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They're suggesting that 99.99% of people don't mind if AI reflects biases of society. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure most people in the world aren't old

by mavhc 2y ago

They're suggesting that 99.99% of people don't mind if AI reflects biases of society. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure most people in the world aren't old white middle class Americans

ben_w 2y ago
Indeed. If religion is a good guide, then I think around 24% think that pork is inherently unclean and not fit for human consumption under penalty of divine wrath, and 15% think that it's immoral to kill cattle for any reason. Also, non-religiously, I'd guess around 17% think "中国很棒，只有天安门广场发生了好事".
- fjdjshsh 2y ago
  Maybe you meant something like 天安门广场上只发生了好事
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Given I was using Google Translate, which isn't great at Chinese, I assume you are absolutely correct. My written Chinese is limited 一二三 and that from Mahjong tiles, and I keep getting 四 and 五 mixed up.
123yawaworht456 2y ago
yes, yes, bias like the fact that Wehrmacht was not a human menagerie that 0.01% of the population insist we live in. https://www.google.com/search?q=gemini+german+soldier https://www.google.com/search?q=gemini+german+soldier prompt-injected mandatory diversity has led to the most hilarious shit I've seen generative AI do so far. but, yes, of course, other instances of 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' - like depicting medieval Europe to be as diverse, vibrant and culturally enriched as American inner cities - those are doubleplusgood.
- mavhc 2y ago
  A study of a Black Death cemetery in London found that 20% of people sampled were not white
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    London has been a center of international trade for centuries. It would have been a much more diverse city than Europe as a whole, and even that is assuming the decedents were local residents and not the dead from ships that docked in the city.
    - mavhc 2y ago
      10th century Spain was Muslim
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        A Spanish Muslim looks like a Spanish person in Muslim attire rather than a Japanese person in European attire. Also, Spain is next to Africa, but the thing is generating black Vikings etc.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        HN isn't good for long threads so here are some things to think about seriously and argue with yourself about, if you like. I will probably not respond but know that I am not trying to tell you that you are wrong, just that it may be helpful to questions some premises to find what you really want. * What exactly are the current ones doing that makes them generate 'black Vikings'? * How would you change it so that it doesn't do that but will also generate things that aren't only representative of the statistical majority results of large amount of training data it used? * Would you be happy if every model output just represented 'the majority opinion' it has gained from its training data? * Or, if you don't want it to always represented whatever the majority opinion at the time it was trained was, how do you account for that? * How would your method be different from how it is currently done except for your reflecting your own biases instead of those you don't like?
somenameforme 2y ago
Modern chatbots are trained on a large corpus of all textual information available across the entire world, which obviously is reflective of a vast array of views and values. Your comment is a perfect example of the sort of casual and socially encouraged soft bigotry that many want to get away from. Instead of trying to spin information this way or that, simply let the information be, warts and all. Imagine if search engines adopted this same sort of moral totalitarian mindset and if you happened to search for the 'wrong' thing, the engine would instead start offering you a patronizing and blathering lecture, and refuse to search. And 'wrong' in this case would be an ever-encroaching window on anything that happened to run contrary to the biases of the small handful of people engaged, on a directorial level, with developing said search engines.
- mavhc 2y ago
  Encoding our current biases into LLMs is one way to go, but there's probably a better way to do it. Your leap to "thou shalt not search this" is missing the possible middle ground
  - fjdjshsh 2y ago
    The problem is with the word "our". If it's just private companies, the biases will represent a small minority of people that tend to be quite similar. Plus, they might be guided by profit motives or by self-censorship ("I don't mind, but I'm scared they'll boycott the product if I don't put this bias"). I have no idea how to make it happen, but the talk about biases, safeguards, etc should be made between many different people and not just within a private company.
- fragmede 2y ago
  Search for "I do coke" on Google. At least in the US, the first result is not a link to the YouTube video of the song by Kill the Noise and Feed Me, but the text "Help is available, Speak with someone today", with a link to the SAMHSA website and hotline.
- andoando 2y ago
  Yes and the safeguards are put in place by a very small group of people living in silicon valley. I saw this issue working at Tinder too. One day they announced how they will be removing ethnicity filters at the height of the BLM movement across all the apps to weed out racists. Nevermind that many ethnical minorities prefer or even insist on dating within their own ethnicity and this was most likely hurting them and not racists. That really pissed me off and opened my eyes to how much power these corporations have over dictating culture, not just toward their own cultural biasis but that of money.

