Ethics Cause Developer Burn Out. Ethics? Ethics?
November 16, 2022
It is undeniable that AI algorithms are programmed with biases, because of limited datasets and their developers’ obliviousness. To learn not to be “racist,” AI algorithms need to be exposed to diverse datasets and be corrected when they make a faux pas. The MIT Technology Review says AI developers are experiencing severe burnout trying to be “ethical”: “Responsible AI Has A Burnout Problem.”
There is a huge demand for ethical AI algorithms, but the workers who develop them are dealing with psychological and physical problems. These workers are feeling undervalued and burning out almost as quickly as social media content moderators. People who work with AI ethics must cover a wide range of issues:
“The role of an AI ethicist or someone in a responsible-AI team varies widely, ranging from analyzing the societal effects of AI systems to developing responsible strategies and policies to fixing technical issues. Typically, these workers are also tasked with coming up with ways to mitigate AI harms, from algorithms that spread hate speech to systems that allocate things like housing and benefits in a discriminatory way to the spread of graphic and violent images and language. “
AI ethicists are challenged every day they are forced to work on a project that injects negativity into their lives. While they face backlash from their bosses and the public online, they are also disrespected by their fellow AI developers. These developers are mostly engineers, who are not known for their great social skills.
Another problem is the neck-breaking pace AI advancements are made. Companies are chasing the next big thing. They are also not hiring competent employees who can work together. All these issues combine into high turnover and burnout.
Margaret Mitchell, a former Googler, founded and co-led its Ethical AI team. She burned out after two years in AI ethics. She quit her Google job and left for an AI startup. While change starts at the top of any company, her quote says it all about how companies handle burnout: “The only mechanism that big tech companies have to handle the reality of this is to ignore the reality of it.”
This quote also describes the general working life in the US.
Whitney Grace, November 16, 2022
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