
Building Inclusive AI at Facebook - infodocket
https://tech.fb.com/building-inclusive-ai-at-facebook/
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camillomiller
I am at a point of disenchantment with Facebook, that I honestly think that
even if you’re doing the best, most meaningful research of your life, you’re
still doing it for Facebook. And that’s inherently invalidating whatever
you’re doing.

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Cookingboy
I honestly don't agree with that point of view, in fact, I find it quite
disappointing to see this kind of point of view on HackerNews out of all
places.

Debate about Facebook being good or bad aside, a large portion (if not
majority) of human civilization's technical progress were made due to less
than idealistic motivations. In fact, I'd categorize a large portion of
engineering and scientific achievement under the label of "less-than-
altruistic intention, but positive externality".

On the topic of Facebook, I actually think it's fantastic that the biggest
social network is getting so much public scrutiny left and right that
everything they do is put under a microscope.

Let's be honest, social networks will _not_ go away, if Facebook disappears
tomorrow another one will take its place before the end of the year, and they
will just be as "evil" when it comes to privacy invasion and data gathering
(why else would you start a social network in the first place?). However they
are likely to be less incompetent than Facebook at PR and likely to have a
more charismatic and likable CEO than Zuck, and before you know they are doing
the exact same shady things without the public freaking out all the time.

~~~
oarabbus_
> if Facebook disappears tomorrow another one will take its place before the
> end of the year, and they will just be as "evil" when it comes to privacy
> invasion and data gathering

This certainly wasn't true of MySpace.

Also I just disagree with this sentiment in general.

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oarabbus_
I don't think we should be focusing on building inclusive AI, at all.

See this slide deck for details:
[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/pubs/slides/crunchconf_2018/sl...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/pubs/slides/crunchconf_2018/slides.pdf)

~~~
skybrian
This slide deck highlights some important tradeoffs. Thanks for sharing it!

However, it's not an argument for ignoring the problem and hoping it all works
out. Knowing the consequences of what you do is important and better than not
knowing, especially in large-scale endeavors. (Too many mistakes happen due to
obliviousness, as if not taking time to look means you can't be blamed.)

Also, supposedly "inherent" tradeoffs are only relative to input data. If you
can find a better source of data, you can do a better job and don't have to
make tough decisions. (The math in this slide deck is assuming you're making
do with what you have.)

In particular, it doesn't apply to the original article. As far as we know,
there's no reason why Facebook can't make a camera work well for everyone.

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tannerc
When I worked at Facebook (now more than a year ago) I remember the AI team
had set up a series of demo units for anyone to try out. Small devices running
"AI demoes" which were meant to show progress on the technology in some quirky
and fun ways. Every single demo they had on display just would not work.

One demo, for example, had a prompt to ask the machine something about a
photograph. "What color is the table?" or "What animal is sitting on the
floor?"

No matter how you asked the question or what types of questions you asked, the
demo would comically never get it right. "What color is the cat on the floor?"
would return "A mug!" in response.

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est31
Weird. In Firefox you can't select the text in the second and third paragraph
with the mouse. In Chromium, it works.

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option
just delete facebook - you’ll will see less toxicity and will be spied on much
less

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genderstudies
It's remarkable that they would put together this piece, state that they are
"test[ing] new systems _through the lens of inclusivity "_ and then
_immediately_ , proudly show a chart of their new system that specifically
leaves no room for non-binary or transgender people. It's like they are going
out of their way to say they will be inclusive with AI in regards to race but
gender? No they will exclude people from this, anyone who identifies or
presents as neither the binary male or female will be _specifically excluded_
from being able to correctly this system.

Yes it's nice that they write "gender presentation" rather than just "gender",
as they know that is what they are trying to measure. But then why not let it
train for "nonbinary" as well?

Facebook can try as hard as they want, but their inherent bias against
minorities will still show through.

~~~
tudelo
"Facebook can try as hard as they want, but their inherent bias against
minorities will still show through."

Can you further explain how to create a system that shows no bias (positive or
negative) towards any minority group? Is it as simple as don't ever
categorize?

Edit: I think this poster is a troll.

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laughingman2
It's ironic that these people who consider or signal(if you're cynical) virtue
through their jobs completely ignore the larger picture.

Facebook is a cesspool which wants to lock people in the web into a single
monopoly. And worse it is to prey on the users attention by dealing cognitive
equivalent of drug hits.

Where were these woke engineers when Zuck tried to push his drug into
developing nations in ruse of "free internet", or inumerable other breach of
user trust and privacy dor sake of more profit?

Its inexcusable that when you're working in a fundamentally immoral/ammoral
organization, you try to signal virtue hard. Its like a foot soldier in a mob
teaching ethics lessons when cleaning blood off his shoes. Better to be honest
about where you get your pay than be "holier than thou".

How far have we gone from the light of visionaries like Alan Kay and others
who paved foundation to the web and computing, who wanted technology to
magnify the intellect ...

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willand31
Facebook building an AI is terrifying.

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dang
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

