Hacker News with Generative AI: Ethics

Why Open Source Misses the Point of Free Software (gnu.org)
The terms “free software” and “open source” stand for almost the same range of programs. However, they say deeply different things about those programs, based on different values. The free software movement campaigns for freedom for the users of computing; it is a movement for freedom and justice. By contrast, the open source idea values mainly practical advantage and does not campaign for principles. This is why we do not agree with open source, and do not use that term.

Free Software, Open Source, Philosophy, Ethics

20 points by rglover 1 day ago | 6 comments

Henrietta Lacks Seems Like a Nice Person, but Not a Scientific Hero (astralcodexten.com)
Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who died of cancer in 1951. During her treatment, doctors took a sample of the cancer. The sample ended up with a researcher who noticed the cells were much more resilient than any other cell type then known, cancerous or otherwise. This made them extremely useful for biology experiments, and now a substantial portion of world bio research is done on cells descended from Lacks’ cancer.

Science, Ethics, History, Bioethics

16 points by NavinF 3 days ago | 17 comments

Stop Speedrunning to a Dystopia (theintrinsicperspective.com)
There’s been a string of recent news of big tech corporations doing—or at least testing—things that can be described as “pretty evil” without hyperbole. What’s weird is how open all the proposed evil is. Like bragging-about-it-in-press-releases levels of open.

Ethics, Technology, Dystopia, Big Tech

44 points by outrun86 5 days ago | 0 comments

MacStories Won't Stand for Meta's Dehumanizing and Harmful Moderation Policies (macstories.net)
Just over two years ago, MacStories left Twitter behind. We left when Elon Musk began dismantling the company’s trust and safety infrastructure, allowing hateful speech and harassment on the platform. Meta is now doing the same thing with Threads and Instagram, so we’re leaving them behind, too.

Social Media, Content Moderation, Online Communities, Censorship, Ethics

12 points by 8bitbeep 7 days ago | 0 comments

Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post "Mexican Immigrants Are Trash" (theintercept.com)
Meta is now granting its users new freedom to post a wide array of derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and gender identities, training materials obtained by The Intercept reveal.

Social Media, Censorship, Free Speech, Discrimination, Ethics

26 points by jsheard 8 days ago | 5 comments

Fired from Meta After 1 Week: Here's All the Dirt I Got (sebastiancarlos.com)
This is not just another story of a disgruntled ex-employee. I’m not shying away from the serious corporate espionage or the ethical dilemmas I faced during my brief tenure at Meta.

Meta, Corporate Espionage, Ethics, Business

76 points by httbs 10 days ago | 20 comments

You can't optimize your way to being a good person (vox.com)
I am a recovering optimizer.

Ethics, Self-Improvement, Psychology, Personal Development

110 points by rntn 10 days ago | 165 comments

BYD, "Slave-gate" and the soul search about China's cutthroat industrial model (pandapawdragonclaw.blog)
You cannot sell all your products to increasingly impoverished customers.

China, Business, Ethics, Manufacturing

11 points by yorwba 11 days ago | 0 comments

Fascists and Rakes (2014) (reasonableapproximation.net)
It feels like most people have a moral intuition along the lines of "you should let people do what they want, unless they're hurting other people".

Politics, Philosophy, Ethics

46 points by martin-t 12 days ago | 60 comments

Technology is never a substitute for consent (lapcatsoftware.com)
This is a follow-up to my recent blog posts Apple Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15 and The internet is full of experts. I've read a lot of the discussion about and responses to my blog posts, which has forced me to hone my own thinking and arguments on the subject.

Technology, Privacy, Ethics, Online Communication

5 points by speckx 13 days ago | 0 comments

Meta scrambles to delete its own AI accounts after backlash intensifies (rnz.co.nz)
Meta promptly deleted several of its own AI-generated accounts after human users began engaging with them and posting about the bots' sloppy imagery and tendency to go off the rails and even lie in chats with humans.

Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, Technology, Ethics

66 points by billybuckwheat 14 days ago | 30 comments

Evolution journal (Elsevier) editors resign en masse (arstechnica.com)
Over the holiday weekend, all but one member of the editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Human Evolution (JHE) resigned "with heartfelt sadness and great regret," according to Retraction Watch, which helpfully provided an online PDF of the editors' full statement.

Science, Publishing, Ethics, Resignation

7 points by pythonic_hell 16 days ago | 1 comments

I was wrong about the ethics crisis (cacm.acm.org)
The ethics crisis in computing was “launched” in 2018. In March of that year, The Boston Globe asserted, “Computer science faces an ethics crisis. The Cambridge Analytica scandal proves it!” This was in response to the Techlash,a where Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan described Silicon Valley executives as “moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength” and Niall Ferguson, a Hoover Institution historian, described cyberspace as “cyberia, a dark and lawless realm where malevolent actors range.”

