It’s just basic intellectual honesty, sorely missing in the SJW circles.
Also, I believe it’s best not to accuse your interlocutor of lacking intellectual honesty unless the evidence is very clear. Perhaps they just see the world differently to you.
I’m happy about people viewing the world differently and having an honest, good-faith discussion about the issues. But I’ll criticise intellectually dishonest arguments, like the moat-and-bailey you just pulled here.
I never argued for that. My point is that researchers (as well as everyone!) have biases, which may manifest in the end as racism or other forms of discriminations. To prevent these biases from manifesting, (AI) ethics experts are needed as oversight.
> the company that employs them is racist
To take the example of the "racist soap dispenser" again: while the individual people who have developed it may not have been racist, they have failed to think outside their biases and ask themselves "can people with non-white skin use the product?". Also, management has failed here, because more diverse staff would have resulted in at least one internal test candidate of color noticing "hey, I can't get soap!".
The result of this lack of diversity and out-of-the-ordinary thinking was that a person of color was rightfully offended at not being dispensed soap. Therefore, the company acted racist even if it never intended to do so.
> the whole country is racist
Just short of half of the country recently elected a President who openly spouted white-supremacist conspiracy theories. For half the people in the US racism is not a dealbreaker for the highest office it has to offer!
He was elected by the votes of ~27% of eligible voters, and about ~20% of the population, not “just short of half the country”.
You could say it was a little less than half the people who felt it is worthwhile to vote in a system where votes matter so little that getting the most of them doesn't mean you win, but then the story is about alienation from the electoral system more than support or even indifference to racism.
... which is a bit different from saying that half the country is racist. Perhaps they thought the alternative was worse.
For the other half, sexism isn’t. (Biden selected his vice-president on the basis of sex.)
In a certain context it just means jews. And they didn't write racist soap dispenser, they wrote "racist soap dispenser".
Do look inwards.
It's a white-supremacist dog whistle for "jew": https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-how-did-the-term-gl...
> the soap dispenser wasn’t “racist”, it was just “bad”
For a person of color who wants to wash their hand and sees that it dispenses soap for white people but not for them it is yet another piece of everyday racism.
As for “globalist”, I don’t see an issue with criticising globalism and those who promote it, be they Jews or others. Clearly a lot of Jews (in Israel) are very “localist”, and I suppose there are some that are “globalist” as well. So?
Just because a view is also supported by some or other “vile” people (that are almost always a tiny minority, if disproportionately loud and/or salient), doesn’t make that view invalid or immoral.
Please define "often". And "offensive" (as in to whom). And of course, you also need to factor in whether being offended is justified.
As an extreme counterexample, a deeply racist person would be offended by a mixed couple. And racists on both sides currently are. I see no reason whatsoever to pander to either side on this, so just there being someone who is or claims to be offended is no guide.
If you find "globalist" offensive, then you are the problem. And, the vast majority of Americans are find this type of PC culture and social justice activism offensive, including the vast majority of "marginalized" groups.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...
In fact, the only group marginally in favor are white, rich and highly educated. Hmm...
The thing is: The language that people use is often enough offensive: racial slurs, sexism and other forms of discrimination, plus seemingly innocent "code words" like "globalist".
AI developers should know about these problems and keep them in mind while developing training data for AI models. The consequences of ignoring such bias is continuing discrimination - with the most obvious and low-tech reminder being the "racist soap dispenser" which had only been trained on white people's skin and failed to dispense soap for people of color.
The danger in such discriminatory models is that while it's an annoyance that a soap dispenser does not dispense soap for a person of color, with algorithms running more and more of our daily lives, the impact is way higher: whether being refused credit or affordable insurance rates because an AI "thinks" the applicant is black and living in a black, poor neighborhood is grounds enough for that, or "predictive policing" AIs sending in massive police responses to everyday calls, this directly hits on people's survival without human oversight.
That is why ethics in AI are so important and why "social justice activism" is so desperately needed!