Pedro Domingos

The purpose of a program committee is to save readers time by filtering out papers that are not worth their time, not to filter them out based on ideology. I welcome the first and reject the second, and I hope you do as well.

I'm so genuinely taken aback by the confusion between "harm" and "ideology"? Is it a political position to vet a car for functioning breaks as not to kill people?

It's unacceptable to reject a paper on better car brakes because you don't like the social implications of drivers going faster.

Hm, don't think you quite understood my analogy. Let me rephrase: What is political about not doing research that, as part of its methodology, makes ppl sick or puts their lives at risk, without their consent? Safety & harm can be separate from ideology. Esp when data is involved

You're shifting the goalposts. The NeurIPS ethics review covers a lot more than physically harming people, and applies to things it makes no sense to apply it to.

So then we agree that ethics reviews make sense, the only question is what should be covered in an ethics review, yes?

Are you deliberately trying to misconstrue what I say, or is it involuntary?

“The NeurIPS ethics review covers a lot more than physically harming people...” This makes it sound like you object to the current scope of the ethics review, but you might consider one focused on physical harms more reasonable. Do I misunderstand?