladly generated an image exactly as prompted. When I replaced "black" with "white", Gemini refused to generate the image on the grounds of being inclusive and less divisive.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    > stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. There’s no argument here, it literally says this is the reason when asked
    - _bohm 3y ago
      You are equating the output of the model with the views of its creators. This incident may demonstrate some underlying dysfunction within Google but it strains credulity to believe that the creators actually think it is objectionable to generate an image depicting a white person.
      - andsoitis 3y ago
        > but it strains credulity to believe that the creators actually think it is objectionable to generate an image depicting a white person. I agree with you, but then the question is WHY do they implement a system that does exactly that? Why don't they speak up? Because they will be shut down and labeled a racist or fired, creating a chilling effect. Dissent is being squashed in the name of social justice by people who are self-righteous and arrogant and fall into the identity trap, rather than treat individiuals like the rich, wonderful, fallible creatures that we are.
      - PeterisP 3y ago
        These particular "guardrail responses" are there because they have been trained in from a relatively limited amount of very specific, manually curated examples telling "respond in this way" and providing this specific wording. So I'd argue that those particular "override" responses (as opposed to majority of model answers which are emergent from large quantities of unannotated text) do represent the views of the creators, because they explicitly and intentionally chose to manufacture those particular training examples telling that this is an appropriate response to a particular type of query. This should not strain credulity - the demonstrated behavior totally doesn't look like a side-effect of some other restriction, all evidence points that Google explicitly included instructions for the model to refuse generating white-only images and the particular reasoning/justification to provide along with the refusal.
      - 3y ago
_cenw 3y ago
"woke mind virus" should be an automatic ban from this site, it's a thought terminating cliche so strong, any semblance of "converse curiously" is immediately thrown out the window, into a well, down into hell, bouncing around the back of the flat earth
- ses1984 3y ago
  The person above you compares the woke mind virus to a “sensible alternative explanation” so yeah they are kinda framing it as a thought terminating cliche.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  An automatic ban for certain keywords (that you misunderstood) is not thought terminating and against curious conversation?
- concordDance 3y ago
  An automatic ban is probably too harsh, a warning and instruction not to use such vague and loaded terms might be helpful to lowering the heat (regardless of what political movement the terms are for, I'd discourage accusations of "fascism" just as much as "wokeness" unless accompanied by an explicit definition)
  - andsoitis 3y ago
    > a warning and instruction not to use such vague and loaded terms No. We use vague and loaded terms all the time. That's OK. That's human. Paternalism yields resentment because it treats adults like babies. Some person in some corporate office trying to teach me how to think when they themselves lack critical thinking ability is unacceptable.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      Whether it is "ok" in some absolute moral sense isn't relevant in this context, which is about whether it is more in keeping with the goals of hackernews to clamp down on the use of terms which result in flamewars due to confusion and misunderstanding (and no small amount of connotations and signalling). Words like "woke" mean different things to different people and their use is very harmful to discourse between people from opposite sides on that particular culture war. Tabooing the term and replacing it with one's intended meaning can really clear things up and prevent getting people's backs up. E.g. rather than "woke" one might use "race aware" or "tribalistic" or "injustice aware" or whatever specific meaning one intends to convey. That way you can actually be understood rather than offending people because they identify as "woke" but consider it to mean "injustice aware" rather than some negative meaning. Tl;dr: words are for communication, use words your audience has the same understanding of
hot_gril 3y ago
It'd be a lot less suspicious if the product lead and PR face of Gemini had not publicly written things on Twitter in the past like "this is America, where racism is the #1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all." This suggests something top-down being imposed on unwilling employees, not a "virus." Like, if I were on that team, it'd be pretty risky to question this, and it'd probably not lead to change. So they let the public do it instead.

by _bohm 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Jensson 3y ago

> The sensible alternative explanation is that this issue is an overcorrection made in an attempt to address well-documented biases these models have when not fine tuned. That is what all these people are arguing, so you agree with them here. If people didn't complain then this wouldn't get fixed.

