[SamBam]

It sounds like there were three issues:

1. The contractor targeted homeless people

2. They targeted people with darker skin

3. They may not have been forthright or truthful about what they were doing.

Number 3 is clearly wrong. But I think so long as the contractors were upfront and truthful about what they were doing, I don't know if 1 or 2 are problematic.

The only argument I can see for why they shouldn't pay homeless people money for an easy job is that the prospect of money might be so enticing that they're willing to give up personal rights or freedoms (the same argument why we don't allow selling of organs). But $5 neither seems high enough, nor the process invasive enough, that this argument would hold water.

As for ensuring that enough of a sample range is in the database as an attempt at avoiding data bias, this should be a no-brainer good thing.

[aeturnum]

If this report is correct it seems like they were targeting a vulnerable population based on the logic that their vulnerability made them less likely to insist on being treated better than google wanted to treat them. That seems really bad to me.

If you're asking folks on the street and happen to get a lot of unhoused folks because they're around, that's fine. Writing memos telling people to target vulnerable populations because they're vulnerable is gross and deeply unethical.

[kapuasuite]

You’re using words like “targeted” and “vulnerable” to imply there’s some kind of harm being done here, which is laughably false. Just because something strikes you as wrong (for whatever ridiculous reason) doesn’t mean it’s actually wrong, let alone “gross and deeply unethical.”

Are osteoporosis researchers unethical for “targeting” women?

[aeturnum]

The word "targeted" appears in the document quoted in the article. I think describing the homeless as a vulnerable population is a pretty uncontroversial thing to say, but if you'd like I can only use language from the article.

It's gross and deeply unethical to "target" homeless because they "didn’t know what was going on at all." Giving your subjects or customers incomplete information, such as "characterizing the scan as a 'selfie game'," is also clearly unethical.

[kapuasuite]

Feel free to point to literally any harm to these people - there isn’t any. We’re talking about capturing faces in a public place where there’s no expectation of privacy. What does “gross” even mean beyond “it offends my sensibilities?”

[aeturnum]

Gross doesn't mean anything beyond "it offends my sensibilities." I also don't know if the individuals in this situation feel harmed - nor do you, because that's not how harm works. What I did say was that the actions were unethical because they made discovering and communicating harms less likely.

Ethics[0] is not exactly concerned with material harms to people. You can unethically help people and ethically harm them. That said, what is considered "ethical" is generally based on ideas of what should promote the beneficence of everyone in the situation. Choosing to engage /specifically/ with a group who you think is unlikely to detect deception or tell others about your interaction is unethical.

If you aren't sure why, here are the problems I immediately think of:

- If you are misleading people, it's likely that you're worried they will perceive a harm (real or imagined) if they were fully informed.

- If you are seeking out people who are socially isolated because they are unlikely to speak to others, it suggests you are concerned about the outcome of them telling others about your actions. You can also see this in abusive personal relationships where the abusive party will socially isolate their victim.

- Both of these conditions (knowledge and social capital imbalances) make understanding the impact of a relationship (positive or negative) difficult to determine. It might be that no harm has been done, but the account in the article suggests that the contractor went out of their way to create conditions where, if the participants were harmed, they would not be aware of it or would not be able to communicate it.

Lest you think this is all bleeding heart hand wringing, you can see these same principles encoded in economics. Contract law has the notion of material misrepresentation and there's lots of economic theory around the harms of information asymmetry (you could also look into companies that are convicted for material misrepresentation in advertising).

All of which I find gross.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethic

[kapuasuite]

Is it really so hard to imagine they lied because people wouldn’t want to participate otherwise, regardless of any actual harm? There are plenty of people out there who think it’s illegal to take their picture or record them in public without their consent. “I didn’t consent to this” isn’t a trump card.

Material misrepresentations are a big part of contract law because they almost always, ya know, cause harm. Not too many people out there cooking the books to make their company cheaper to buy, for example.

[ehsankia]

> being treated better than google wanted to treat them

They're asking for 5m of their time and a scan of their face, in exchange for 5$. It's a simple transaction, and unlike what the HN-crowd would like to think, the majority of people in the street would quickly make that deal.

The article is putting a lot of their own feelings and opinions on the situation. Just because you have a fear of Google doesn't mean the whole world does, and no one was forced to do anything they didn't want to.

Also, the article mentions homeless people not going to the media (avoiding leaks), not being vulnerable.

[aeturnum]

>the article mentions homeless people not going to the media (avoiding leaks), not being vulnerable.

I guess...I didn't think calling the homeless a vulnerable population was controversial? The text in article specifically mentions that the people working with them described them as ignorant and purposely mis-informing them about the nature of the trial. Are you saying you're ok with companies misleading people as long as those people are unlikely to realize they are mislead?

>Just because you have a fear of Google doesn't mean the whole world does

As I said in my post, I don't think there would be anything wrong with collecting that data on the street and happening to get homeless folks because they're around. It's the misleading and targeting that bothered me. Are you sure I'm the one who's letting my feelings get the best of me?

[ehsankia]

I see, I misunderstood your point. I agree that the misleading, if true, is the most problematic part here. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't think targeting certain demographic is necessarily bad, but lying about what the collection is for definitely is, if true.