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Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. You can play chess against yourself.

by dheera 3y ago

Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. You can play chess against yourself. AlphaGo can, because it wasn't brainwashed about this notion. ChatGPT can debate against itself. You can too, if you don't see it as a conflict. Humans might find it hard, only because they were brainwashed from a child that they need to pick sides. Your neural net is capable of operating on both sides simultaneously if you let it. The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware.

maximinus_thrax 3y ago
> Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. Lucky for us, we're discussing this in the context of humans building stuff for other humans to buy in a human society with human governments and markets, not in some metaphysical 'but what does meaning means' context.
rickdeckard 3y ago
> The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware. You obviously didn't read the comment you're replying to. No one is challenging that. Having the same TEAM in charge of the OS and in-house hardware is an entirely different story. It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. And even if he isn't, for SAMSUNG just the potential of this situation to happen can be enough to NOT cooperate with this team and scale back communications with the Android team as a whole.
- dheera 3y ago
  >It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. > Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So? You're talking about the person, which is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time in containers. > So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. They can both be successful at the same time. He can operate with an interest to optimize for an overall better world rather than interest to win over and kill Samsung. He can build a successful product AND help Samsung build a successful product at the same time.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    >The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. There's a reason we don't make a police chief investigate their own misconduct. "It's a perfectly OK thing to do. The person is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time. They can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with investigating the case and a seperate one that might or might not did it". "He didn't just declare himself innocent of misconduct and embezzelment out of self-interest. The independent investigating "thread" must have arrived to an impartial decision". "In any case, it's not blatant misconduct, you only see it as such. There's no notion of misconduct in nature, it's a made up thing we invented".
    - dheera 3y ago
      If there's accusation of misconduct, there's a bug in the system so you isolate it and investigate it from the outside. There's no investigation happening here, just two happy parties trying to create great products that can both be successful and be even happier. Lawyers can stay out of this happiness, inventing and injecting "conflicts" that never existed in the first place.
- oarla 3y ago
  Weren't the 2 teams already part of the same company? And OEMs do make custom modifications to Android before shipping their devices, so they don't have to share everything they intend to do with the Android team.
coldtea 3y ago
>Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. That could be said for anything in the moral and judicial sphere. "There's no theft, property is a human invention", "There's no rape, animals don't have that concept", and so on.
- dheera 3y ago
  That's true, but there are good reasons for calling theft and rape crimes in civilization. Conflict of interest, on the other hand, was invented by some lawyer and HR types just to make life harder for the rest of us. I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict.
  - coldtea 3y ago
    Conflict of interest has been a thing way before lawyers and HR types existed, they understood it and tried to prevent it at any point in history, from ancient Babylon to Rome, and from Amazon native tribes to imperial China. It's of course also the explicitly expressed reasoning for why there are independent branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial in the US). >I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict. Yes, it's called naivety :)
  - BlueTemplar 3y ago
    Civilization is already an unnatural situation, in the sense that we have to coexist in groups (and with other groups) bigger than Dunbar's number.

by dheera 3y ago

maximinus_thrax 3y ago

> Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. Lucky for us, we're discussing this in the context of humans building stuff for other humans to buy in a human society with human governments and markets, not in some metaphysical 'but what does meaning means' context.

rickdeckard 3y ago

> The market is big enough for Google to create hardware AND other companies to create hardware. You obviously didn't read the comment you're replying to. No one is challenging that. Having the same TEAM in charge of the OS and in-house hardware is an entirely different story. It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. And even if he isn't, for SAMSUNG just the potential of this situation to happen can be enough to NOT cooperate with this team and scale back communications with the Android team as a whole.

dheera 3y ago
>It's a conflict of interest because the person Samsung is talking to to have a feature implemented into the OS baseline may be the same person in charge of defining the competitive featureset for the next Google hardware. The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. > Now this person knows that the product he and his team is designing will compete with a yet-to-be-announced Samsung-product with a new feature. So? You're talking about the person, which is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time in containers. > So his interest to support a licensee being successful with his product is in conflict with his interest to create a more successful competing product. They can both be successful at the same time. He can operate with an interest to optimize for an overall better world rather than interest to win over and kill Samsung. He can build a successful product AND help Samsung build a successful product at the same time.
- coldtea 3y ago
  >The person can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with Samsung and one that deals with the internal product. There's a reason we don't make a police chief investigate their own misconduct. "It's a perfectly OK thing to do. The person is just the host hardware. There can be multiple threads running on that hardware at the same time. They can run two threads in their brain, one that deals with investigating the case and a seperate one that might or might not did it". "He didn't just declare himself innocent of misconduct and embezzelment out of self-interest. The independent investigating "thread" must have arrived to an impartial decision". "In any case, it's not blatant misconduct, you only see it as such. There's no notion of misconduct in nature, it's a made up thing we invented".
  - dheera 3y ago
    If there's accusation of misconduct, there's a bug in the system so you isolate it and investigate it from the outside. There's no investigation happening here, just two happy parties trying to create great products that can both be successful and be even happier. Lawyers can stay out of this happiness, inventing and injecting "conflicts" that never existed in the first place.
oarla 3y ago
Weren't the 2 teams already part of the same company? And OEMs do make custom modifications to Android before shipping their devices, so they don't have to share everything they intend to do with the Android team.

coldtea 3y ago

>Conflict of interest is a human invention, and not a law of the universe. There is no "conflict" unless you see it as one. That could be said for anything in the moral and judicial sphere. "There's no theft, property is a human invention", "There's no rape, animals don't have that concept", and so on.

dheera 3y ago
That's true, but there are good reasons for calling theft and rape crimes in civilization. Conflict of interest, on the other hand, was invented by some lawyer and HR types just to make life harder for the rest of us. I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Conflict of interest has been a thing way before lawyers and HR types existed, they understood it and tried to prevent it at any point in history, from ancient Babylon to Rome, and from Amazon native tribes to imperial China. It's of course also the explicitly expressed reasoning for why there are independent branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial in the US). >I'm an optimistic engineer, believe in win-win situations, and don't see everything as a conflict. Yes, it's called naivety :)
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Civilization is already an unnatural situation, in the sense that we have to coexist in groups (and with other groups) bigger than Dunbar's number.