
Google’s new AI ethics board is already falling apart - cpeterso
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/3/18292526/google-ai-ethics-board-letter-acquisti-kay-coles-james
======
naasking
It's bizarre to me that people can't seem to understand that any such panel
requires vehement disagreement to make real and meaningful progress. You need
people whose opinions are diametrically opposed to constantly challenge each
other. Even people who hate each other or each other's opinions.

What you don't need is another echo chamber. Go debate on Twitter, Facebook or
Reddit if that's what you're looking for.

~~~
LeoPanthera
I can't agree with this. This is a mistake that the BBC has been making
recently, thinking that all viewpoints are equally valid and deserve equal
attention. I strongly believe that that is not true.

~~~
Aunche
Even if Kay Cole James is egregiously wrong about trans-people, that doesn't
mean she's incapable of participating in a conversation about AI ethics. She
clearly has is intelligent enough to be in the position she is today.

~~~
vore
Should she be in a position where her opposition to trans people can possibly
have a direct effect on the lives of trans people?

If one side of the argument is "trans rights matter" and the other is "trans
people are just men cosplaying as women", then morally you can only choose the
"trans rights matter" side. Any political concerns take a backseat to the
direct wellbeing of trans people.

~~~
AllegedAlec
> then __morally __you can only choose the "trans rights matter" side

I don't think that word means what you think it means. If you think that it's
acceptable to twist the words of someone you disagree with to say that, you
have no basis on which to make moral judgements.

------
killjoywashere
The Google AI Council (1) bears a strong resemblance to the Defense Innovation
Board (2). I think Google's main error is that the membership was too small.
The dilutional power of increased membership would have made it harder to make
a show out of any individual selectee.

Plenty of board memberships are unpaid, specifically the DoD has a bunch of
them. The parent organization still pays all the fees for events, so the
members are on a level playing field. As for disadvantaging the poor ... what?
These councils are literally about establishing leadership positions at the
national and international level. You need people with intimate visibility on
the great issues of our time. If you're starting a board on prison reform,
then, sure, a couple ex-cons should be on the board. But even then, you're
going to look for an ex-con who went on to build a business or change the
world in some way.

I don't know. I've presented to some of these "toothless" boards before, and I
have to say, they were, to a T, very clever people who have worked very hard
for their whole lives. I don't get the sense they're in it for the press or
even for the networking. They're thinking hard and working hard, trying to get
a CEO or equivalent leader to turn the ship.

(1) [https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/external-advisory-
coun...](https://www.blog.google/technology/ai/external-advisory-council-help-
advance-responsible-development-ai/)

(2)
[https://innovation.defense.gov/Members/](https://innovation.defense.gov/Members/)

------
hirundo
> Panel member Joanna Bryson, defending Coles James’s inclusion on Twitter,
> said, “I know that I have pushed [Google] before on some of their
> associations, and they say they need diversity in order to be convincing to
> society broadly, e.g. the GOP.”

Yet anyone appointed to the board will be vetted for conservative associations
or statements, and if found, be objected to by the same people who object to
James. Google will either have to drop this goal or be prepared to anger large
numbers of their employees.

~~~
dodobirdlord
There are politically conservative organizations that do not have the baggage
of the long history of transparent bad-faith argument that the Heritage
Foundation has. I think it's fairly reasonable to assert that the quality of
any discussion would be improved by removing all representatives of the
Heritage Foundation. Moreover, some things are not worth re-litigating. A
person who is opposed to same-sex marriage has no place in a discussion of
technical ethics.

~~~
Aqua
> A person who is opposed to same-sex marriage has no place in a discussion of
> technical ethics.

