| ▲ | lookingdesk 2 days ago |
| Jeff Dean liquidated Google's entire AI ethics team because they wouldn't revise an academic publication to align with the corporate PR spin on AI. |
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| ▲ | chubot a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| This is overstating it by a lot. Jeff was the AI lead at the time, and there was a big conflict between management and the ethics team And I actually think Google needs to pay more attention to AI ethics ... but it's a publically traded company and the incentives are all wrong -- i.e. it's going to do whatever it needs to do keep up with the competition, similar to what happened with Google+ (perceived competition from Facebook) |
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| ▲ | tziki a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| You mean he fired one person who threatened to quit if the changes to the paper weren't to their liking? Or am I misremembering? |
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| ▲ | whynotminot 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| As far as I can tell, no one seems to think much of value was lost. |
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| ▲ | keeganpoppen 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | even at the time that was the verdict | |
| ▲ | foolfoolz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | ai ethics was/is useless. it felt a lot like the movie industry of the 1930s saying they will police themselves just to keep any bigger regulator away | | |
| ▲ | jll29 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | To say "AI ethics is useless" is itself useless. Morality is not there to be useful, right or wrong in moral sense are normative categories not utilitarian ones. But what you possibly may mean is really AI ethics self-regulation by large tech corporation does not work. (If that was your intended statement, I'd agree.) | |
| ▲ | dsr_ 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | ... And then they didn't! | | |
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| ▲ | shadowgovt 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It turns out when you usher the dissenters out of the room, you hear a lot less dissent. | | |
| ▲ | whynotminot a day ago | parent [-] | | It’s not like they were summarily executed. They are much freer now outside of corporate control to speak their minds as they please. The only real question is if anyone deems them worth listening to. | | |
| ▲ | shadowgovt a day ago | parent [-] | | I mean, I follow them. Their problem domain is pretty niche and they're pretty technical on it so I don't doubt their traction is mostly academics. |
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| ▲ | lemoncucumber a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That incident was the first time I ever heard of Jeff Dean and remains the main thing I associate him with. |
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| ▲ | scottyah a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Isn't it crazy how the media can do that? It really doesn't matter how much good you do in the world if your enemies speak louder. At least in the public's perception. | |
| ▲ | jll29 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not sure if he was told to stop the paper and fire the team, or whether he decided that himself. But in any case, it's a stain on an overwise exceptionally brilliant career with wonderful software engineering achievements. I wonder if they ever wondered if they'd do it again? |
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| ▲ | morcus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm having trouble following what exactly this means. So Jeff wanted the team to modify an existing publication to fit the PR spin on AI, the ethics team refused, and Jeff dissolved the team? |
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| ▲ | tehjoker a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| reading about this incident years later, i gotta say, dang Gebru was right on a lot of things https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a... |
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| ▲ | shemnon42 a day ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Just another Jeff Dean optimizing out unneeded code story. |