_bohm 3y ago
There are some people who are arguing this point, with whom I agree. There are others who are arguing that this is indicative of some objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive.
- Jensson 3y ago
  > There are others who are arguing that this is indicative of some objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. I never saw such a comment. Can you link to it? All people are saying that Google is refusing to generate images of white people due to "wokeness", which is the same explanation you gave just with different words, "wokeness" made them turn this dial until it no longer generates images of white people, they would never have shipped a model in this state otherwise. When people talk about "wokeness" they typically mean this kind of overcorrection.
  - _bohm 3y ago
    "Wokeness" is a politically charged term typically used by people of a particular political persuasion to describe people with whom they disagree. If you asked the creators of Gemini why they altered the model from it's initial state such that it produced the observed behavior, I'm sure they would tell you that they were attempting to correct undesirable biases that existed in the training set, not "we're woke!". This is the issue I'm pointing out. Rather than viewing this incident as an honest mistake, many commenters seem to want to impute malice, or use it as evidence to support their preconceived notions about the overall ideological stance of an organization with 100,000+ employees.
    - Jensson 3y ago
      "Wokeness" refers to this kind of over correction, that is what those people means, it isn't just people they disagree with. You not understanding the term is why you don't see why you are saying the same thing as those people. Communication gets easier when you try to listen to what people say instead of straw manning their arguments. So when you read "woke", try substitute "over correcting" for it and it is typically still valid. Like that post above calling "woke" people racist, what he is saying is that people over corrected from being racist against blacks to being racist against whites. Just like Google here over corrected their AI to refuse to generate white people, that kind of over correction is exactly what people mean with woke.
    - xanderlewis 3y ago
      > "Wokeness" is a politically charged term typically used by people of a particular political persuasion to describe people with whom they disagree. Wokeness describes a very particular type of behaviour — look it up. It’s not the catch-all pejorative you think it is, unlike, say, ‘xyz-phobia’. …and I probably don’t have the opinions you might assume I do.
      - _bohm 3y ago
        Maybe my comment wasn't clear. I don't mean to say that wokeness is defined as "idea that I disagree with", but that it is a politically charged term that is not merely synonymous with "overcorrection", as the parent commenter seems to want to assert.
- typeofhuman 3y ago
  > objectionable ideological stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. When I asked Gemini to "generate an image of all an black male basketball team" it gladly generated an image exactly as prompted. When I replaced "black" with "white", Gemini refused to generate the image on the grounds of being inclusive and less divisive.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  > stance held by Google that genuinely views generating images of white people as divisive. There’s no argument here, it literally says this is the reason when asked
  - _bohm 3y ago
    You are equating the output of the model with the views of its creators. This incident may demonstrate some underlying dysfunction within Google but it strains credulity to believe that the creators actually think it is objectionable to generate an image depicting a white person.
    - andsoitis 3y ago
      > but it strains credulity to believe that the creators actually think it is objectionable to generate an image depicting a white person. I agree with you, but then the question is WHY do they implement a system that does exactly that? Why don't they speak up? Because they will be shut down and labeled a racist or fired, creating a chilling effect. Dissent is being squashed in the name of social justice by people who are self-righteous and arrogant and fall into the identity trap, rather than treat individiuals like the rich, wonderful, fallible creatures that we are.
    - PeterisP 3y ago
      These particular "guardrail responses" are there because they have been trained in from a relatively limited amount of very specific, manually curated examples telling "respond in this way" and providing this specific wording. So I'd argue that those particular "override" responses (as opposed to majority of model answers which are emergent from large quantities of unannotated text) do represent the views of the creators, because they explicitly and intentionally chose to manufacture those particular training examples telling that this is an appropriate response to a particular type of query. This should not strain credulity - the demonstrated behavior totally doesn't look like a side-effect of some other restriction, all evidence points that Google explicitly included instructions for the model to refuse generating white-only images and the particular reasoning/justification to provide along with the refusal.
    - 3y ago

_cenw 3y ago

"woke mind virus" should be an automatic ban from this site, it's a thought terminating cliche so strong, any semblance of "converse curiously" is immediately thrown out the window, into a well, down into hell, bouncing around the back of the flat earth

ses1984 3y ago
The person above you compares the woke mind virus to a “sensible alternative explanation” so yeah they are kinda framing it as a thought terminating cliche.
carlosjobim 3y ago
An automatic ban for certain keywords (that you misunderstood) is not thought terminating and against curious conversation?
concordDance 3y ago
An automatic ban is probably too harsh, a warning and instruction not to use such vague and loaded terms might be helpful to lowering the heat (regardless of what political movement the terms are for, I'd discourage accusations of "fascism" just as much as "wokeness" unless accompanied by an explicit definition)
- andsoitis 3y ago
  > a warning and instruction not to use such vague and loaded terms No. We use vague and loaded terms all the time. That's OK. That's human. Paternalism yields resentment because it treats adults like babies. Some person in some corporate office trying to teach me how to think when they themselves lack critical thinking ability is unacceptable.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    Whether it is "ok" in some absolute moral sense isn't relevant in this context, which is about whether it is more in keeping with the goals of hackernews to clamp down on the use of terms which result in flamewars due to confusion and misunderstanding (and no small amount of connotations and signalling). Words like "woke" mean different things to different people and their use is very harmful to discourse between people from opposite sides on that particular culture war. Tabooing the term and replacing it with one's intended meaning can really clear things up and prevent getting people's backs up. E.g. rather than "woke" one might use "race aware" or "tribalistic" or "injustice aware" or whatever specific meaning one intends to convey. That way you can actually be understood rather than offending people because they identify as "woke" but consider it to mean "injustice aware" rather than some negative meaning. Tl;dr: words are for communication, use words your audience has the same understanding of

hot_gril 3y ago

It'd be a lot less suspicious if the product lead and PR face of Gemini had not publicly written things on Twitter in the past like "this is America, where racism is the #1 value our populace seeks to uphold above all." This suggests something top-down being imposed on unwilling employees, not a "virus." Like, if I were on that team, it'd be pretty risky to question this, and it'd probably not lead to change. So they let the public do it instead.