
Google's ethics board shut down - hdivider
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47825833
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jedberg
> There had been an outcry over the appointment of Kay Coles James, who is
> president of conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation. Thousands of
> Google employees signed a petition calling for her removal, over what they
> described as "anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant" comments.

And

> At the weekend, board member Prof Alessandro Acquisti resigned, tweeting:
> "While I'm devoted to research grappling with key ethical issues of
> fairness, rights and inclusion in AI, I don't believe this is the right
> forum for me to engage in this important work."

So it sounds like Google picked someone with a "dissenting" opinion (the
conservative) who then was pushed out for her dissenting opinion, and then
another board member decided to leave, either because they too worried about
being pushed out for not toeing the line, or worried about having to debate
the other person.

Either way, it sounds like "diversity of opinion" was only lip service here.
Isn't the whole point of an ethics board to have people who have different
takes on the ethics of a situation? If the whole board is comprised of like
minded individuals, doesn't that defeat the point?

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zelon88
The whole board should be composed of _ethical_ individuals.

Should we invite influential amish personalities to our confs going forward?
You know, so they can contribute their diversity of opinion to the techno-
hacker community?

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CharlesColeman
> Should we invite influential amish personalities to our confs going forward?

Actually, that'd be a great idea. IIRC, the Amish aren't against technology,
they're just against letting new technology haphazardly drive social changes,
so they're careful in how they adopt and use it.

For instance one group decided to adopt the telephone, but they were wary of
it disrupting family and community social bonds by causing people to shift
their focus to other people far away (a practice that is demonstrated writ
small when you ignore everyone around you to take a call). They managed the
drawback by specifying the community wouldn't have telephones in their homes,
but only have one telephone in a little phone booth for everyone to use.

~~~
zelon88
That is fascinating, and maybe not the best analogy for what I wanted to
communicate.

So focusing on just the Google ethics team; if your team can't even agree on
the definition of ethical how can it reach consensus on ethics issues?

~~~
crgwbr
By discussing it rationally and coming to a consensus. No one has a universal
definition of ethics—such a thing is impossible for limited, innately selfish
humans (which we all are). And no two people will likely ever agree on every
single ethical question presented. But, by discussing something at a round
table of thought-diverse people, as long as they are all guided by the
principal of wanting to come to agreement, will result in a productive,
reasonable compromise. To say that a genuinely well-meaning person shouldn’t
be allowed at that table because they disagree with the others is the same as
saying you’re fine with biased outcomes, as long as they’re biased towards
you.

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lallysingh
That's a great headline with Google's name in it. Goes well with "Google
Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct"
[https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-
do...](https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-dont-be-evil-
from-1826153393)

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lemoncucumber
2004: Don't be evil.

2019: Don't be ethical.

~~~
rurban
2018: Don't be too scientific.

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jonny_eh
What a bad headline, it's the AI ethics board specifically.

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0815test
So what? All the decisions at Google that affect users are made by AIs of some
sort. That's why they ask you all the time if you are a robot-- and why they
don't give you any human support: that notion literally makes no sense to
them.

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RickJWagner
This is why we can't have nice things.

People must learn to get along.