Following this logic you're saying that ~30% of the population[0] is unworthy
of discussing ethics. I find it amusing how Google has become hostage of its
own employees in so many aspects. There already have been outrages when it
comes to China censorship projects, military projects and now this. It gives
Google a lot of bad publicity and I suppose it got out of control. If you
think about it, no other company experiences employee revolt to the same
degree as Google.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-
sex_mar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-
sex_marriage_in_the_United_States)

~~~
tzs
> Following this logic you're saying that ~30% of the population is unworthy
> of discussing ethics?

I'm having trouble thinking of any unethical action that would not have a good
chance of being approved by 30% of the population except perhaps where the
unethical action would cause such widespread and apparent harm that it would
directly affect a majority.

------
xiphias2
From what I read about AI researchers and their optimism, I'm on the side of
belief that it is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself
([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox?wprov=sfla1](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox?wprov=sfla1)).

An ethics board would never be strong enough to stop AI development in the
world if needed. We can't even limit CO2 output of the world with policy, and
AI will be much more profitable than oil.

There's a strong agreement between most AI researchers that the biggest
problem AI creates is the loss of jobs, and AGI is just too far to worry
about, but I feel that at the same time they all hope to be the one who create
the first AGI.

~~~
est31
There is a difference in the problems that AI might create in the future
(destroying all humans) vs the problems it creates now. E.g. AI products had
worse STT capabilties for people with a spanish accent or from black
backgrounds than american english speakers. Other AIs had more errors with
black people.

This board's mission is not to prevent an AGI to become self aware and destroy
all humans as a natural conclusion of being self aware. Personally I think
this scenario is pretty unlikely anyway.

~~~
xiphias2
I'm more worried about attack vs defence assymetry increasing in the world
than a self aware AI destroying it.

You just need 1 crazy human and extremely strong assymetrical warfare. If you
look at the cases when a human killed lots of people with a truck, and see
that in 20 years with cheap self flying drones a crazy person can kill even
more people, you can extrapolate this and get to a sad conclusion (at least I
did that).

~~~
0x2AF31DA8
[https://qntm.org/asteroids](https://qntm.org/asteroids)

> I believe that there is a threshold of power beyond which nobody can be
> trusted. Where, in fact, it is impossible for any entity to even
> theoretically demonstrate the track record of judgement, responsibility and
> infallibility that would be necessary.

~~~
xiphias2
This was amazing read, thanks!

Also I believe it overestimates the power needed to kill all people.

How much time does it take for us to get to the point when an entity has live
GPS coordinates of all people living in the world for example? Just 15 years
ago this question sounded stupid.

------
ummonk
The board seems like a pointless exercise, given that it only meets 4 times in
the year, and doesn't have any policy-making power.

It's crazy that people are calling for someone to be expelled from the board
because they're from a conservative think thank though. You want a diversity
of viewpoints at the table.

~~~
Ar-Curunir
Don't downplay the issue. It's not that she's conservative; I'm sure Google's
executive groups are full of relatively conservative people.

No, the problem with her is that she's a transphobe and racist.

~~~
mantas
Lots of even non-conservative people don't accept trans movement. It's quite a
high bar if only trans-ok people are considered sane enough to participate in
ethics board.

E.g. I'm 100% against trans participating in sports. It's disgusting when men
pretend to be women just to have a record on their name. It's even more
disgusting when it's celebrated as diversity or progressive or whatever.

Does that make me just a "relatively conservative" or full-on "transphobe"?

~~~
adjkant
To break this down a bit instead of only downvoting:

> I'm 100% against trans participating in sports

There's a nuanced argument to be made here.

> It's disgusting when men pretend to be women just to have a record on their
> name.

This is not that nuanced argument. I can assure you no one that is trans
"pretends" to be a woman for sports records. That comment (as well as the word
choice of "disgusting") shows a severe lack of understanding of trans people.

> It's even more disgusting when it's celebrated as diversity or progressive
> or whatever.

This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and colors
the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the lack of
understanding.

> Does that make me just a "relatively conservative" or full-on "transphobe"?

Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't mean
you have to be in the future.

~~~
mantas
> This is not that nuanced argument. I can assure you no one that is trans
> "pretends" to be a woman for sports records. That comment (as well as the
> word choice of "disgusting") shows a severe lack of understanding of trans
> people.

I understand biology that born-male will be stronger in many sports than born-
female even after a lot of hormone therapy (or maybe vice-versa in some
sports). Born-female taking male hormones will have advantage over regular
female as well in many cases.

You got gender disphoria and need a treatment for it? Sure. But there're side
effects. Just like for many treatments.

> This shows a particular bias against "progressive/diversity" ideas and
> colors the comments before them with an even worse light that highlights the
> lack of understanding.

I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's
disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined buy affairs like that.
And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label
they're not worth of.

> Just like anything, there are gradients and being transphobic now doesn't
> mean you have to be in the future.

I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in
the future.

