Mastodawn

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

Here's what I wrote in 2015 when our OpenAI overlords were announced, and after I had a terrible experience at NIPS (a conference now named NeuRIPS after a number of people, mostly women demanded a name change and received death threats for doing so. Interesting to see my reflections from ~8 years ago, not much I'd change except for certain phrases I probably wouldn't use now (e.g. implicit bias).

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

I struggle to understand Silicon Valley’s libertarians’ allergic reaction to discussing problems caused by the extreme homogeneity of the research circle. The same is true for many in the AI research community of which I am a part. As this thoughtfully written letter to SCOTUS from physicists explains,

The implication that physics or “hard sciences” are somehow divorced from the social realities of racism in our society is completely fallacious.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).

The exclusion of people from physics solely on the basis of the color of their skin is an outrageous outcome that ought to be a top priority for rectification.

The rhetorical pretense that including everyone in physics class is somehow irrelevant to the practice of physics ignores the fact that we have learned and discovered all the amazing facts about the universe through working together in a community.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

The benefits of inclusivity and equity are the same for physics as they are for every other aspect of our world.

The statement holds true for AI and any type of “ism”. One would think that the people trying to “stop AI from harming society” would pay attention to this sort of stuff.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

However, amidst the wide acclaim given to Elon Musk and others’ announcement of a “non-profit” venture to “Stop AI from destroying humanity,” only one potential problem has been raised: the fact that all the researchers are working on deep learning.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

A White tech tycoon born and raised in South Africa during apartheid, along with an all White all male set of investors and researchers is trying to stop AI from “taking over the world” and the only potential problem we see is that “all the researchers are working on deep learning?”

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

Google recently came out with a computer vision algorithm that classified black people as Apes. AS APES. Some try to explain away this mishap by stating that the algorithm must have picked out color as an essential discriminator in classifying humans.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

If there was even one Black person in the team, or just someone who thinks about race, a product classifying Black people as apes would not have been released. Either the dataset would have been sufficiently augmented, or more research into the algorithm would have been mandated. But a product with this type of misclassification would not have been released. Imagine an algorithm that regularly classifies White people as non-human.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

No American company would call this a production ready person detection system.

At this point in these types of conversations people usually mention that there aren’t qualified this-or-that group of people who are deep learning researchers. I can name at least 10 extremely qualified female researchers in my sleep--including one who left the field due to exclusion--and swathes of them can be found here (LINK).

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

When you ask someone to “recommend” potential researchers in this extremely segregated and homogeneous world, they will recommend other researchers who are their friends, read the same hacker news every day and talk about the same things. They will recommend other boys in the very tight boys network.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

Funny enough, the same men feel too uncomfortable to participate in events encouraging women in CS simply because the room might be more than 70% women. Go to the conferences, talk to people, attend the parties and you will see.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

As the night proceeds, you will be transported to the Madmen era where drunk old men, professors or company representatives from places such as Google, start unsolicitedly groping some of the handful of women present at the conference parties. And the women are either completely assimilated (a well documented method of survival for minorities) or too uncomfortable to speak up.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

But that type of overt caricature of sexism is nothing compared to the covert one bestowed upon us by people who believe they are too objective, rational and intelligent to have biases. Keep in mind they are researchers--researchers who have the skills and resources to learn about most subjects they deem to be worthy of their time. But they are simply not interested in an attempt to understand their implicit biases, read literature or ask questions about it.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

These are the people creating AI. And the tasks, values and priorities of the AI agent are reflections of those of its creators. People harm society. We don’t have to project into the future to see AI’s potential adverse effects. It is already happening. However, Silicon Valley does not speak out on atrocities such as the US drone warfare that is illegally killing people.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

Because presumably the intelligence occupied by this select group of men (many speak as though they belong to a different species with superior intelligence and rationality), cannot be bothered to think of mundane day to day activities such as war. Even the nuclear bomb was not created by physicists whose day to day life was completely divorced from the complex realities of the world we live in.

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

They were very much aware of politics and history, and actively engaged in a capacity higher than the abstract futuristic intellectual discussions in vacuum that AI researchers of today seem to be engaged in. By the way, these discussions, once again, are conducted amongst a highly homogenous group of people: see for example the participants in a NIPS panel on the societal impacts of machine learning (http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~mpsha/NIPS_Symposium_2015.html).

NIPS Symposium 2015

Timnit Gebru (she/her).Jun 9, 2023

I am very concerned about the future of AI. Not because of the risk of rogue machines taking over. But because of the homogeneous, one dimensional group of men who are currently involved in advancing the technology.

Concerned AI researcher

InfiniteOne Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru #TimnitFacts

Jude Jun 9, 2023

chmps Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru My brain hurts from that list but not just because of gender balance. There's exactly 1 psych professor in the panel. And probably the whole robot-go-conscious-brrrrr thing wasn't pushed by him.

Deep learning isn't brains and was never meant to be brains. Ever heard of a metaphor?

Soliyra (she/they)Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru This is the exact attitude I, a biologist, have about GMOs

Comm Radio Environment Network Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru @BlackAzizAnansi I agree. It’s a real problem.

TCD 🎮Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru It's not that surprising though given the last 30+ years of computing history.

Richard R Lee Jun 10, 2023

AKA ‘#FakeAI #DataGrifters working the #DigitalGrift’. #GriftersGonnaGrift
@timnitGebru

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 11, 2023

I am concerned for both reasons, b/c one promotes the other re/ bias, etc.

But what also has me worried is that even though some #AI luminaries have seen the light and called for a moratorium, it is for the wrong reasons.

