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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

#32
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 post a link? I can't find it. (I see email from her manager to Timnit, but not the original email from Timnit to the mailing list)

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#33

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.

I'd call it petty more than sleazy. Drama queens on both sides.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#35
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'm sorry, but I call bullshit. With salary bands imposing constraints, it's not even possible for you to have made a third of what someone doing "the same job" made.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#36

All this says is, she sent a mail to Brain Women and Allies that resulted in her immediate termination. Does anyone else remember when she picked a fight with Yann LeCunn by deliberately misinterpreting his remarks to cast him as a racist? Seems reasonable to assume she picked another fight. Reading the Twitter threat, it reads like she made demands in a way visible to a large number of employees (something about aut…

It's not "reasonable" to assume "she picked a fight". It's not "reasonable" to fire someone for "picking a fight", whatever that is. It's awful how people are willing to be so charitable to Google here after doing the exact opposite in Damore's case.

It's not really about charity to Google. I just don't consider her Twitter feed a trustworthy source of information, given her general frequency of toxic Twitter drama and her extended, bad faith attack on LeCun. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Google was in the wrong here, and if they are I hope she gets some kind of justice, but I don't think we can just take her word for it.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#37

Apart for calling people racist for having a different argumented opinion, like she did with LeCun, what else is she known for?

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=timnit+gebru

Very typical for a scientist to have a list of publications. Do you point to some specific piece of work?

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#38

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.

Google did the right thing and they were civil.

She made some pretty serious demands, not having been met, with such politicization there's no reasonable way to accommodate a longer handoff, and she knew that. Waaay too much risk there.

She set her own terms, they accepted, that's it.

She should have been more transparent in this, because in her Tweets she wasn't forthcoming that it was her terms.

There are a ton of people who are sympathetic to those who are oppressed, but misrepresentations, cancelling etc. on the wrong terms are going to lose general sympathy very quickly.

None of this should be construed as a measure of whether or not Google is 'Good or Bad' or whatever, all these things are individual situations, with their own unique circumstances.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#39
The comments here are weird right now. They seem overly focused on the spat she and Yann LeCun had a while back when it doesn't seem like this incident is about that?

Hopefully some clarification comes out about what her demands were and the internet drops their pitchfork about something that happened long ago

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#40
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.

There's no way your coworker doing the exact same job made 3x your salary. I don't care if he was Biden's own son, no one makes that kind of pay disparity doing the exact same work as someone in the same building as them.
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