I hope you read to the end of my post where I address that:
> So insofar as data is the root of the problem, yes. Insofar as the solution is to just use more representative data in the same systems, no. That doesn't fix things.
Ultimately Yann's proposals are still to use "better data" whereas all the ethics people are (and have been) screaming no, you can't use better data because it doesn't exist. He doesn't acknowledge that.
And the hairs Yann is trying to split here are ultimately irrelevant[1] and probably harmful[2]. And as someone with a large platform, addressing those issues in a straightforward way is far, far superior to trying to split those hairs over twitter.
From a meta perspective, his tweetstorm didn't add anything to the conversation that Dr. Gebru and her collaborators aren't already aware of. Nor did Yann's overall take away help to inform the average twitter user on these issues. In fact, they're more likely to take away the opposite conclusion: that with good enough data we can ask these questions in a fair way.
But as you rightly conclude there are flaws in any data based inquiry. Yann doesn't concede that.
I'm not sure that Yann was trying to split hairs there. He was reasoning about the issue from first principles (e.g. the problem-domain vs. architecture vs. data distinction) and then failing to carry his reasoning thru to the reasonable conclusion that you mention re: the inherent flaws of any data-based modeling. Criticizing his take wrt. these issues is constructive; being careless about what his actual views are is not.
> So insofar as data is the root of the problem, yes. Insofar as the solution is to just use more representative data in the same systems, no. That doesn't fix things.
Ultimately Yann's proposals are still to use "better data" whereas all the ethics people are (and have been) screaming no, you can't use better data because it doesn't exist. He doesn't acknowledge that.
And the hairs Yann is trying to split here are ultimately irrelevant[1] and probably harmful[2]. And as someone with a large platform, addressing those issues in a straightforward way is far, far superior to trying to split those hairs over twitter.
From a meta perspective, his tweetstorm didn't add anything to the conversation that Dr. Gebru and her collaborators aren't already aware of. Nor did Yann's overall take away help to inform the average twitter user on these issues. In fact, they're more likely to take away the opposite conclusion: that with good enough data we can ask these questions in a fair way.
But as you rightly conclude there are flaws in any data based inquiry. Yann doesn't concede that.
[1]: https://twitter.com/isbellHFh/status/1275184863159685121
[2]: https://twitter.com/hardmaru/status/1275088134238162944