~~~
adjkant
First, nothing you responded to clears up anything about your negative
assumption that transgender people change for sports titles. That will always
be transphobic and doesn't look at all into what the life of a trans person
today or in the past has looked like.

But the body and hormone levels absolutely do affect physical sports, you're
right. If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What
about people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone
levels? Despite the classification most hospitals do, a surprising amount of
births show non-traditional genitalia, and if you go beyond the external looks
then the waters only get murkier. How many athletes are actually not
traditionally male or female but were simply never classified as such
medically due to a lack of awareness and education? Do you then want to have
all sports competitions separated based on hormone levels instead of
sex/gender?

> I'm considering ideas on their own merit, not how they're labeled. And it's
> disgusting that progressive/diversity label was ruined by affairs like that.
> And yes, I definitely have bias against ideas that seem to have a label
> they're not worth of.

But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from the
assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are not
digging into any of the nuance. That doesn't scream openness and combined with
other things you said again comes off as ignorance or lack of education on the
subject.

> I hope definition of "transphobic" will change and I won't be called one in
> the future.

That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on
trans people. What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural
wind. What would make your actions change will have to be you, not the
classification of them.

As an aside generally, being transphobic or racist or sexist should not define
you - it's a chance to learn and understand. It's not an identity, despite how
it is assigned like one to many public figures these days. What's much more
important than never saying or doing something sexist/racist/transphobic/etc
is being open to changing and understanding to not do it in the future. Really
it's just listening and understanding other people's experiences.

~~~
mantas
> First, nothing you responded to clears up anything about your negative
> assumption that transgender people change for sports titles

I don't care if they changed gender for the sake of winning sports titles or
not. I'm against them competing in sports anyway.

> If you want to dig into hormones, what about intersex people? What about
> people classified as women with significantly higher testosterone levels?

That's definitely could an issue (see last paragraph). But IMO it's different
that this is accidental from the individual's perspective. They themselves may
be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with good genes or rare
mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational choice to
transition. You may argue it's not fully rational since treatment is needed.
But ultimately people do choose treatments and accept consequences for all
sorts of illnesses.

> But you give no argument for the unworthiness of it and instead start from
> the assumption. Not only that, but you paint with a very broad brush and are
> not digging into any of the nuance.

Unfortunately interwebs comments are not well suited for a nuanced discussion.
The person I originally replied to didn't go into nuance, neither did I. It'd
be great if internet commentary moved towards more nuanced and longer
discussions. But unfortunately old good forums with mile-long pagination are
getting more and more scarce :( Especially with diverse audience.

> What defines transphobia is ignorance, not gusts of cultural wind. What
> would make your actions change will have to be you, not the classification
> of them.

I did research the topic and made my mind. IMO people who just jump on the
ever-more-progressive bandwagon are much more ignorant. Ignorance shall be
judge on refusing to look into the issue, not on coming to reasonable-yet-
subjectively-wrong conclusions.

> That definition will only go the other way as more people become educated on
> trans people.

Personally I went the other way after reading more into it.

> What's much more important than ever saying or doing something
> sexist/racist/transphobic/etc is being open to changing and understanding to
> not do it in the future.

Yes. But that ability to change must be open both ways. IMO today's
definitions went way too far and are too close to doing full horseshoe.
Understanding is not just pushing the boundaries of what is progressive to no
end.

> Do you then want to have all sports competitions separated based on hormone
> levels instead of sex/gender?

I'd support protection for the lesser (?) gender (women in endurance and power
sports, men maybe in gymnastics?). Just have open group and the protected one
for the lesser gender. In the long run, we'll probably need one more group for
genetically-modified individuals.

