[Corpora-List] Call for Papers: Mining User-GeneratedContent for Security - MINUCS 2009

Tue Aug 18 00:17:29 UTC 2009

============
NOTA BENE: This email is intended in the context of the ongoing discussion
in this thread and contributes no additional information regarding the
original call for papers. Unless the reader has been following this debate
and is genuinely interested in it, please feel free to omit this email
altogether. To those who continue reading, I apologize for the length.
============

Dear fellows,

I wish to make some clarifications, since it seems that some of my comments
have been misunderstood:

1) I am not sure that there is any "ad hominem attack" in my previous email
(at least insofar as "attack" is to be understood as a "fallacy" or
"incorrect argument"). Regarding what Linas seems to be referring to (the
last paragraph in my previous email), I simply made a disjunctive reasoning
(which I still take to hold), along the following lines:

a) either Linas (since his was the most conspicuous claim in this sense) has
and can present evidence justifying the concern that the MINUCS conference,
without the "ethics track" he advocated for, will produce technologies which
will be put to use in unethical ways as a result, OR

b) Linas can provide no reasonable evidence to support that claim.

I further argued that, even if a) was true, it would probably still be
better to present the relevant evidence to the authorities, rather than
discussing it at a linguistics conference and talk about what to do should
we come across that evidence.

On the other hand, in case b) was true, then the whole concern that the
MINUCS conference (or any other conference) may be promoting unethical uses
of technology because of lacking an "ethics track", would be based on an
nonexistent situation. It would then follow that the MINUCS conference would
have been negatively pictured on the basis of unsubstantiated claims, which
I would see as extremely inappropriate, to put it mildly, and as I was
trying to point out. I leave it to the readers of the list to decide whether
asking someone for evidence can be considered an "ad hominem attack" on that
person.

2) As for the more general point whether ethics should constitute any
substantial part of a technical conference, and to address also Linas' last
email, in which he talks about the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists", the
"Union of Concerned Scientists", etc., I would like to add that, even if a
reasonably strong case could be made for teaching ethics at physics
conferences/courses (which I doubt), it would still have to be established
why and how that case could be further generalized convincingly to e.g.
linguistics and, in particular, which component of mining information from
openly accessible sources is so ethically similar to making atom bombs and
dropping them on densely populated areas that we can bridge the non-trivial
conceptual gap between the two scenarios.

But even if that argumentation was also successfully constructed (which I
doubt again), it would still not be enough to support the claim that a
conference without an "ethics track" somewhat increases the threat of the
"hard-takeoff" scenario becoming true, the reason being that, from a purely
procedural point of view, the decisions involving ethic concerns and
regarding the use of weapons (atomic or not) are NOT for physicists to make,
but for the military and politicians to make, who I am sure take all the
necessary courses. They probably have as appropriate (or inappropriate) a
background for making those decisions (which, again, are in fact up to
them), as a physicist's is to build an atom bomb (or not). That is why
politicans do not build atom bombs, and why physicists should not question
decisions they do not make.

3) Linas further argued:

> I refer to the "hard-takeoff" scenario, and its assorted variants.
> Both the SIAI and the Lifeboat Foundation are explicitly funded
> to find ways to avoid such existential risks.
>
> I meant them to be statements of fact, and are all quite easily
> supportable.  You can google around for the evidence on your
> own time; you will find plenty.

In relation to which I would like to bring the following to your attention:
in this particular thread, about the MINUCS conference, the evidence of
whatever other claims by the Lifeboat Foundation about whatever othe topics
cannot be taken to be relevant. Therefore, and coming back now to the
original contention, unless some evidence can be provided that the Lifeboat
Foundation holds the MINUCS conference in particular, and due to its lack of
an ethics track, to be an "existential risk" as defined also by the Lifeboat
Foundation, then the resulting mental association between MINUCS, the
"hard-takeoff" and whatever ethics discussion is, in this particular case,
nothing more than that, namely, a mental association.

Finally, I am not sure what would the aim of this hypothetic "ethics for
linguistics/physicists/etc." be in any case, since it would constitute an
intellectually questionable practice for a scientist to hide whatever data
he may be aware of just because of fearing the consequences of decisions not
under his reponsibility. There is nothing more intrinsically ethic than
objectivity, and nothing more objective than scientific discovery; that is
why the best way to teach ethics to physicists (or linguists) is simply to
teach them good physics (or good linguistics). I wonder whether we fulfil
any standard of critical thinking at all when a conference call is issued
announcing that no papers will be accepted that deal with ethical issues,
and unethical intentions are automatically assumed.

Gratuitous claims are not the way of science, neither is it trying to
present as an "ad hominem attack" what was merely a call for evidence. The
relevant evidence is still missing, as it was three emails ago, which,
empirically speaking, has only one possible interpretation.

Since Linas' email to CorporaList was different from one he sent me
personally shortly before and which was rich in personal attacks, I will
only follow this discussion publicly (to avoid any further
misunderstandings) in case any substantial contribution is made.

Jordi Carrera

2009/8/17 Linas Vepstas <linasvepstas at gmail.com>

> 2009/8/14 Jordi Carrera <excellens at gmail.com>:
> > Dear fellows,
>
> Given that this email ends with an ad hominem attack on me
> personally,  I feel compelled to make a brief reply.
>
> > I wonder whether Linas is truly advocating for having e.g. physicists
> > discuss the legal implications of their findings
>
> Physicists publish the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" precisely
> in order to discuss the legal, ethical and political issues surrounding
> bomb-making.  They also have a long involvement with the
> Union of Concerned Scientists. There are many Professors
> Emeritus around the world who were once involved in assorted
> nuclear bomb projects, and their concerns about ethics and social
> responsibility continue to permeate down to physics graduate
> students, who, for the most part, are aware of the history, and are
> receptive to such notions.
>
> > 7) Linas says: "there is a small but growing group of people who believe
> >  that this kind of technology could lead to an explosively dangerous
> > situation which would threaten the survival of humankind."
>
> I refer to the "hard-takeoff" scenario, and its assorted variants.
> Both the SIAI and the Lifeboat Foundation are explicitly funded
> to find ways to avoid such existential risks.
>
> > In my opinion, these are all very (very) strong claims.
>
> I meant them to be statements of fact, and are all quite easily
> supportable.  You can google around for the evidence on your
> own time; you will find plenty.
>
> > Linas, if you have
>
> [...]
> The rest of the email was an ad-hominem attack. It is preceeded
> by a number of other attempts to discredit me using misdirection
> and faulty logic.  You wrote a rather hostile email, and I don't
> understand why.
>
> -- Linas
>
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