Legislation will never catch up with the exponential evolution of #GAI, not even in the #eu

Concerned observer and commentator

leadb Jun 11, 2023

@HistoPol @timnitGebru

« Legislation will never catch up with the exponential evolution of … »

Probably not if things go on like they went so far.

Isn’t that (forecasted) exponential evolution dependent (/directly related to) a primary energy demand exponential growth ?

🤔

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 12, 2023

(1/3)

Our exchange gave me pause. This is why I have just finished writing a thread regarding the current state of #AI regulations in the West which you might enjoy reading:

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110528310717257043

Re/ energy demand and exponential growth--what are you referring to?

Here are some preliminary thoughts of mine on the topic:

#AI, though needing a lot of energy, is not the same as #CryptoMining...

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 12, 2023

@leadb @timnitGebru

(2/3)

... regarding energy consumption (hypothesis.)
Furthermore, putting data centers in countries like #Greenland with freely available energy gets around this limitation to some degree.
Also, another hypothesis of mine is that the additional energy consumption will now chiefly be proportional to the number of requests in #ChatGPT....

HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴Jun 12, 2023

@leadb @timnitGebru

(3/3)

...
One of my chief hypothesis is (see linked thread above at the end) is that the next evolutionary quantum-leap for #AI will be #embodiment. This can be explained by #SystemsTheory (#Luhmann et al) and other social sciences:

https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/110485223389507009

Last, but not least, #PrivateGPT is on the rise and that requires only a gaming PC, not data-centers.

Dick Smiths Fair Go Supporters Jun 13, 2023

@HistoPol
Its not the same for bitcoin precisely *because* Bitcoin doesn't need to expend copious amounts of energy, whereas AI basically does.

In a future where we have less energy, bitcoin wins.

Truth will always win out in the end. Just like fiat currencies over the millennia always reach their final price, zero.

@leadb @timnitGebru

leadb Jun 12, 2023

@HistoPol @timnitGebru

🙏

By "exponential growth of our primary energy demand", I refer to a curve like this one https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy.

Maybe I should have started by asking myself for a link that explain more in detail what you call "the exponential evolution of ai" ?

🤓

Global direct primary energy consumption

Energy consumption is measured in terawatt-hours, in terms of direct primary energy. This means that fossil fuels include the energy lost due to inefficiencies in energy production.

Our World in Data

Cassandrich Jun 12, 2023

@leadb @HistoPol @timnitGebru The "forecasted" exponential growth is just propaganda with no plausible mechanism proposed.

leadb Jun 12, 2023

@dalias @HistoPol @timnitGebru

propaganda is certainly (a large part of) the Silly-Con-Valley marketing-mechanism shamelessly called self-fullfilling-prophecies 😏

Yet it has kind-of-worked for many local gurus to become globaly-influencial enough for redirecting a large part of the global primary energy demand and all the forms of capital relying on it (finance, intelligence/skills, infratsructures) towards their own personal goals/profits.

And looks like the're up for a new try.

🤞everyone

JohnW Jun 12, 2023

@timnitGebru But the data that goes in can eventually turn them into rogue machines.

Just look at what Trump did to his vapid followers.

Espinada Jun 12, 2023

@timnitGebru
There’s no such thing as “AI”.
Just a lot of “BS”.

Tito Ciuro Jun 12, 2023

@timnitGebru @TechDesk Where there’s money and power, there always will be one dimensional group of men, unfortunately. Not just AI. Across the board. Success for the human race is limited. Greed’s the driver.

Dick Smiths Fair Go Supporters Jun 13, 2023

@timnitGebru
Rogue machines have already taken over, though.

Australia allow the doomsday machine we call Facebook to pay off our media.

One solice is that #AI will not survive, in a future with less abundant #energy to waste.

Interestingly #Bitcoin can survive when energy is less abundant. Bitcoin can scale down, AI won't be able to really that.

ex or current IDF unwelcome Jun 13, 2023

@timnitGebru son open access - anyone can create stuff

ニルス・スキニール Jun 15, 2023

@timnitGebru Plus all funded by a tight network of 4-5 gazillionaires.

Björn Högberg Jun 15, 2023

@timnitGebru Is this a problem specific for AI? Lots of technology from the last decades was developed primarily by homogeneous groups. I don't know that makes the tech less useful?

TransitBiker Jun 18, 2023

@timnitGebru Yes plus it’s not “intelligence”.

antipode77 Jun 10, 2023

What i see is a group totally engaged with AI research.

Isn't it time for other groups to engage with the impact AI will have on Society.

In short : let us have a much wider perspective on what is (going) to happen.

Shachihoko Jun 9, 2023

"... (many speak as though they belong to a different species with superior intelligence and rationality) ..."

Written in 2015, still accurate in 2023 - maybe moreso than ever, to hear chucklheaded knobgoblins like Musk talk about themselves. 😒 And their self-aggrandizing rhetoric is only getting worse.

Meanwhile, they fret openly about the "existential risk" of AI without acting on their handwringing pleas for a pause on training new models ... 🙄

Andy Quitmeyer Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru yeah they are generally all alao massive benefactors of survivor bias, and assume because they wormed their way into making money, they are also fabulously smarter than any other people who, you know, did anything else with their brains other than make money.

Savera Jun 12, 2023

@timnitGebru white people should be classified as PNCs, People of No Color.

Jules 🍺Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru this sort of thing always pisses me off, not just the racial element of it which is bad enough, but the shear laziness of am all white department just making stuff for a small fraction of the globe and then trying to excuse their bigotry and incompetence with a shrug and a meaningless press release.
#blackmastodon

Jude Jun 9, 2023

@timnitGebru just unbelievable.