~~~
tremon
_They themselves may be not aware of this. Sort of like getting lucky with
good genes or rare mutation. Meanwhile for a transgender is purely a rational
choice_

This gets me curious. In your definition, a person with strongly deviating
hormonal levels isn't transgender until they are aware of their situation?

~~~
mantas
AFAIK modern transgender definition don't include hermaphrodites who were
fixed in hospital right after birth.

Someone having issues with their hormones doesn't become transgender either.

So I'd say it's safe to say that the person has to have consciously chosen to
transition to be considered a transgender. Also, people who didn't transition
(yet) on hormonal level but did minor plastic surgeries and wear clothes
accordingly are considered transgenders too.

If someone has XXY chromosomes and consider himself one gender their whole
life, do they "trans" between something?

------
elliekelly
If we allow the big five to write the regulations and set the standards that
will govern the technology for decades to come we're going to have major
regrets.

~~~
VikingCoder
We should all be so lucky that any company or group of companies hold
themselves to a HIGHER standard than the law enforces.

But yes, if the companies are setting the legal bar, we should be vigilant
that they're not exploiting our ignorance.

------
davesque
I feel as though any sort of ethics board intended to do some kind of self-
policing within an industry is doomed to fail. Have we seen any evidence in
the past decade that the concerns of a company's investors won't eventually
supersede all other considerations? It would be nice if the government had
teeth nowadays and if the opinions of academics were taken at all seriously.
Then there would be a US Federal AI Ethics Board. And we might have a US
Federal Climate Action Board too. Alas, we're content to leave the ethical
considerations to those who have every incentive to ignore them.

------
cranesan
"AI Ethics Board" but not one member of the board is an AI...

~~~
chillacy
When AI gains sentience, I'm embarrassed to think how they'll reflect on how
we've treated them.

------
RickJWagner
James is also the first African-American to be head of the Heritage
Foundation, she is a member of the NASA Advisory Council and she is the
president and founder of the Gloucester Institute, a leadership training
center for young African Americans.

Apparently all this is ignorable by the angry mob.

This madness must stop. True diversity means listening to qualified and civil
voices from all over the political spectrum. Google must stand up.

~~~
gowld
Are you saying that because she's African-American she's automatically
qualified for an ethics council? Ethics isn't about who you are, it's about
whose lives you value.

~~~
RickJWagner
No, of course that's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying she is an intelligent, very well-accomplished member of the
minority community. The kind of person you need on an ethics council.

Is there anything she's done (personally, directly) that you find upsetting?
Or is just being politically conservative enough to disqualify her in your
opinion?

------
GuiA
There is nothing fundamentally different between AI and “traditional
algorithms” when it comes to ethical considerations. Sure, the current crop of
AI systems perform unbelievably well on tasks that “traditional algorithms”
suck at, but it is a change in degree, not in kind.

In the overwhelming majority of pieces reflecting on AI ethics, you can
replace “AI” with “algorithms”, “big data”, “computers”, “technology”, etc and
not get a significant change in meaning.

Many people have had their livelihood, rights, image, etc attacked in some way
by technologically mediated processes that were deployed by organizations that
didn’t think things through, or prioritized eg profits over other concerns, or
had anti-humanist agendas. This phenomenon is certainly accelerated by the
ever increasing ubiquity of computing systems, but it certainly predates them.

AI does not bring anything radically different to the table in that regard,
and if Google does not seem to care much about the ethical implications of
their technology in general (see for instance the YouTube/children fiasco),
why would they care about AI ethics specifically?

~~~
naasking
I think you're wrong. The tooling around training ML is becoming progressively
more accessible, so much so that within ten years you won't even need a
programmer to train an AI for many tasks. Who knows where that will be in 20
years.

~~~
fwn
But what you're saying, which seems to be that technology is getting more
accessible over time, does not appear to me to be fundamentally different for
other technological means, be it algorithms, ai or digitalization in general.

~~~
naasking
It is different. Algorithms require understanding what the algorithm does, how
it operates. Lay people can't do this without significant training.

AI/ML in principle simply requires example mappings of inputs and outputs. Lay
people can do this.

