Pedro Domingos

Hi Pedro, I helped create the NeurIPS ethical review process. Looks like there's a healthy discussion going on here already, but let me know if I can answer any specific questions. Up front, I should say that the ethical reviewers gave feedback; they did not accept/reject papers.

Hi Raia, my point is that papers are being rejected based on this "ethical review", and I object to that. The papers' ethics should be evaluated by the readers, not pre-emptively by what is effectively a censorship board.

People whose PII is exposed, whose data is being used without consent, or who could be hurt by publication have less power than researchers. ACM's code of ethics' *first* section tells us that they are our priority. Publishing papers that violate this code is unethical

The NeurIPS guidelines for ethics review go way beyond PII and consent. As for people who could be hurt by publication, that can be a cover for almost anything - and that's the problem.

Have you actually read the ACM code of ethics? It is not restricted to PII and consent. I would like to be charitable, but the only explanations I can come up with for this response is either that you have no idea what's in the ACM code of ethics or you are lying about it.

I'm just addressing your specific examples. Have you actually read the NeurIPS ethics review guidelines, and compared them with the ACM code of ethics? And do other computer science conferences have the NeurIPS requirements of ethics sections and ethics reviews?

No, you are not addressing specific examples. You are cherrypicking them. The statement was "people whose PII is exposed, whose data is being used without consent, or who could be hurt by publication have less power than researchers."

And yes, I have read the NeurIPS requirements. They cover almost exactly the same things as the ACM ethics guidelines. I don't understand how you can think otherwise. Can you provide an example sentence from NeurIPS that you don't think is in the same vein as the ACM code?