A controversial ethics committee of AI ends after just a week

Less than a week after its announcement, Google has put an end to its controversial advisory committee on the ethics of AI – a pretense attributable to the Googlers themselves.

The formation of the eight-member External Advisory Council on Advanced Technology (ATEAC) has raised many concerns. Is not it just Google watching with the blessing of a handful of academics? Ethics is probably an area in which Google has recently fallen into a trap, targeting lawmakers, the press and its own employees, fearing to be involved in a military drone project and building a censored research product. by the government for the Chinese market.

In other words, the basic principle of ATEAC seemed compromised from the beginning. Google already applies the internal ethical principles of AI: in the minds of many employees, they were less and less willing to follow them.

But the composition of ATEAC was not only academic in emerging technologies: a contingent of Googlers was upset by the discovery of one of the nominees, the President of the Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James, had little experience relevant and a story of transphobic talk. Women workers organized to postpone their membership in the board of directors, and at the time of writing, the letter they started distributing on Monday had about 2,500 signatures.

An increasingly active group of Google employees has become more and more sophisticated in organizing quick responses to situations where, in his opinion, the company is failing ethically, whether it is a good deal with Google or not. army, exit solutions for alleged harassers or ill-treatment of temporary workers.

Last night, Kelsey Piper of Vox announced that the painting was no more. In a statement sent to Gizmodo, Google said: "It has become clear that in the current environment, ATEAC can not function as we wish, so we end the board and go back to the drawing board."

[Vox]