[kettleballroll]

The ethics section is a tacked on thing which is required by some large ML conferences. They're essentially a PR stunt. No ML researcher i know cares about it, or devotes more than the 5 minutes it takes to write some platitudes to the task. There are simply no incentives to write this properly. And quite frankly, i don't think there should be. We are educated, paid and motivated to push the boundaries of research, not to think about all potential fallout (which, let's face it, would usually require a whole additional paper for most meaningful contributions). I don't really see how we could change this.

Tldr: as a general rule you can ignore the ethics section of ML papers.

[6gvONxR4sf7o]

> We are educated, paid and motivated to push the boundaries of research, not to think about all potential fallout

That’s the whole problem that led to the introduction of these sections.

[belval]

That's debatable, would an "ethics" section on the original deepfake paper have changed anything?

ML research isn't as inaccessible as genetics research, if there's something idiotic that people can do with DL, they will eventually do it. Acting as if having people add a paragraph to their paper where they "reflect" on the consequences will change anything is only showing how disconnected you are with reality.

Research is research, there shouldn't be any "forbidden knowledge", we have laws for a reason.

[balthigor]

> not to think about all potential fallout

You're doing it wrong then.

Ignoring ethics is lazy.

[enchiridion]

Yep, this is correct.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Tldr: as a general rule you can ignore the ethics section of ML papers.

More generally still, you can ignore the ethics of ML researchers- pretty much for the same reasons that you can ignore the Great Turnip of Justice in the sky.