Google Plans To Double AI Ethics Research Staff (wsj.com) 49
Alphabet's Google plans to double the size of its team studying artificial-intelligence ethics in the coming years, as the company looks to strengthen a group that has had its credibility challenged by research controversies and personnel defections. From a report: Vice President of Engineering Marian Croak said at The Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything Festival that the hires will increase the size of the responsible AI team that she leads to 200 researchers. Additionally, she said that Alphabet Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has committed to boost the operating budget of a team tasked with evaluating code and product to avert harm, discrimination and other problems with AI. "Being responsible in the way that you develop and deploy AI technology is fundamental to the good of the business," Ms. Croak said. "It severely damages the brand if things aren't done in an ethical way." Google announced in February that Ms. Croak would lead the AI ethics group after it fired the division's co-head, Margaret Mitchell, for allegedly sharing internal documents with people outside the company. Ms. Mitchell's exit followed criticism of Google's suppression of research last year by a prominent member of the team, Timnit Gebru, who says she was fired because of studies critical of the company's approach to AI. Mr. Pichai pledged an investigation into the circumstances around Ms. Gebru's departure and said he would seek to restore trust.
Just means more of them to fire (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, much like the majority of their products [killedbygoogle.com], I see any growing staffing in a similar way: just something else to get killed off (in this case, staff firing) in the future.
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Well, ethics was definitely one. It was "don't be evil" as an official motto. then they deprecated it. Then removed it completely.
Instead, how about they hire... (Score:1)
...some business ethics researchers? They sure seem to need them.
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Google can also consider doubling the size of an ethics committee that oversees Google's own practices.
How is this news ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Who gives a fart ?
Nothing but trouble... (Score:5, Insightful)
So of course Google doubles down. "We need MORE virtue signalling positions!"
Yeah, this will end well. /sarcasm
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Re: Nothing but trouble... (Score:3, Funny)
They're just gearing up to take on the threat.
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Bingo. If they don't make sure their use of AI is ethical then they will get hit with more regulation. The EU is already regulating AI.
Additionally their AI will be somewhat worthless if it can be shown to be unethical, e.g. biased against certain groups. The law already states that companies have a legal duty to be non-discriminatory.
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Re:Nothing but trouble... (Score:4, Insightful)
We will continue to fire you until you give us the answer we already presuppose.
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In AI that is called supervised learning.
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Yeah, they never learn. They will hire more "activists", get burned by them, and then repeat yet again because so many of the Google people think Twitter is a meaningful place populated with important, smart people.
If you're listening to the morons on twitter you are setting yourself up for failure.
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The big problem they had is that their hiring conflated activism with ethics. The big name people that are gone thought that their chosen activism was the one and only way and based ethics on their politics. Those people when confronted by the executive team, believed their activism trumped company policy.
They need to stop looking at race and gender as the sole traits of "diversity" and start realizing that they need to be looking at diversity of backgrounds (rural/urban, poor/middle class/wealthy, nation
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The big problem they had is that their hiring conflated activism with ethics. The big name people that are gone thought that their chosen activism was the one and only way and based ethics on their politics. Those people when confronted by the executive team, believed their activism trumped company policy.
They need to stop looking at race and gender as the sole traits of "diversity" and start realizing that they need to be looking at diversity of backgrounds
Like they are going to do that. I'd wager that the activists on staff there already have a sex/gender, race and political affiliation they are demanding for the next successful candidates. Probably a vegan as well.
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It could be a good strategy. Sometimes creating a major shit show is an effective way to solve a chronic problem.
Let the healing begin!
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So of course Google doubles down. "We need MORE virtue signalling positions!"
Yeah, this will end well. /sarcasm
Step one would be to hire ethics people with some actual ethics .Some of their previous hires had none.
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Let's leave aside the previous controversy for a moment and whatever you think about progressive politics.
Ethics in AI is legitimately important as an endeavour. We're trying to develop systems that we trust to act autonomously and largely without supervision. It takes decades for a human to become a moral actor, if it ever happens at all. Understanding your own ethical and moral framework is something that can take a lifetime to build up AND unwind. I didn't start introspecting about this stuff until I was
New religion (Score:1)
Needs lots of priests and proselytizers.
Back in the good old days of ten years ago, big tech firms routinely told these parasites to go fuck themselves.
Something got into the bosses' Raw Water since then that made them change their ameoba-eaten minds?
Re: New religion (Score:1)
No, those parasites graduated and entered into the real world and their parents continued to coddle them until they got into a position of power. Theyâ(TM)re just infecting large corporations all over. Itâ(TM)s creating a giant bubble.
Ethica (Score:2)
Ya know, I remember begging for $10k micro research AI projects from industry. Here they hire 200 just to study AI ethics?
