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Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

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Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#21

Post by whymauri »

cyrus20 wrote: post #17

Racism exists. Pay discrimination exists. Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group. I also saw the tweets at Yann LeCun. I'm not his biggest fan, but that wasn't right. She's hurting minorities for her own agenda. Edit: removed info about myself.

>Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group.

Unless you still work at Google, how do you know she actually broke any rules? As far as I know, her e-mail to the Brain list is not public?

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#22

Post by twentytwo11 »

dogecoinbase wrote: post #19

It's incredibly disappointing to see the first batch of top-level comments here. Timnit is an absolute leader and inspiration in the field, and has been outspoken in dragging the old school of machine-learning-is-money-laundering-for-bias crowd into modernity. This move makes it clear that Google has no commitment to Ethical AI as a field; they want rhetorical cover for their ongoing bad actions.

According to her, Yann LeCun is a racist just because he said that a specific ML model was biased due to a bias in the data and not because ML learning as a research field was racist.

Such an inspiration!

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#23

Post by ramraj07 »

cyrus20 wrote: post #17

Racism exists. Pay discrimination exists. Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group. I also saw the tweets at Yann LeCun. I'm not his biggest fan, but that wasn't right. She's hurting minorities for her own agenda. Edit: removed info about myself.

I've never heard of a 300% pay gap between people doing the same job, how does that even happen? Were you paid significantly under par or did that other person somehow hit jackpot? And at what level are we talking about?

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#25

Post by unishark »

whymauri wrote: post #21
cyrus20 wrote: post #17

Racism exists. Pay discrimination exists. Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group. I also saw the tweets at Yann LeCun. I'm not his biggest fan, but that wasn't right. She's hurting minorities for her own agenda. Edit: removed info about myself.

>Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group. Unless you still work at Google, how do you know she actually broke any rules? As far as I know, her e-mail to the Brain list is not public?

The question is whether that Twitter exchange was an isolated outburst (of the kind that reminds us all to stay away from social media, at least using our real name) or an example of typical behavior that led to this firing.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#26

Post by rohanagarwal94 »

wishysgb wrote: post #20
IvyMike wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of her tweets says: > I was fired by @JeffDean for my email to Brain women and Allies. In a later tweet, says she would repost the email publicly but she no longer has access to it. I'm guessing it will leak soon.

She posted the email.

Can you share the link?

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#27

Post by techbusters »

timnit-drama wrote: post #15

The email she posted [1] makes it pretty clear that she sent an email with some demands/conditions (separate from the one "to Brain women and allies") and said that she would resign if they weren't met. Google said they wouldn't agree to them, accepted her threatened resignation, and told her it was effective immediately. Without knowing more context, it sounds like she tried to do some hardball negotiating by threat…

There is still a civil way to accept a resignation, with proper timelines and transfer of responsibilities. She offered to resign in some time due to some demands, and the immediate termination seems to be related to an email unrelated to those demands. This sounds a lot like a sleazy move by Google to couch an immediate firing as a resignation.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#28

Post by techbusters »

contemporary343 wrote: post #18

Reading through some of her earlier tweets there seemed to have been conflict around her/ her team pursuing a particular research direction or projects, directions that higher ups were not happy about because of how it might make Google look. This is ultimately the limitation of being a researcher in a company - some topics will be off limits and you’re not allowed to poke around things that will make the company loo…

yeah really makes you wonder why these tech companies pretend to be the good guys and hire ethics teams, when they don't intend to follow through when conflicts of interests arise.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#29

Post by dogecoinbase »

twentytwo11 wrote: post #22
dogecoinbase wrote: post #19

It's incredibly disappointing to see the first batch of top-level comments here. Timnit is an absolute leader and inspiration in the field, and has been outspoken in dragging the old school of machine-learning-is-money-laundering-for-bias crowd into modernity. This move makes it clear that Google has no commitment to Ethical AI as a field; they want rhetorical cover for their ongoing bad actions.

According to her, Yann LeCun is a racist just because he said that a specific ML model was biased due to a bias in the data and not because ML learning as a research field was racist. Such an inspiration!

Lack of insight into structural and systemic bias is indeed the plague of modern ML research, and at this point is so well-understood that carelessness is no longer excusable, and passes into true negligence (or worse).

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#30

Post by throwaway_33455 »

She is being very selective with the information she is choosing to release. She made demands to Google which they did not accept, but she does not specify what those demands were. She also says that she doesn't have a copy of the post she made to the "Brain women and allies", but she doesn't summarize it either, and given her position, I imagine she could get a copy from someone else in the group if she cared to.

I'd suggest given Timnit is choosing to only tell a very small part of the story here, and Google is obviously not going to publicly comment on an HR matter, especially one this sensitive, that it's best to withhold judgment.

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