I think it is a very good question. Forget ideas you may have had about UX 10 or 20 years ago. Google is a user interface to the rest of the internet. “Unfriendly” might not be the word for it, but the impression that it is there to serve me is an illusion. It is becoming too much like the “friendly” used car salesman.
Whatever we want to access on the internet is increasingly mediated by highly intelligent interfaces that have their own agendas, and I doubt we have thought enough about what constraints it would take to keep these agendas from getting out of hand. In a worst case scenario, these agents might systematically mislead people so as to hide some uncontrollable super-agent being put into place. It is the old agency problem. The attempt to impose ethics and good behavior on those we take to be our agents (doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, finance advisers) raises different questions from those aimed at most fellow beings. “Professional ethics” is a name for one sometimes effective approach to the problem, and it imposes a whole other set of constraints than those we put on peoples treatment of one another generally, so I think it is worth looking at from a special angle which might well be neglected by FAI generally.
This brings to mind the infamous case of Google censoring search results in China according to the government’s will. That’s an example of a deliberate human action, but examples will increasingly be “algorithmic byproduct” with zero human intervention. Unlike humans the algorithm can’t questioned or intimidated by the media or taken to a court of law.
Legally and professionally, I suppose the product team could be taken responsible, but I definitely think there needs to be a push for more scrutinizable computation. (There have been discussion along these lines in terms of computer security. Sometimes open source is cited as a solution, but it hasn’t necessary helped—e.g. Heartbleed.)
I think it is a very good question. Forget ideas you may have had about UX 10 or 20 years ago. Google is a user interface to the rest of the internet. “Unfriendly” might not be the word for it, but the impression that it is there to serve me is an illusion. It is becoming too much like the “friendly” used car salesman.
Whatever we want to access on the internet is increasingly mediated by highly intelligent interfaces that have their own agendas, and I doubt we have thought enough about what constraints it would take to keep these agendas from getting out of hand. In a worst case scenario, these agents might systematically mislead people so as to hide some uncontrollable super-agent being put into place. It is the old agency problem. The attempt to impose ethics and good behavior on those we take to be our agents (doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, finance advisers) raises different questions from those aimed at most fellow beings. “Professional ethics” is a name for one sometimes effective approach to the problem, and it imposes a whole other set of constraints than those we put on peoples treatment of one another generally, so I think it is worth looking at from a special angle which might well be neglected by FAI generally.
This brings to mind the infamous case of Google censoring search results in China according to the government’s will. That’s an example of a deliberate human action, but examples will increasingly be “algorithmic byproduct” with zero human intervention. Unlike humans the algorithm can’t questioned or intimidated by the media or taken to a court of law.
Legally and professionally, I suppose the product team could be taken responsible, but I definitely think there needs to be a push for more scrutinizable computation. (There have been discussion along these lines in terms of computer security. Sometimes open source is cited as a solution, but it hasn’t necessary helped—e.g. Heartbleed.)