Just build the damned autonymous battlebots already!
attrition (Score:3)
They probably need to triple or more just based on attrition. Its only a matter of time before the next group quits. When you have no ethics and have no desire to have ethics, why would you hire an ethicist?
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When you have no ethics and have no desire to have ethics, why would you hire an ethicist?
Look, Google does not appear to be an ethical place, but I see no evidence that the prior firings were because the AI ethicists "stood up" to Google's bad AI practices.
It is murky what happened to Timnit Gebru (she was fired after she posed an ultimatum and threatened to quit -- also, see her this email exchange [platformer.news].)
and it seems mostly clear that Margaret Mitchell was actually fired for collecting/sharing internal documents without permission (because otherwise it would be a very stupid lie on Google's par
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It is murky what happened to Timnit Gebru (she was fired after she posed an ultimatum and threatened to quit -- also, see her this email exchange [platformer.news].) and it seems mostly clear that Margaret Mitchell was actually fired for collecting/sharing internal documents without permission (because otherwise it would be a very stupid lie on Google's part).
Thanks for the link to the letter, as it cleared up a lot, and most of what we were getting was heavily filtered through her supporters. After reading her letter, it is most fascinating that people who defend her and all she did - I suspect they wholeheartedly supported the decision to fire James Damore. She was going to sue Google, and had hired lawyers to do it - but "Google backed off". My guess is that rather than backing off, Google started compiling the case against her.
Protip for the woke crowd - if
Candidates short-listed for the positions... (Score:2)
Alphabet Google are pleased to announce a list of candidates we believe will bring the desired principles and decency to this project following our decision to retire "Don't be evil" as an unnecessarily restrictive corporate slogan.
We hope to begin negotiations with Mohammed bin Salman, Matt Gaetz, Ghislaine Maxwell, Matt Lauer and Jeffrey Toobin to fill these essential positions, thereby assuring the public of our continuing commitment to develop AI with Google-appropriate standards of moral and ethical be
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I didn't forget them. They weren't despicable enough to make the cut.
I did forget you, though. Otherwise, you'd have been on the list.
Since there's few AI ethicists.. (Score:2)
And since there are few that are willing to work at Google, they are planning to see if they can double the existing number experimenting on the existing team via fragmentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .
AKA (Score:2)
It's a bad sign if a company needs a task force to (Score:2)
research ethics. What does it say about a company who has a division for it?
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Simple: They have realized they need better PR by better misdirection and better lying.
So they want to know what they can get away with? (Score:2)
Because that is pretty much the only thing why a corporation would ever do "ethics" research. Given that Google got away with "Don't be evil", when that was never their intention, they probably think they can do this again. As to why Google is interested in "AI" at all, that one is obvious: Ad targeting and by extension user tracking all over the web. As cookies are pretty much out in Europe and other current methods look not much better, they now are very interested in finding the sweet spot where they can
At least... (Score:2)
Google Ethical dilemmas (Score:2)
Do we always manipulate search results when they conflict with our desired political outcomes and narratives, or do we always manipulate search results whether they conflict with our desired political outcomes and narratives or not?
As we develop the information gathering and processing technology that will be the tools for human enslavement and inescapable tyranny, how do we overcome the challenges in maintaining a diverse and inclusive work force?
For our vision of the future, is 'boot' a sufficiently gende
More drones = No effect (Score:2)
As long as Google is vetting and providing the people who monitor the ethics of behavior inside Google, the board is meaningless. Adding more drones to the board will make absolutely no difference.
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As long as Google is vetting and providing the people who monitor the ethics of behavior inside Google, the board is meaningless. Adding more drones to the board will make absolutely no difference.
To a certain extent, I understand what you are saying, but it is a good idea when the ethics employees demonstrate good ethics. Gebru was fired for reasons related to her working against Google, and even hiring a lawyer to sue them while she was employed, and Mitchell was involved in some industrial level surveillance of company emails to compile evidence not of crimes, but those she did not agree with. Even if there was suspicion of criminal activity, that is not an ethics department role.
Ethics employee
Ethics, like history (Score:2)
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is written by the victor.
Cute soundbite. Do you defend the actions of Gebru and Mitchell?
None of their actions were related to ethics department activities. One was agitating regarding hiring rates of women, what she was calling microagressions, and had even hired a lawyer threatening to sue Google in the past.
The other was conducting email surveillance to uncover people with the wrong opinion, as in did not support Gebru, which leads us to consider what she planned to do with that information? My guess is demands for terminat
2 x 0 = 0 (Score:2)
Ok, Google... (Score:2)
please include brackets... (Score:2)
is it AI (ethics research staff) or (AI ethincs) (research staff)?
Ethics. (Score:2)
As if Google HAD any.
Awesome (Score:1)
Haha. (Score:2)
Haha, they knuckled under. Google, you've only just begun to see the damage.