------
olleromam91
If AI is going to learn from the information that exists in reality.. a biased
world.. it will inherit those biases. Artificially removing these biases from
an AI would essentially be altering it's understanding of objective reality..
and that doesn't sound great either.

------
m3kw9
Yeah when you have ethics which potentially on collision course with profits,
you lose to the $$$

------
PunksATawnyFill
Google is a monument to hypocrisy.

Look at the way they said they would "punish" "non-mobile-friendly" sites...
and then they purposefully DISABLE ZOOMING on their own mobile sites.

Jagoffs.

~~~
remon
Mature, balanced and on topic opinion.

------
romanovcode
The sole purpose of that board was PR. Now that they realized it of course
they will quit.

------
1024core
> and met four times over the course of 2019 to consider concerns about
> Google’s AI program.....

and then

> A role on Google’s AI board is an unpaid, toothless position that cannot
> possibly, in four meetings over the course of a year, ...

Maybe the author does not know that 2019 is barely 3 months in? There is no
way that the phrase "over the course of a year" can apply to 2019.

It is bullshit like this that makes me tune out of such articles. It's just
dripping with uninformed bias.

~~~
kevinh
If you put the first quote in context, it would be clear that they were
consistent.

> The board, founded to guide “responsible development of AI” at Google, would
> have had eight members and met four times over the course of 2019 to
> consider concerns about Google’s AI program.

It's saying that it would have met four times over the year, not that it
already has.

------
sschueller
This is a board of stakeholders not ethics.

------
throwawaysea
Why do the opinions of these Google employees matter on an issue like this?
Employees don't get to be involved in unrelated areas/decisions/functions of
the company that are not directly related to their specific role. The company
is also not obligated to explain themselves to those employees. Does everyone
need to be involved in every last facet of the company in some strange 90,000
person design-by-committee process? Obviously not, and so Google needs to stop
tolerating the constant stream of leaks and internal activism.

If these employees don't want to work there, let them quit or fire them. If
they are disrupting the workplace by constantly fomenting outrage on the
Internet, fire them. If they are hurting the company's brand and working
against the interests of the company (or shareholders) by engaging in self-
serving political activism, fire them. If they disrespect and alienate most of
their customer base by only advocating for their own worldview, fire them.
This should be uncontroversial - after all, many others will line up for those
jobs and Google will be just fine.

These leakers/activists/organizers need to realize how this looks. They are
soliciting external signatures on this petition, and frankly those external
signatures don't matter - it appears any random person can sign it (for
example I see rank-and-file employees at various companies and individual
university students). They should further realize that the opinions of Google
employees alone do not matter. Those of their global customer base, however,
do matter. And even so, only 2000 of 98000 employees have signed this letter
anyways.

I hope Google leadership shows some spine and recognizes that they do not have
to fear a small number of employees or manufactured outrage on Twitter. In all
likelihood, at least half of Google's customer base does not agree with the US
far-left progressive view on trans issues. Even here in America, only 8% are
progressives after all
([https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-
majo...](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-
dislike-political-correctness/572581/)). And like this article notes, the two-
thirds of America that do not belong to either political extreme are simply
exhausted. And I, as a customer of Google, am also exhausted by the constant
stream of political controversy caused by a small subset of their employees.

