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whirvis profile image
Whirvis Energon

Sorry for this extremely late response, I had completely forgotten I wrote this post and did not see all the replies (Which I greatly appreciate people writing :))

The Telgu bug: What would be your definition of an honest bug? What programmer would not fix an issue just to cause problems for his users? True, if someone who spoke Telgu was on the Apple team, this bug might now have happened. However, you cannot use this as a reason to include more diverse groups of people for this reason as there are just too many different cases in the world that might not be considered unless someone who has had experience with them might consider. There are over 7,100 languages in the world that are spoken today. It would be utterly impossible to test all of these, let alone hire all the programmers that speak these languages.

Microsoft (Tay?) AI: When you're talking about Microsoft's AI, I'm assuming you are talking about Tay on Twitter. This is not the fault of the programmers, but rather the fault of the AI's bad influences. If Tay could be compared to anything in the real world, she could be considered as a kid who doesn't know any better. The accounts on Twitter talking to her might as well have been her parents, as those were who she took her influence from; like a kid would take influence from their real world parents. We all know that people are not born with racism, rather taught it. This is the exact case with Tay, who didn't know any better and thought that the 4chan trolls and other users of the internet were teaching her about good people when they were feeding her Nazi propaganda. Tay as a robot does not understand morals from the beginning; she has to be taught them. In this case, she was taught that a racist socialist group called the Nazis were good guys. This, like stated earlier, happens in real life. When the Nazis were in control of Germany during WWII, they made sure to brainwash their youth in schools who didn't know any better.

"Why not?": We don't necessarily need or do not need diversity in programming. When it comes to programming, all that matters is that the programmer can actually do their job as a programmer and do it well. Nothing about their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. should even be considered when hiring them as none of it will benefit them when doing the job. The main problem I have is when diversity is forced. This ends up preventing people who are better suited for the job getting rejected as someone else who would make the group more diverse would get hired instead. This exact same thing happens with college students trying to get accepted into college today.

"How can we presume to develop empathy?": Once again, this has nothing to do with diversity. This is just how guys talk to each other when they're with other bros. Don't get me wrong, it's hard to develop empathy when all you're talking about is pizza. However, guys can also talk about things with deeper meaning and learn more about each other. However, I would say that the main reason guys don't do this is because they're afraid of being seen as weak when the talk about their issues with their friends and want to be seen as tough. This is especially a problem at schools, where they're even less mature and things can spread easily. As for developing empathy, it cannot be developed. A machine would have to learn it, which once again goes back to the previous issues of the correct influences for an AI to learn.

"Look at what the 'bro' culture has done to Silicon Valley and other places": What has it done? I haven't see any negative results from the "bro" culture in the grand scheme of things; please give me an example if I'm wrong. The only negative influences I've seen come from the people who are full of themselves and are very condescending when it comes to real world issues like Mark Zuckerberg, who tells Trump he's racist for building a wall when he has his own wall around his mansion in Hawaii.

"The reason why diversity is important is because of the percentages of POC and women in tech, they're abysmal": Just because there is less of something does not mean you need it. Trust me, there are not many women in the sewage industry but I don't see them complaining about that.

"If you were one of the aforementioned people and in school and were thinking 'Well, I better get to this other field because there are not many black women engineers at Google anyway, I won't bother', I would definitely understand the reasoning": This has to do with the mindset of the person, it has nothing to do with the industry. Sometimes, people want to do things with people that are more like them (This can be in different ways of course, including race and gender).

"Sometimes people don't become what they don't see": I agree one hundred percent with that statement. However, is that really a problem? If a person of color or a woman doesn't become a programmer, so what? If they want to be something else they can make that decision. It's of no fault to the industry.

 
rhymes profile image
rhymes

There are over 7,100 languages in the world that are spoken today. It would be utterly impossible to test all of these, let alone hire all the programmers that speak these languages.

Sorry I meant "honest mistake", not "honest bug". I meant that it's impossible for the developers to know everything about all the languages. I agree with you.

This is not the fault of the programmers, but rather the fault of the AI's bad influences. If Tay could be compared to anything in the real world, she could be considered as a kid who doesn't know any better. [...] We all know that people are not born with racism, rather taught it.

I strongly disagree because the AI is not a person, it's an AI and not even a general AI. Anyway I was talking about this one - theverge.com/2018/1/12/16882408/go... - The fault it's clearly on the people who programmed it. Maybe the solution is not as easy as we'd like but the fault can't be of the people it's exposed to, in this case black people :-) Anyhow, they decided to hide the issue instead of fixing it (which clearly tells you the fault it's in the algorithm, not in the users).

"Hey we have this new AI, use it" -> "It's labeling black people as gorillas" -> "it's your fault because you're black". I hope you get why there's a fault in this logic ;)

Nothing about their race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. should even be considered when hiring them as none of it will benefit them when doing the job.

Sorry but I don't agree with this too. Programmers are people, not robots. They are not just their technical skills, but the entire human being with those skills and until AI will take over those human beings will matter. The idea of not considering any traits of the person is naive because human beings decide who gets hired and human beings have their own bias, preferences or quirks. That's why there's quite a lot of documentation on the fact that white male programmers tend to hire other white male programmers. I don't know how to explain to you why it matters to have teams as diverse as possible in development because for me the current industry is an anomaly and diversity should be the status quo. Maybe it doesn't matter if you're developing an app to keep track of your abs size (though I beg to different because women have abs too, duh!) but if you're developing a social network or a big consumer product you should consider expanding the personal experiences of the team that's creating it. Anyway I think we're looking at the issue with vastly different mindsets. For me normality means that women are 50% because they are 50% of the world. Same principle goes with minorities. They exist, why shouldn't they be in tech?

This does not mean that EVERY team and EVERY company should have all the possible combinations of genders, ethnicities and so on.

Trust me, there are not many women in the sewage industry but I don't see them complaining about that.

To me this is an appalling analogy and also not the point. That industry is not deciding every day how women live their lives but tech does, so why should only white men decide?

"If you were one of the aforementioned people and in school and were thinking 'Well, I better get to this other field because there are not many black women engineers at Google anyway, I won't bother', I would definitely understand the reasoning": This has to do with the mindset of the person, it has nothing to do with the industry.

Once again you're trying to make a "logical argument" totally excluding the context. Let me repeat: people are not software or robots. It has nothing to do with the mindset of a person (you're implying women have a collective mindset or a weaker one which, again, I don't agree with) but with society and the environment. If tech is rigged against them and minorities and what you see coming out of the highest levels is harassment (see Susan Fowler's impact in the industry) and abuses of power, than it's perfectly understandable that you might not want to enter this industry. But the fault it's not in who decides to avoid risking being sexually harassed by a pro. A person is not a punching ball, we're not in the army. Most men in tech have no clue about this stuff because they don't have to deal with it. You should have a look at dev.to/t/shecoded and the works that's being done by Code Like a Girl, Black Girls Code and Project Include. There you will find countless examples of women who left or almost left the industry because of what doesn't work in it and you'll also find countless examples of women who persisted nonetheless.

However, is that really a problem? If a person of color or a woman doesn't become a programmer, so what? If they want to be something else they can make that decision. It's of no fault to the industry.

So you're telling me tech is perfect and nothing has to change? Let's agree to disagree :-)

So the people that are suing Google for the toxic company culture are all mad? gizmodo.com/google-isnt-listening-...

I really don't know how to make you care if you don't, thankfully the industry is changing!