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Comment by jacksmith21006 | Hacker News Reader

Horrifying reaction? A bit of hyperbole

It seems there's too little understanding of how far machine learning is from the AI in Hollywood. I heard a bit of this on "The drive time with some A-Hole in the morning" and it was blown so far out of proportion, it was ridiculous. The problem is, that's where the average American (and similar media outlets) gets their information from.

We live in an infotainment society that pays lip service to the information portion of the word.

> Silicon Valley is ethically lost, rudderless and has not learned a thing.

I can understand how people could be creeped out, but ethically lost? Is "ethics" now just a buzzword?

Personally I wouldn't mind getting a call from Google. Google's voice is absurdly pleasant and friendly, which is likely a completely different experience to what someone on the receiving end of "cancel my Comcast" typically experiences.

The problem is silicon valley folks talk about ethics in a self serving way. They expect ethics from others but are not willing to give it back.

Whether stalking people and abusing personal data or now dehumanizing people, enabling bad actors and making people suspicious of callers it's always someone else's fault for not understanding 'innovation', not theirs for not considering the ethical implications. This is a tone deaf play dumb approach to ethics for profit.

No. That is a narrative from the alt right. SV folks have similar ethics if not better than the average person.

I would say generally engineers tend to be more ethical and rule following. They are built in this manner.

I am not sure what is happening but suspect part of the problem is some are scared of the future and tie SV to the future and taking it out on them. Where the narrative comes from.

The other possibility is they need a bogey man with the Clinton's gone and using SV to replace.

The last is more conspiracy oriented. The biggest strength for the US, hands down, is SV. The innovation coming out of SV is just unbelievable.

It could be Russia and other countries are trying to get us to fight to hurt SV for self serving purposes.

Who gets AI first will have an unmatched advantage. Google is far ahead of everyone and that could be driving the alt right narrative at Google. Using the Damore firing as the rallying event.

It really scares me how easy it is to manipulate some in the US. They use a fear of the future for some to stir it up. Kind of like how Trump and others are using people that look different to whip up people in a frenzy and scared of people that look different.

That they are coming to rape our women.

All I got. Been still trying to figure it out. I have engaged with a number of people on Reddit and surprised how many times someone negative on Google turns out to be Russian.

I would have thought so too, but check out https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17038154 , and if this stays on the front page, a clone of that conversation is likely to spring up here, too.

HN actually had some of the most horror:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022963

Which is heartening IMO. People who deal with computers all day should be the ones most skeptical of technology.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com