<story><title>Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry</title><url>https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-cancels-ai-ethics-board</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>redwood</author><text>This is a shameful situation. We need to all wake up and take a step back and realize what&amp;#x27;s happening here: increasingly you can&amp;#x27;t have a conversation about one issue unless you are a hundred percent pure in the eyes of a frankly self-proclaimed judge jury and executioner for 100% of your other views.&lt;p&gt;I am of the left myself but on a meta-level what we&amp;#x27;re doing is essentially making it impossible to ever find middle ground on issues if we&amp;#x27;re unable to talk to folks who we don&amp;#x27;t agree with on 100% of things.&lt;p&gt;This is a dangerous trend for all of us because it makes it impossible find common ground in an open democracy even if half the country in our eyes have essentially deplorable views, we need to recognize that they feel the same about us and then it&amp;#x27;s simply not constructive to be unable to find common ground.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kuzehanka</author><text>You articulated so well what I&amp;#x27;ve been observing.&lt;p&gt;With the widening political divide, we find ourselves in this weird situation where any decision makers are swarmed with moral outrage attacks unless they&amp;#x27;re the bastions of politically correct ideology. An increasing number of topics are taboo because merely opening up a discussion around them summons the moral outrage army. Moral outrage has become most effective social manipulation technique, and morality has long ago stopped playing into the equation.&lt;p&gt;The entire point of ethics discussions is to capture the views of the population in a proportionate manner and try to come to a set of mutually positive outcomes. Bonus points for not stomping on minority views. Instead even on HN we have people claiming that their views are the Correct views and the opposition should not even be given a voice.&lt;p&gt;No matter how disagreeable you may find some particular viewpoint, if it happens to be held by a non negligible number of people and you marginalise them, it will eventually result in tremendous blowback.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know how we got here, it&amp;#x27;s a bit scary.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google cancels AI ethics board in response to outcry</title><url>https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/4/18295933/google-cancels-ai-ethics-board</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>redwood</author><text>This is a shameful situation. We need to all wake up and take a step back and realize what&amp;#x27;s happening here: increasingly you can&amp;#x27;t have a conversation about one issue unless you are a hundred percent pure in the eyes of a frankly self-proclaimed judge jury and executioner for 100% of your other views.&lt;p&gt;I am of the left myself but on a meta-level what we&amp;#x27;re doing is essentially making it impossible to ever find middle ground on issues if we&amp;#x27;re unable to talk to folks who we don&amp;#x27;t agree with on 100% of things.&lt;p&gt;This is a dangerous trend for all of us because it makes it impossible find common ground in an open democracy even if half the country in our eyes have essentially deplorable views, we need to recognize that they feel the same about us and then it&amp;#x27;s simply not constructive to be unable to find common ground.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jbarciauskas</author><text>This board could have been non-partisan, filled with leading thinkers in the space from academia and industry, and given meaningful access and authority. Google management decided to make it clear the whole thing was a sham by specifying they&amp;#x27;ll work a whole 8 hours a year and inviting someone who was wholly unqualified.&lt;p&gt;There are many reasons to fear for the future of our political discourse but I don&amp;#x27;t think this is one. This was just poorly thought through.</text></comment>