So I ask again, why should this company care at all what their skewed internal
demographic has to say? If Google is actually truly exposed to some kind of
risk due to attrition, and actually fears that more than a few lone activists
will quit, then that is a serious failure of leadership. It is the job of the
CEO to reduce exposure to that risk - whether by hiring a more ideologically-
diverse staff or by managing with a heavier hand to put and end to this
constant activism.

~~~
tschwimmer
I don't think G's executive leadership paying attention to this kind of
complaint is as idealistic/optional as you lay it out to be.

Google software engineers have many choices as for where to work. Google
distinguishes itself by (among other things) promoting an open culture of
feedback and egalitarian decision making. I actually think this is a pretty
good perk - feeling like your voice is heard is empowering and motivating.

If Google stops listening to it's employees, even a vocal minority of them,
they risk a loss of that culture. Since there are many other major tech
companies in the valley that have a similarly open culture, the risk of brain
drain is real.

Obviously this has a limit. If the engineers demand Google stop serving Ads, I
think they'd be swiftly ignored. But for other less crucial things it's a much
harder question. It even seems like employee sway is persuasive even for
significant projects (China expansion, DoD contract), so I'd reckon that
Google leadership takes the threat of attrition pretty seriously.

------
tree_of_item
> Today @heritage will critique gender identity @UN_CSW because powerful
> nations are pressing for the radical redefining of sex. If they can change
> the definition of women to include men, they can erase efforts to empower
> women economically, socially, and politically. #CSW63

There are many other people who are saying the same thing about gender
identity. It's strange that Vox describes this as "a particular cause for
concern". It's not about "dehumanizing" trans people, it's about self-
identification not being a valid basis for a law. If the Equality Act passes
as written then the addition of gender identity would effectively remove sex
as a protected characteristic.

It doesn't look like this board was a very good idea if the members were not
okay with the first sign of disagreement. Will Google's actual AI projects
even listen to this group at this point? It reminds me of AMP claiming to have
a community driving the specification when in reality Google is just going to
do whatever they want.

------
avs733
Everybody is making this out to be about the membership...it seems far simpler
than that. It seems poorly thought out from the start. Not in membership but
in mandate.

The (minimal) description that Goog provides seems to put this group somewhere
between an institutional review board (IRB) and a strategic advisory board.

What is their role? is it make to policy, provide guidance, provide rulings on
ethical reasonableness What is their authority? can they make suggestions,
shut down programs, implement restrictions What are their boundaries/goals?
Who's authority do they act with?

Every element of what goog provided on this is incredibly vague. I am
absolutely willing to bet that there were mixed messages occurred to the mix
of people coming from academia (where IRBs are a thing) and industry (where
IRBs are not a thing).

Also, this paragraph from the vox article:

"Next, the ethics panel — as has been the case with ethics panels at other top
tech companies — does not have the power to do anything. Google says “we hope
this effort will inform both our own work and the broader technology sector,”
but it’s very unclear who, if anyone, at Google will rely on these
recommendations and which decisions the board will get to make recommendations
about."

Really bothers me. It summarizes a statement from google incorrectly. Google
doesn't say they have no power - it simply doesn't say. That difference is
subtle but important to the entire discussion here...and google hurt itself by
writing an incredibly vague statement from start to finish.

What these companies need is an independent IRB - but that will never happen,
and the fact that it won't tells you everything you need to know about their
commitment to ethical development of AI. What they are doing now is conflating
visioning, strategy, and tactics as if for AI they suddenly become the same

But to end by diving into the politicized portion of this...everyone is
entitled to their own opinion, but your opinion is not entitled to place or
space. That _especially_ includes opinions that differ over the basic humanity
of a certain group of people. We've done that many times over our species
history - it's time to stop. That opinion is not valid.

More directly, having contrary viewpoints is not an inherent value - having
useful disagreements is. Putting a flat earther on the NASA science board is
likely to create 'vehement disagreement' but it does not contribute to 'real
and meaningful progress' (with apologies to naasking who I am quoting as an
example rather than a nexplicit critque). The effort to encompass all
viewpoints is inherently problematic in the formation of the AI review boards
- because it undermines the fundamental concept of ironclad rules that have
undergirded research ethics since failures like Miligan, Nazi experimentation,
the Tuskegee experiment, and others.

------
iratewizard
I've contracted for four different teams at Google and have only been
underwhelmed by their people. Especially those who weren't engineers. This is
not a surprise to me by any means.

~~~
ma2rten
Why?

~~~
imhelpingu
Probably because it's rapidly becoming the quintessentially evil corporation,
and there's a correlation between not having a problem with that and being a
ding-bat who belongs in a cult.

edit: I mean it. I'm a programmer and I would not work at Google. It would not
matter what their offer was. In my eyes, people who work at Google are
_hurting_ their prestige as opposed to helping it.

~~~
autokad
I don't think there are any evil companies. people are people, and they are
pretty much the same everywhere. I think big tech's mistake was trying to
pretend they were somehow better and is now getting called out on it.

