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Google launches an AI contest for social good

164 points| saranshk | 7 years ago |ai.google | reply

97 comments

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[+] d--b|7 years ago|reply
This is weird.

1. Why does it need AI? Why not just fund stuff that do social good? Instead of giving out computing credits that will eventually run out.

2. The successful projects joins a startup accelerator. Wtf?

This guys really lost track of what charity means.

[+] __s|7 years ago|reply
re 1, rephrase that on funding mosquito nets specifically

1. Why does it need mosquito nets? Why not just fund stuff that do social good? Instead of giving out mosquito nets that will eventually deterioate

[+] throwaway2048|7 years ago|reply
Because its an obvious PR move to try to improve the standing of "AI" as mostly a technology for companies like Google to exploit your data with to your detriment.
[+] rinchik|7 years ago|reply
This is awesome! "crowdsourcing" AI tech is a pretty smart business move, esp considering it's wrapped with "social good". This initiative can bring a lot of talented and sentimental minds together, and who knows.. it can possibly put a start to a next google product! And if nothing comes out of it.. who cares? Still a marketing win (assuming this gains some traction). I expected nothing less from the idle minds at this corp.
[+] drb91|7 years ago|reply
You said so much without pointing out any material benefits to humanity.
[+] krageon|7 years ago|reply
I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic or ironic or serious here. The rules state I have to take the most charitable reading, which I guess would be sarcasm. In any case, it's very difficult to tell.
[+] 5partan|7 years ago|reply
Drop the advertising business, social good automatically increases, no AI needed :)
[+] mac01021|7 years ago|reply
Are you saying that the world was better off before google?

Or that there's a practical, socially preferable way for google to sustain its search engine without ad revenue?

[+] tchaffee|7 years ago|reply
Is this anything like "don't be evil"? I want to try to not be cynical. But so much of ethical concern, especially regarding privacy, has come out of the Google corner in the past few years that the "for social good" part instantly makes me paranoid about what it will really eventually be used for.

And the story [1] about Google patenting a person's work after an interview comes to mind.

Having got that off my chest, hopefully the participants read the legal terms very carefully and might even consider having a lawyer review them.

[1] https://patentpandas.org/stories/company-patented-my-idea

[+] backpropaganda|7 years ago|reply
I hate the term "AI for social good", because it reminds me that the default use of AI today is actually far from being a social good. I wish "AI for social good" was not a thing, and default use cases of AI was for good, social or otherwise.
[+] Eli_P|7 years ago|reply
Excerpted from their principles[1]:

[...] we will not design or deploy AI in the following application areas:

1. that cause or are likely to cause overall harm [...] 2. [...] Weapons [...] 3. [...] that gather or use information for surveillance [...] 4. [...] whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights [...]

[...] As our experience in this space deepens, this list may evolve. [...]

The last sentence gave me a crack, it was definitely generated by some DeepMind-AI called DeepSarcasm.

[1] https://ai.google/principles/

[+] youtea|7 years ago|reply
As a small social enterprise with ambitions to use data to improve the work of local health/activity/wellbeing charities, the offer of help appeals to us so we're applying. I get the various arguments here but on balance, what would we achieve by denying their help.
[+] m0zg|7 years ago|reply
Quick, someone suggest an AI-based project to defeat Chinese censorship. :-)
[+] piyush_soni|7 years ago|reply
The negativity here is saddening. So what if it is for PR? How many other companies are doing these things even for that? Isn't it eventually promoting AI projects that have at least some social good in their objectives?
[+] charlesism|7 years ago|reply
Google collects sensitive data on every hapless internet user. A contest "for social good" should start by helping Google brainstorm a new business model. The one they have now is poison.
[+] ganeshkrishnan|7 years ago|reply
We pitched our AI project to Google around last year. They moved us to next stage, asked for business documents, proof of concept that it works and then just vanished.

Just like how other people complain about their job interviewing process, there was no response from any of their team members, no email, no rejection. I know ideas are dime a dozen but please don't stomp on startup's dreams no matter how tiny we are.

[+] Alterlife|7 years ago|reply
While I don't completely disagree with you,

If somebody known to kidnap dogs opened a free doggy daycare service, I would expect people to question his motives.

By doing this, I suspect Google will get access to a significant number of social datasets which were earlier not available to it.

[+] tchaffee|7 years ago|reply
Well that's not a rhetorical question really. I think based on recent past experience with Google people have actual concerns about whether it will be for social good in the long term. For me this is similar to what's happened in the GMO space. Potentially great technology that gets more of a bad name than it deserves because the players involved have done some really disturbing stuff before they ever got involved in GMO. Getting back to tech, would it be overly negative to have a little healthy paranoia about Facebook contributing to privacy research?
[+] toufiqbarhamov|7 years ago|reply
I’m seeing little negativity, just the realities of dispensing with unwarranted optimism. Shorting of pithing myself, it’s goinf to be hard to ignore what Google is and show it works just because they throw a (for them) small amount of money at something which so far only sounds good. My experience of Google is that they excel at marketing their own supposed best intentions while delivering the worst of them.

It’s not negativity to have been conscious and capable of forming long-term memories for the past decade, sorry. I’m also wondering if you have now or previously had any relationship with Google?

[+] rum3|7 years ago|reply
Are they going to patent the idea behind your back aswell?
[+] imrehg|7 years ago|reply
> Who owns the intellectual property created by the grant recipients?

> We believe that projects supported by our funding should be able to benefit everyone. If you are selected to receive a grant, the standard grant agreement will require any intellectual property created with grant funding from Google be made available for free to the public under a permissive open source license.

[+] ThomPete|7 years ago|reply
AI for social good is one of those things that are kind of absurd in it's very premise.

AI is not a thing we program to then deliver abstract terms like social good. It's a thing we program to do specific things which might then end up being used to do social good.

[+] BucketSort|7 years ago|reply
Yeah... who ever suggested "AI IS a thing we program to then deliver abstract terms like social good"? Are you refuting a notion that no one holds? Of course the contest at hand is to use AI technology to solve various problems we deem to be socially good. Not to rigorously define social good and have an AI solve it.
[+] mrfusion|7 years ago|reply
The deadline for applications is in two days. January 22.

Looks like this was launched a few months ago?

[+] joshvm|7 years ago|reply
Yes, this was online before Christmas (at least)
[+] LaserToy|7 years ago|reply
What is AI?
[+] joshmn|7 years ago|reply
SELECT with GROUP BY.
[+] gardaani|7 years ago|reply
Here's the simplest AI example I have found so far. It is called Binary Driver AI.

if (car.distance < 5) {

  [car slowDown];
}

else if (car.distance >= 5) {

  [car speedUp];
}

This AI was created by Apple. You can see it on Page 81 on this pdf:

https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/608rpwq1...

So, AI means any algorithm, which can be run by a computer..

[+] pixl97|7 years ago|reply
Bigger question, what is I.
[+] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
No, Google in 2003 may have, but today's Google is only interested in exploiting your friends and family.
[+] rinchik|7 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] drb91|7 years ago|reply
Yikes, keep this shit off HN, nobody wants to know what you think about this. I am partial to Marx myself, Capitalism is an amoral excuse for greed that has repeatedly destroyed itself and had to be saved many times, and I would hate to have to fight with people on the internet when I was hoping to enjoy today.
[+] theseadroid|7 years ago|reply
Off the main topic, but I'm a scientific method believer at heart and I hope we can improve or invent a better system than capitalism one day. If we treat social science more like a science then there's no need to use words such as "crap" or "only". Instead we should keep our heart open for its improvements, maybe even borrowing ideas from existing theories such as socialism.