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Google Quietly Disbanded Another AI Review Board Following Disagreements (wsj.com)
Google is disbanding a panel in London to review its artificial-intelligence work in health care, WSJ reported Monday, as disagreements about its effectiveness dogged one of the tech industry's highest-profile efforts to govern itself. From a report: The Alphabet unit is struggling with how best to set guidelines for its sometimes-sensitive work in AI -- the ability for computers to replicate tasks that only humans could do in the past. It also highlights the challenges Silicon Valley faces in setting up self-governance systems as governments around the world scrutinize issues ranging from privacy and consent to the growing influence of social media and screen addiction among children. AI has recently become a target in that stepped-up push for oversight as some sensitive decision-making -- including employee recruitment, health-care diagnoses and law-enforcement profiling -- is increasingly being outsourced to algorithms. The European Commission is proposing a set of AI ethical guidelines and researchers have urged companies to adopt similar rules. But industry efforts to conduct such oversight in-house have been mixed. Further reading: Google Cancels AI Ethics Board In Response To Outcry.
Google is a little duplicitous in its dealings. Its real customers, the advertisers know exactly what they're getting and what the terms are, but the people having their data sucked up aren't always told what's happening and are often quite horrified when they find out what companies like Google, Facebook, etc. have collected about them.
I don't particularly trust either group. I think the best approach is to enshrine certain guarantees of privacy into the constitution or law and let the men with gavels smack them around for non-compliance.
The 737 Max 8 disaster should be the final nail in the coffin of the idiotic idea of self-regulation. Boeing didn't stop themselves from making relatively basic mistakes even though they knew it could cost them dearly, which it did. How could anyone continue to defend self-regulation after this?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
That agency, the FAA, delegated some of its regulatory oversight tasks to Boeing. The GP's comment is insightful: it was considered critical to have independent oversight, so a government agency was set up. That agency decided to compromise on its oversight responsibility in favour of a small degree of self-regulation, and disasters occurred.
Companies can (and do) set up advisory boards, but those are advisory only. Real regulation must be imposed by an independent body with legal power to do so.
This is what happens when a significant majority of your workforce does not wish to hear any opposing viewpoints and actively punish anyone who does not toe the party line. They create a self-imposed echo chamber so that "all is well" in their tiny little world.
-- Will program for bandwidth