by mavhc 2y ago

They're suggesting that 99.99% of people don't mind if AI reflects biases of society. Which is weird because I'm pretty sure most people in the world aren't old white middle class Americans

ben_w 2y ago

Indeed. If religion is a good guide, then I think around 24% think that pork is inherently unclean and not fit for human consumption under penalty of divine wrath, and 15% think that it's immoral to kill cattle for any reason. Also, non-religiously, I'd guess around 17% think "中国很棒，只有天安门广场发生了好事".

fjdjshsh 2y ago
Maybe you meant something like 天安门广场上只发生了好事
- ben_w 2y ago
  Given I was using Google Translate, which isn't great at Chinese, I assume you are absolutely correct. My written Chinese is limited 一二三 and that from Mahjong tiles, and I keep getting 四 and 五 mixed up.

123yawaworht456 2y ago

yes, yes, bias like the fact that Wehrmacht was not a human menagerie that 0.01% of the population insist we live in. https://www.google.com/search?q=gemini+german+soldier https://www.google.com/search?q=gemini+german+soldier prompt-injected mandatory diversity has led to the most hilarious shit I've seen generative AI do so far. but, yes, of course, other instances of 'I reject your reality and substitute my own' - like depicting medieval Europe to be as diverse, vibrant and culturally enriched as American inner cities - those are doubleplusgood.

mavhc 2y ago
A study of a Black Death cemetery in London found that 20% of people sampled were not white
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  London has been a center of international trade for centuries. It would have been a much more diverse city than Europe as a whole, and even that is assuming the decedents were local residents and not the dead from ships that docked in the city.
  - mavhc 2y ago
    10th century Spain was Muslim
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      A Spanish Muslim looks like a Spanish person in Muslim attire rather than a Japanese person in European attire. Also, Spain is next to Africa, but the thing is generating black Vikings etc.
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        HN isn't good for long threads so here are some things to think about seriously and argue with yourself about, if you like. I will probably not respond but know that I am not trying to tell you that you are wrong, just that it may be helpful to questions some premises to find what you really want. * What exactly are the current ones doing that makes them generate 'black Vikings'? * How would you change it so that it doesn't do that but will also generate things that aren't only representative of the statistical majority results of large amount of training data it used? * Would you be happy if every model output just represented 'the majority opinion' it has gained from its training data? * Or, if you don't want it to always represented whatever the majority opinion at the time it was trained was, how do you account for that? * How would your method be different from how it is currently done except for your reflecting your own biases instead of those you don't like?

somenameforme 2y ago

Modern chatbots are trained on a large corpus of all textual information available across the entire world, which obviously is reflective of a vast array of views and values. Your comment is a perfect example of the sort of casual and socially encouraged soft bigotry that many want to get away from. Instead of trying to spin information this way or that, simply let the information be, warts and all. Imagine if search engines adopted this same sort of moral totalitarian mindset and if you happened to search for the 'wrong' thing, the engine would instead start offering you a patronizing and blathering lecture, and refuse to search. And 'wrong' in this case would be an ever-encroaching window on anything that happened to run contrary to the biases of the small handful of people engaged, on a directorial level, with developing said search engines.

mavhc 2y ago
Encoding our current biases into LLMs is one way to go, but there's probably a better way to do it. Your leap to "thou shalt not search this" is missing the possible middle ground
- fjdjshsh 2y ago
  The problem is with the word "our". If it's just private companies, the biases will represent a small minority of people that tend to be quite similar. Plus, they might be guided by profit motives or by self-censorship ("I don't mind, but I'm scared they'll boycott the product if I don't put this bias"). I have no idea how to make it happen, but the talk about biases, safeguards, etc should be made between many different people and not just within a private company.
fragmede 2y ago
Search for "I do coke" on Google. At least in the US, the first result is not a link to the YouTube video of the song by Kill the Noise and Feed Me, but the text "Help is available, Speak with someone today", with a link to the SAMHSA website and hotline.
andoando 2y ago
Yes and the safeguards are put in place by a very small group of people living in silicon valley. I saw this issue working at Tinder too. One day they announced how they will be removing ethnicity filters at the height of the BLM movement across all the apps to weed out racists. Nevermind that many ethnical minorities prefer or even insist on dating within their own ethnicity and this was most likely hurting them and not racists. That really pissed me off and opened my eyes to how much power these corporations have over dictating culture, not just toward their own cultural biasis but that of money.