Anyone object to using loglan as an interlingua?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loglan
On Saturday, July 4, 2020, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Denny! I appreciate this, and your thoughtfulness as always.
Thanks for starting an explicit discussion. I think our field (meaning, computer science & internet projects broadly) often assumes that these questions will just arise in context, or get solved as we go, but they rarely do. So making ethics a focus from the start is crucial. There may not be good "solutions"! But inviting lots of people in to talk about scenarios etc I think will make a much stronger and innovative project in the end.
all best, Phoebe
On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 7:54 PM Denny Vrandečić vrandecic@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you Phoebe for the congratulations, and thank you for the considerations, and I agree with them.
On wiki, Denis Barthel and Ryan Kaldari already raised a number of the concerns - although not all - that you are raising here.
Kaldari's_concerns
Revisiting_and_twisting_a_Kaldari_concern
And I tried to answer some of them there. But I do agree that this is not sufficient, and I would love to be able to ensure that the ethical
concerns
you raise do not get lost, and are sufficiently represented when we do
the
project.
Alas, I am also a bit at a loss about how to ensure that. Yes, for some
of
them, we have a pretty good, albeit developing understanding of how to cover them, particularly around ethics and AI and about bias and ethical data. Also I think doing several best / worst case scenario exercises at relevant points is a great idea. The one thing that troubles me most, though, is how to ensure that in the new communities that we will foster the representation among contributors is indeed more representative of
the
diversity in the world. To the best of my knowledge, we have no answers
for
that - and I would very much want to learn about this.
So, here's what I can promise - among the many topics that we need to discuss while we are ramping up the project, I will also start an
explicit
discussion on how to make sure that ethical considerations are
sufficiently
represented during the development of the project. I obviously cannot promise that we will successfully avoid all ethical pitfalls - but I can promise that I will do my best to do so.
It is, in the end, ethical concerns that motivated me, and some of them are discussed and described here:
https://wikipedia20.pubpub.org/pub/vyf7ksah/release/6
It is this motivation of allowing more people to share in more knowledge in more languages which drives me.
I hope you'll join us on the new list and keep an eye on what we're
doing.
Your voice would be very appreciated.
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/abstract-wikipedia
Thank you! Denny
On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 11:07 AM phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Congratulations to everyone, this is exciting.
It is also very exciting that we have an almost-unprecedented
opportunity
to build a new project that is fully informed by both lessons from own
past
projects, as well as from the rapidly developing field of ethics in computer science and AI. From our own past projects, we have learned
(among
other things) that pitfalls could include contributor recruitment; continued maintenance; transparency and accessibility of the UI; unclear provenance of data; that many communities want a say in how they are represented online, but often don't have one; and that the biases and systemic biases of the world are reflected in who contributes, what
sources
they use, and what areas of focus are. We have also learned that our relationship with reusers, particularly around structured data that is highly valued by commercial entities, is poorly defined and tenuous.
From
the movement to build more ethical AI systems, we've learned (among
other
things) that flawed model assumptions can result in unpredictable and
often
deeply harmful downstream outcomes; that most sources of data are not transparent in their limitations or provenance; and that incorporating
the
concerns of people affected by systems can result in less biased data
and
outcomes.
These are hard problems, and they are not problems that have obvious, one-size-fits-all solutions. But we do have an obligation I think to consider these issues front and center in this new project that we are building. It concerns me that, at least in the high-level project
proposals
I've seen (I haven't been tracking this closely, and haven't read the academic papers) I have not yet seen discussions of ethical data, or
how we
might think about identifying bias, or even how to recruit contributors
and
the impact on existing contributors.
