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Google Protest Leader Leaves

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Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#301

Post by gdy »

KirinDave wrote: post #201
Merrill wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did she do that is protected under the various whistleblower protection laws? https://www.whistleblowers.gov/sites/wb/files/2019-06/whistl... I don't think that objecting to your company's AI work for DoD or plans to comply with Chinese internet search regulations fall under any of them. What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?

> What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build? Have you made any effort to investigate who Meredith Whittaker is on your own? Her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated precisely because she was a distinguished contributor. The cultural aversion to building weapons is not novel thing in that culture.

"Her work on AI ethics"

What exactly was that?

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#302

Post by asdff »

KirinDave wrote: post #95
wastedhours wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> until the first competition shows up Their worry is that competition will be started by the people they've not hired and kept on the bench. I'd imagine a large amount of their top-level hiring is driven by taking minds off of the market, more than optimising their output.

This couldn't ever work. Folks that smart want to do things that are real.

Some people are brilliant but just want to be financially comfortable enough to do the things they actually want to do. Ask some CS majors why they are trying to get into the field and a huge swath with frankly say it's because they can bust ass now and get six figures at 22 years old and coast the rest of their lives. Not exactly the reality, but that's what freshman CS majors are thinking about when they hand their resume to the google rep during the career fair.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#304

Post by Merrill »

serioussecurity wrote: post #208
Merrill wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did she do that is protected under the various whistleblower protection laws? https://www.whistleblowers.gov/sites/wb/files/2019-06/whistl... I don't think that objecting to your company's AI work for DoD or plans to comply with Chinese internet search regulations fall under any of them. What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?

So many arm chair lawyers on HN. The parent is wrong. It's illegal because it violates the NLRA, not whistleblower protections. "Protected concerted activity". If you want a good primer, "Labor Law for the Rank and Filer" is a good one.

Isn't a "protected concerted activity" an activity that is done for "mutual aid and protection"? It may be closer, but I don't see a case being made under NLRA either.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#305

Post by Faark »

tomp wrote: post #236
snvzz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be obvious to anyone, but people are for some reason having trouble understanding it. It's completely expected for a company to get rid of individuals on the payroll who are badmouthing the company they work for. Why would anyone willfully employ people to work against the company's interest?

Money (paying someone) is not even the biggest issue... How can you trust such an employee (their work output, and that they won't attempt to internally sabotage the company)? I mean, noone is entirely trustwortht ("trust but verify") but when the probability rises from a few percentage points to nearly 100%, maybe it's time to part ways...

It's kind of funny how wanting to improve the company you work for is equated with "sabotage".

Thing is, part of Googles identity is "don't be evil". A vital part of this is stopping whenever you (unintentionally) do something evil. This should not be a problem for Google at all or reason to loose trust in an employee. Unless, of cause, the company has changed. And that's what those story's area about and why we need them: To make sure the public image of google actually reflects what the company now actually is.

Btw: To those saying "why don't you just quit as protest"? For one that makes it easy to be dismissed as disgruntled ex-employee. But more important is the same reason you don't just leave your country of family whenever you disagree or have a problem with those. Cutting ties is a last resort that shouldn't be necessary.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#307

Post by departure »

gdy wrote: post #301
KirinDave wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build? Have you made any effort to investigate who Meredith Whittaker is on your own? Her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated precisely because she was a distinguished contributor. The cultural aversion to building weapons is not novel thing in that culture.

"Her work on AI ethics" What exactly was that?

Do you not know how to use google?

" rel="nofollow">https://ainowinstitute.org/research.html>

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#309

Post by la_barba »

cobookman wrote: post #42
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #13

I thought this story had already been reported a month ago. But no, I was wrong, that was the other organizer of the Google Protests, Claire Stapleton: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jun/07/google-wa... So to clarify, both of the female Google employees who lead/organized the protests have now left because they say they faced retaliation. That looks very bad for Google.

How does this look bad for Google? Honest question.

At some level, it looks bad because of bad PR and the manner of how people report on it (clickbait or otherwise). At another level, we can fill the blank in various ways. "it personally looks bad to me because ____".

One way to fill the blank is to assume in good faith what the person is saying. And if you do, Google does look bad IMHO. Of course, I've seen people leave and badmouth companies when its their own fault for causing the situation. Its only people who are involved in the situation who can confirm all the specifics. As outsiders we can only assign some kind of probability here.

Re: Google Protest Leader Leaves

#310

Post by anonuser123456 »

r3bl wrote: post #298
anonuser123456 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You do understand it, you just refuse to understand it. I like how you believe to have superior knowledge of the internal workings of another person's thought process than said individual. What a totally reasonable position to have.

Yeah, it's almost as if I lived in that "but what about men's issues?" bullshit a few years previously. The only difference between us two is that I snapped out of it.

Clearly the most reasonable interpretation. Absolutely no plausibility of another possibility.
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