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Comment by misssocrates | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone else getting tired of the "employees say", "experts say", "researchers say" tactic in journalism?

How many? And importantly, what percentage is that? What do the other employees or experts say?

I'm getting tired of the obvious deflection attempts when something bad comes out about big tech corps.

Media coverage, taken uncritically, to me would seem to suggest that big tech is worse than oil, gambling, tobacco, etc. - at least in terms of how much ink gets spilled on their misdeeds.

I don't understand why we have this fantasy that this is unrelated to the very real impact that big tech has had specifically on the media in terms of redirecting advertising revenue and commoditizing their business.

Not worse, but I do think that "big tech" are the modern-day oil barons/railroad tycoons/etc., with all that comes with that.

The problem is all the old tycoons still exist!

> How many?

The article provides that information:

The trusted internet-search giant is providing low-quality information in a race to keep up with the competition, while giving less priority to its ethical commitments, according to 18 current and former workers at the company and internal documentation reviewed by Bloomberg.

> according to 18 current and former workers at the company

So 18 of > 200k people? I bet I could find 18 X/Googlers to say a lot of things

The article does give more information, e.g. "...according to 18 current and former workers at the company and internal documentation reviewed by Bloomberg," and identifies "the AI governance lead, Jen Gennai" directly for some of the claims.

https://morals-machines.com/speakers-2/

21 experts, according to 90% of researches - an employee said.

In a headline? No, its making a statement about whose opinion is featured in the article. I find that weakly informative.

Sometimes all it takes is 1.

Yes. Alternatively accurate title:

Google's Rush to Win in AI did not lead to Ethical Lapses, Employees Say"

I think you mean:

Google's Rush to Win in AI Led to Ethical Lapses, Employees Do Not Say

I mean, Elon Musk just said in his interview yesterday that he was friends with Larry Page until he realized Larry Page had zero concerns about ethics and AI safety and called Musk a “speciesist”.

I’d say if that’s the attitude of the founder it’s very likely this story is true.

I believe “self-driving” Teslas have a higher body count than Google Search, but go off.

Musk is not a very reliable source at this point. Especially when discussing ethics.

Musk says lots of nonsense. I wouldn't believe him just because he says something.

I mean, it wouldn't surprise me if that's true, but it's pretty risky just taking Musk's word for it.

Usually it means two people were willing to talk to a reporter.

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