
Ethical bot-making - homarp
http://mewo2.com/notes/bot-ethics/
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el_cujo
I was expecting a little more out of an article with a title like that, this
piece is a lot of fluff that can be summarized as "be nice".

~~~
kpwagner
Yes, and "don't hurt people". Worse, I don't even think those are sufficient
as guiding principles. In the real world many ethical situations are not best
solved by being nice or refusing to hurt someone.

How about not hurting people unnecessarily? One might say, "well, bots are not
necessary, so they shouldn't ever hurt someone." If they aren't necessary,
then why make them to begin with? Besides, there is no end to what someone
else may determine to be hurtful. I won't play the game of trying to avoid all
that is hurtful to everyone else.

The article mentions a bot using racial slurs as something to avoid. Depending
on the execution, this could be distasteful at best--assuming the intention of
the creator was to have the bot use these slurs. But the use of slurs by bots
has largely been unintended by my reckoning. So, you are telling me someone is
genuinely hurt by a malfunctioning bot using a racial slur? That says a lot
more about the user than it does the creator.

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UnpossibleJim
Is there a dictum in journalism to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the
comfortable"? That seems to be antithetical to what journalism's original
mission of reporting facts and letting the public decide (yes, I know this
bares little resemblance to most modern journalistic styles). That style of
reporting seems motivated towards a specific narrative, which is less than
impartial. I might be wrong on what journalism's mission is and would like to
hear opinions.

~~~
icebraining
There are more facts in a day than would fit in a million newspapers. You have
to make choices. Which news will you report? Who will you interview, and which
sources will you consult? Which ones do you even _have access_ to? Which ones
will you still have once you publish this week's story?

Impartiality in journalism is a myth invented by those propping up the status
quo. The most you can be is honest.

~~~
beaconstudios
Impartiality is a scale, not an absolute. You can be more or less impartial
even if you can't be perfect at it.

Saying its not possible to be (more) impartial is propping up the divisive
partisan journalism we have today.

~~~
icebraining
Do you consider _The Economist_ to be part of the divisive partisan journalism
we have today? Because they are explicitly partial in their approach to
journalism, promoting specific values and viewpoints:
[https://www.economist.com/help/about-
us](https://www.economist.com/help/about-us)

Partiality is not the same as partisanship or sectarianism.

~~~
beaconstudios
I couldn't say, I'm not familiar enough with their work to have an opinion.

When I read the news, I want to know what happened in the world - I don't want
to read it through the lens of the journalist. If there was a skirmish between
Israel and Hamas, tell me that. Explain the events as we understand them,
without spinning them to fit into a political narrative. What I dislike is
when the Guardian reports it as Israel oppressing innocent Palestinians and
Fox News reports it as a terrorist attack on unsuspecting checkpoint guards.
People in the left-leaning tech industry tend to interpret this as "Fox News
always lies" but from what I've seen it's more like both sides lie and the
truth is somewhere in the middle.

The real world is murky and complicated and political issues are very rarely
black-and-white (if they were, there wouldn't be 2 sides). When journalists
simplify a story to pander to bias, it promotes black-and-white thinking and I
believe that's extremely harmful to meaningful political engagement.

[edit]

> Partiality is not the same as partisanship or sectarianism.

OK sure, I'll grant you that. The latter is what I take issue with. Reporting
from a perspective is to be expected, a social commentary journal would focus
on different facts from an economics or a culture journal and you'll have
other differences. My issue is basically how political reporters spin stories.