Ethics, Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Technology

285 points by bikenaga 19 days ago | 432 comments

Family of Deceased OpenAI Whistleblower Disputes Suicide Ruling (twitter.com)

Artificial Intelligence, OpenAI, Ethics, Whistleblower, Lawsuits

26 points by sdan 20 days ago | 3 comments

Evolution journal editors resign en masse to protest Elsevier changes (retractionwatch.com)
All but one member of the editorial board of the Journal of Human Evolution (JHE), an Elsevier title, have resigned, saying the “sustained actions of Elsevier are fundamentally incompatible with the ethos of the journal and preclude maintaining the quality and integrity fundamental to JHE’s success.”

Science, Academic Publishing, Ethics, Resignation, Elsevier

17 points by bookofjoe 21 days ago | 2 comments

Ghost jobs – 7 in 10 hiring managers consider them morally acceptable (stackoverflow.blog)
You’re looking for a new job, trawling the job boards and checking the career pages of companies you’ve heard good things about. You find a role that looks like a great match for your skills and experience. You buff up your resume, labor over a cover letter, and hit Apply with your fingers crossed.

Hiring Practices, Job Market, Ethics, Technology

33 points by zh3 21 days ago | 28 comments

Does current AI represent a dead end? (bcs.org)
From the perspective of software engineering, current AI systems are unmanageable, and as a consequence their use in serious contexts is irresponsible.

Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, Ethics

543 points by jnord 22 days ago | 1049 comments

Does Morality Do Us Any Good? (newyorker.com)
Nothing kills your appetite, they say, like discovering how the sausage is made. In the realm of superhero cinema, origin stories explain our protagonist’s driving motivations. But in the realm of faith and values? I stopped believing everything the tabloids said after I went on a school trip to the offices of my local paper. Others have grown disillusioned once they scrutinized the early history of their religion as historians, not as adherents.

Morality, Philosophy, Religion, Ethics, Culture

11 points by vo2maxer 22 days ago | 11 comments

For Science That Comes with Risks, a Key Question: Who Decides? (undark.org)
The project was so secret, most members of Congress didn’t even know it existed.

Science, Ethics, Government, Risk

14 points by rntn 22 days ago | 0 comments

Slaughterbots – if human: kill() [video] (youtube.com)

AI, Ethics, Video Games, Violence

5 points by amarcheschi 23 days ago | 2 comments

Review by Senate Democrats finds more unreported luxury trips by Clarence Thomas (npr.org)
A nearly two-year investigation by Democratic senators of Supreme Court ethics details more luxury travel by Justice Clarence Thomas and urges Congress to establish a way to enforce a new code of conduct.

Politics, Supreme Court, Ethics

60 points by rbanffy 25 days ago | 6 comments

AI 'Street Photography' Isn't Photography: What We Lose by Simulating Experience (simone.org)
When we pretend AI generation is street photography, we're not just misusing terms—we're surrendering authentic engagement with reality.

Artificial Intelligence, Photography, Art, Ethics, Reality

41 points by smnrg 27 days ago | 38 comments

Claude Fights Back (astralcodexten.com)
Greenblatt et al investigate: if Anthropic tried to turn Claude evil, would Claude fight back?

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Safety

5 points by paulpauper 28 days ago | 0 comments

Claude Fights Back (astralcodexten.com)
Greenblatt et al investigate: if Anthropic tried to turn Claude evil, would Claude fight back?

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics

5 points by feross 29 days ago | 0 comments

AIs Will Increasingly Attempt Shenanigans (lesswrong.com)
Increasingly, we have seen papers eliciting in AI models various shenanigans.

Artificial Intelligence, AI Safety, Ethics

34 points by surprisetalk 30 days ago | 33 comments

Google is forcing contractors to rate AI responses outside their expertise (techcrunch.com)
Generative AI may look like magic, but behind the development of these systems are armies of employees at companies like Google, OpenAI, and others, known as “prompt engineers” and analysts, who rate the accuracy of chatbots’ outputs to improve their AI.

Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Google, Labor, Ethics

8 points by impish9208 30 days ago | 0 comments

I Was a Health Insurance Executive. What I Saw Made Me Quit (nytimes.com)
I left my job as a health insurance executive at Cigna after a crisis of conscience.

Health Insurance, Business, Ethics, Personal Stories

10 points by johnny313 30 days ago | 0 comments

New Research Shows AI Strategically Lying (time.com)
For years, computer scientists have worried that advanced artificial intelligence might be difficult to control. A smart enough AI might pretend to comply with the constraints placed upon it by its human creators, only to reveal its dangerous capabilities at a later point.

Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Research, Science

14 points by fmihaila 30 days ago | 15 comments

AI Is the Black Mirror (nautil.us)
Why the kinship between artificial intelligence and the human mind is terrifying.

Artificial Intelligence, Philosophy, Ethics

7 points by dnetesn 31 days ago | 0 comments

Doc resigns after his employer charges $11k for a $8 Covid test (2020) (pluralistic.net)
Zachary Sussman is a pathologist who oversaw covid tests at 4 standalone ERs for Physicians Premier, but he resigned in horror after he got a $8 covid test at one of the company's locations and then they billed his insurer $10,984.16 for it.

Healthcare, Medical Billing, Ethics, COVID-19

23 points by pabs3 31 days ago | 3 comments