If I say "Spanish people are lazy fucks" that sounds offensive and might be considered racist, but I myself am Spanish and that context changes its meaning. We generally strive away from racist jokes because as a society we are concerned that we are furthering racist ideologies otherwise.
For a more explicit example, if a person says "I'm tired of them fucking n-words" it matters a great deal, socially, if that person is black or white. But this is an AI. It has biases, sure, but no past experience and no beliefs. If an AI says that same phrase, what is the meaning behind that?
More succinctly, can an AI say the n-word? Why?
I have met trans women, especially those who came out of the gay community like me, who use the t-word with vicious intent because of hate they have for themselves and others. They're disgusted with being trans and they're disgusted by other trans people and they throw the slur the same way a non-trans person would and in doing so give moral cover to non-trans people who hate us. "See they even hate each other and they use that word the same as we do!" If you call these self-haters out they'll claim it's fine for them to behave the way they do because they're trans too, but, no.... The reason you shouldn't use slurs has nothing to do with the slur itself, it's about the impact of it and the impact doesn't change just because you're trans yourself.
So anyway, imo, normalizing the use of slurs by publicly broadcasting them is a bad idea in general outside of very specific contexts because slurs are not just words, they are symbols for an entire series of related negative stereotypes so when we normalize those words we also normalize the ideas associated with them. AI doesn't get an n-word pass. /rant
Thanks for articulating this; it's helpful. My only question is: words that are labels don't create hatred, although they might signify it. Will stopping words being used do anything to reduce any hate people feel and/or increase understanding, and conversely will allowing it add any hate to people and/or decrease understanding?
It's not theoretical for me. My FIL doesn't know I'm trans and he loves Fox News and called some person getting covered by Fox a t-word in a really hateful way about two years ago and it's made me feel less comfortable around him. He could have just said "I don't know about this trans stuff" which I get totally but by jumping to a slur he put a barrier up. I've begged my husband to "out" me to his family at some point ... imagine how that would go now. Even assuming he can overcome the fact that his DIL who he's known for the better part of a decade is actually some sort of demon creature from a Tucker Carlson segment, don't you think he's going to think back on all the nasty stuff he said and feel awkward as heck??? Even if he moved on from it, I could never forget or trust him like I would have if he'd only revealed a more measured mistrust of trans people instead of jumping straight to calling us the most hateful thing he could think of.
It would be the same with a stranger. If you call me a slur or use the slur around me without knowing that I AM ONE OF THOSE "SLUR WORDS" it would prevent me from being able to form a relationship with you on equal footing and would make me want to hide who I am from you which just amplifies the level of misunderstanding in the world.
When lots of people are throwing slurs and stuff around in general that feeling of alienation becomes a suffocating amorphous cloud that covers you up and makes you want to retreat from society. I guess that's a feature and not a bug for the people using the slurs. They want us to stay in the gay bars and away from them and their kind but.... that's not healthy. We should all be able to participate in public life on as near to equal footing as possible.
Some people might say it's my fault because I take slurs personally but... I'm just human here. I don't wanna spend my life placating people who use slurs to describe me. I'll bet it's the same for members of other groups who have slurs that people use against them. Once somebody uses those slurs against you it's hard to build a bridge with them which is sad.
Even a black AI ?
See how the situation is turning ridiculous ? Of course an AI should be able to say any word as long as the context makes it clear that it’s not actually insulting anyone. Racism, phobia of all sorts, insults, offensive discourses, hate is all part of human nature, and human history.
You can’t live without the bad sides of humanity, and you most certainly won’t erase them by simply banning words. It just doesn’t work like this. You’ll just turn the world into an horrible authoritarian regime, where it’s all rosy on the surface, just for the sake on not being sent to jail, and where the bad thoughts, being repressed and taboo, will only grow stronger.
