My physics teacher worked for some kind of government air pollution modelling group in the past, and effectively said that they would often be told "Here's the result, find us data to make it work".

- Sir Humphrey

The phrase was only moved from the introduction to the conclusion of the code of conduct, never removed.

So the statement that it’s really not a slogan anymore is quite true from my experience.

> Google prohibits retaliation against any worker here at Google who reports or participates in an investigation of a possible violation of our Code, policies, or the law. If you believe you are being retaliated against, please contact Ethics & Compliance.

Well, it is safe to say this is hot garbage then.

I would love Google to remove all the self entitled BS from this statement, so they can act as an everyday faceless big company which is anyway what it is doing, not some moral beacon for the mass to look up to.

The statement exists only to generate traffic for the news outlet for spinning.

"The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly [power]."

It’s like if an asbestos company did a bunch of research on healthy insulators, then found that the original products were in fact harmful. Before publishing it, the bosses demand mention of the prior work towards healthy insulators.

The only person I’m closely aware of here is Timnit Gebru. She has a bachelors and masters in Electrical Engineering as well as a PhD. If you’re describing her and her ilk as ‘philosophy graduates’ because they have PhDs, I think you’re vastly mischaracterizing their education.

Personally I think the flagged poster was just ranting about technophobia among machine learning bias researchers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

What were you referring to or what did you mean when you mentioned if statements and racists?

I'm not sure I understand. Are they worse or better?

Now, you feed AI with crime data, looking at statistics such AI will suspect people having black color of the skin to be criminals more often than people with white skin. Is that ok? Is it ok to say that if some person happens to have black skin there is a bigger chance that it is criminal?

In statistical terms the answer is yes, but if we deal with an actual person, we should treat it as a unique person and the matter of the skin color should not matter.

Before II World War there were scientific studies in Germany that showed that in some big cities districts there are more rats. Accidentally or not, it turned out that those are districts with large Jewish population. So Nazis took those statistical results to prove that Jews are dirty, spread diseases, etc. Was that science, even though it was peer reviewed and published? Rather not (in the first place they didn't even bother to check if people living there were rich, poor, etc.).

History knows many "scientific researches" by the ones like Eugen Fisher, dr. Mengele, that were performed in a scientific way, but they were lacking something very important and non-trivial: ethics.

Now the problem is that ethics needs to have some source, it does not grow on a tree. For ages Christianity was a source of ethics in Europe (less in US, that's why you could have slavery in modern times there), currently Christianity is almost gone in Europe, the question is were to seek the source of ethics.

This is completely incoherent and ahistorical; the US was in many ways more Christian, or at least more intensely Christian and making it a key part of its politics, right from the Pilgrim Fathers to televangelists.

People gave pro-slavery speeches from pulpits in both the US and UK. There were some Christians against it, most notably the Quakers, but slavery and the alleged moral justifications for it were in no way incompatible with Christianity.

Even today, US churches tend to be ("voluntarily") segregated.

Europe had philosophers long before it had Christianity.

Two angels arrive in Sodom, and Lot shows them hospitality. However, the men of the city gathered around Lot's house and demanded that he give them the two guests so that they could rape them. In response to this, Lot offers the mob his two virgin daughters instead.

...

Lot's wife turns into a pillar of salt, but Lot and his daughters escape to Zoar, and end up living in a cave in the mountains. In Genesis 19:30–38 Lot's daughters got their father drunk, and over two consecutive nights had sex with him without his knowledge.

I always find it a bit strange that people despise simplistic "Sunday-school" answers to life, but then when they read the Bible and find messy situations like the one described above, they say, "What kind messed up story is this?" Real life is sometimes messed up. A book that skipped over the messed up stuff would be pretty useless.

Secondly, the claim was that Christianity -- that is, the teaching of Jesus -- has affected European ideas about morality. Lot is further away from Jesus than Jesus is from us.

I think the person you responded to has an inaccurate view of the history of slavery in Europe. But only someone who has never experienced a different culture could say that Christianity has had no effect on the moral ideas of the West.

I am very surprised you are claiming the old testament is somehow not part of Christianity or should now be considered- am I misunderstanding you? I am not a religious scholar, but that's not a view my local priest would support.

Also I fail to see how bringing up Stalin is relevant, you can't even find a communist these days that thinks he was morally upright.

Not actually. Statistics from a larger population "cannot" be used to predict outcomes from a smaller subset or individual from the population. ("cannot" in the sense that you get nonsensical results if you do). See e.g. the ecological fallacy.

But I think the discussion too easily devolves into the craziest humanities self-pleasing circles. Then they are surprised they get push back? Of course Google also share their side of the blame when they think just creating an "ethics commission" with a rubber stamp solves their issue

These are not equivalent comparisons to me. Tobacco was always harmful, inhaling smoke in general is just bad, and the others could be through improper use but safe otherwise. Let alone all of what you mentioned will not have the impact AI will

AI's potential is equally good and equally bad and any of the bad is purely because someone or some group employs it that way.

The real danger of AI isn't the obvious tinpot dictators using it drive war but in politicians and government officials hiding behind the term as an excuse for their bad decisions. The more you demand of your government to give you stuff or services the more likely you will be subject to this tech

I say this each time the subject of AI abuse, facial recognition or similar comes up.

This is not something that cancel culture will stop. Nothing is going to stop it from coming. So the best alternative to the technically and morally (hate using that word) driven people is to hit it head on from all directions. This means working to make sure it does what it is supposed to do but also that everyone knows what it really cannot do, working the legal end to insure there are laws and consequences for employing the technology incorrectly, and through the information end in keeping the public fully aware of who is using, how they use it, and how to legally protect yourself from it.

Well, yes, and in this case that someone appears to be Google, which is why people are complaining about them making AI decisions.