In my day job, I am the librarian for a pretty well-known computer science school.[1] There, the recent movement to consider ethics in the computer science curriculum, and in the systems that our computer scientists build, is being discussed now at all levels of the
university --
but is being led primarily by students who recognize that they have an obligation, as the next generation of engineers, to help build better systems for a better world. Meanwhile, as practitioners who build
systems
at Wikimedia, we consider ourselves part of a small group of influential organizations that is "making the internet not suck" -- we believe in openness, in community, and in making sure that everyone in the world
has
access to knowledge, in their own language; we believe in an
aspirational
better world. As a part of this mission, we must take questions of
ethics
seriously -- and we do. We have collectively spent thousands of hours trying to expand our contributor base; thinking about systemic bias; thinking about sources and provenance; trying to open up copyright to
make
knowledge accessible; working with communities on indigenous knowledge; building UIs that are easier to contribute to. These are all efforts related to our ethics and values. With our new projects, we can set precedent. We can explore the problems that we face today on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Commons and consider not just how to avoid them but how to build a better project. We can do this in a multilingual context with perspectives from volunteers and staff around the world, in a way that almost no other projects online -- certainly no single university or research group -- can. We can, without much legacy infrastructure to
hamper
us, spin out worst-case and best case scenarios, ask questions about our data and who might participate, think about downstream consequences. And *that* is truly exciting.
best, -- Phoebe
Artificial_Intelligence_Laboratory
On Thu, Jul 2, 2020 at 12:04 PM Katherine Maher kmaher@wikimedia.org wrote:
(A translatable version of this announcement can be found on Meta [1])
Hi all,
It is my honor to introduce Abstract Wikipedia [1], a new project that has been unanimously approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. Abstract Wikipedia proposes a new way to generate baseline encyclopedic content in a multilingual fashion, allowing more
contributors
and more readers to share more knowledge in more languages. It is an approach that aims to make cross-lingual cooperation easier on our projects, increase the sustainability of our movement through expanding access to participation, improve the user experience for readers of all languages, and innovate in free knowledge by connecting some of the strengths of our movement to create something new.
This is our first new project in over seven years. Abstract Wikipedia was submitted as a project proposal by Denny Vrandečić in May of 2020
[2]
after years of preparation and research, leading to a detailed plan and lively discussions in the Wikimedia communities. We know that the
energy
and the creativity of the community often runs up against language barriers, and information that is available in one language may not
make it
to other language Wikipedias. Abstract Wikipedia intends to look and
feel
like a Wikipedia, but build on the powerful, language-independent conceptual models of Wikidata, with the goal of letting volunteers
create
and maintain Wikipedia articles across our polyglot Wikimedia world.
The project will allow volunteers to assemble the fundamentals of an article using words and entities from Wikidata. Because Wikidata uses conceptual models that are meant to be universal across languages, it should be possible to use and extend these building blocks of
knowledge to
create models for articles that also have universal value. Using code, volunteers will be able to translate these abstract “articles” into
their
own languages. If successful, this could eventually allow everyone to
read
about any topic in Wikidata in their own language.
As you can imagine, this work will require a lot of software development, and a lot of cooperation among Wikimedians. In order to
make
this effort possible, Denny will join the Foundation as a staff member
in
July and lead this initiative. You may know Denny as the creator of Wikidata, a long-time community member, a former staff member at
Wikimedia
Deutschland, and a former Trustee at the Wikimedia Foundation[3]. We
are
very excited that Denny will bring his skills and expertise to work on
this
project alongside the Foundation’s product, technology, and community liaison teams.
It is important to acknowledge that this is an experimental project and that every Wikipedia community has different needs. This project may
offer
some communities great advantages. Other communities may engage less.
Every
language Wikipedia community will be free to choose and moderate
whether or
how they would use content from this project.
We are excited that this new wiki-project has the possibility to
advance
knowledge equity through increased access to knowledge. It also
invites us
to consider and engage with critical questions about how and by whom knowledge is constructed. We look forward to working in cooperation
with
the communities to think through these important questions.
There is much to do as we begin designing a plan for Abstract Wikipedia in close collaboration with our communities. I encourage you to get involved by going to the project page and joining the new mailing
list[4].
We recognize that Abstract Wikipedia is ambitious, but we also
recognize
its potential. We invite you all to join us on a new, unexplored path.
Yours, Katherine Maher
Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract Wikipedia/June 2020 announcement [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Abstract_Wikipedia [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Denny [4] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/abstract-wikipedia --
Katherine Maher (she/her)
Executive Director
Wikimedia Foundation https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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