[dmix]

The critique is that the type of ethics they concern themselves with is borderline moral-panic/Victorian era. Not the Laws of Robotics kind of stuff.

Maybe it's my personality but I get the impression since AI is rather limited in 2022 that all the paid AI ethicists spending 90% of the time on bullshit problems because there aren't many real threats. And these gets amplified because the news is always looking for a FUD angle with every AI story.

The priority seems to be protecting random peoples feelings from hypothetical scenarios they invent, when IRL they are releasing research tools on a long-term R&D timeline... GPT-3 isn't a consumer product they are releasing. It's a baby step on a long road to something way bigger. Crippling that progress because of some hyper-sensitivty to people who get offended easily seems ridiculous to me.

[mr_toad]

> I get the impression since AI is rather limited in 2022 that all the paid AI ethicists spending 90% of the time on bullshit problems because there aren't many real threats. And these gets amplified because the news is always looking for a FUD angle with every AI story.

I think we’re about due for an AI-ethics winter.

[c7DJTLrn]

Also, it's pointless. OpenAI might be a leader right now but it won't be forever. It can't control a technology. It's like restricting fire because it can burn down houses... yeah it can, but good look with that, all we need is some friction or flint. As time goes on that flint will become easier to find.

If OpenAI wants to concern itself with the ethics of machine learning, why not develop tools to fight misuse?

[rm_-rf_slash]

There are more than enough unaddressed ethics issues in ML/DS from racial bias in criminal sentencing to de-anonymization of weights to keep ethicists busy without needing Skynet.

[dmix]

Seems like that time would be better spent working for local justice orgs and ACLU than blocking OpenAI/Google from releasing chatbots or image generator because they fear someone might voluntarily type in some wrongthink words into input box and blame them for letting it happen.