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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#111

Post by whymauri »

high_derivative wrote: post #90

These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…

>Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to any of these companies.

I mean, yes. It's an unfortunate reality that ethics are often at direct odds with the unrelenting pursuit of business value. For a big tech like Google, by caring about people and the impact of your technologies, you will almost surely sacrifice profits in the short term.

So then the question is: people or profits?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#112

Post by [deleted] »

tgv wrote: post #58
prionassembly wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of her replies is regrettable: Yann: “ML systems are biased when data is biased" Timnit: “I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias. Even amidst of world wide protests people don’t hear our voices and try to learn from us, they assume they’re experts in everything. Let us lead her and you fol…

But isn't it commonly accepted that ML systems reflect the bias in the data, and that it's hard to predict and control the bias in advance?

[deleted]

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#113

Post by sixo »

suyash wrote: post #9

As per her Tweet Jeff Dean at Google is who decided to fire her https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334352694664957952?s...

Clarified later in the thread:

> This is the exact email I received from Megan who reports to Jeff > Who I can't imagine would do this without consulting and clearing with him of course

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#114

Post by black_puppydog »

jeffbee wrote: post #61
mcphage wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's how it is supposed to work. How, exactly, is it supposed to work? If you are asked to respond to allegations, yet those allegations are not shared with you, what are they actually asking you to do?

In the article it says the company wanted the author to retract their paper. Doesn't sound like they were being vague about it.

"Retract the paper" not an allegation though. It is a demand / conclusion of a decision process. It doesn't allow any response/defense, and you're right, they don't seem to have been vague about not wanting any of that.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#115

Post by Bukhmanizer »

black_puppydog wrote: post #2

I think this is actually the better link to be discussing, rather than the twitter threads shared before. The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this: > A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it ha…

It’s more relevant, but probably doesn’t tell the whole story considering she very heavily hints that she gave them a list of demands or she would resign, and Google just accepted her resignation.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#117

Post by idlewords »

room500 wrote: post #23

I feel the title is a little misleading. "withering email" == "anger-fueled message sent by a manager to a large group that asks readers to ignore company policy and start arguments with other leaders" I don't see where "ethical AI researcher" comes into play here. Instead, I see a leader at a company unprofessionally sending messages to a large listserv and is later fired. What am I missing?

You're missing that she wasn't fired.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#118

Post by contemporary343 »

high_derivative wrote: post #90

These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…

Her research work is well-known and has had an impact, whether you like it or not: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Timnit+gebru

Edit: And to be clear, her most cited paper (> 1000 citations) had an impact on what some companies did: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21284683/ibm-no-longer-gen...

What is disturbing here, from a researcher's point of view (even within a company!), is the lack of transparency on why a paper is being blocked from publication. The implicit understanding of being a researcher in a company like Google is that, while papers are subject to review prior to submission/publication, that the company will not wholesale reject it and instead will work with you to make modifications and changes. Clearly something different happened here that should be of concern to people considering working at Google Brain.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#119

Post by webkike »

high_derivative wrote: post #90

These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…

It seems that one of the reasons they have not produced anything of value is because, at least in this case, the work is actively suppressed. The heart of the issue here is that Timnit tried to publish a paper and was told by upper management to retract it with no further feedback.

Maybe if you’re going to hire ethics researchers, you should listen to them?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#120

Post by antiquark »

prionassembly wrote: post #43
bitshift010 wrote: post #13

Chief AI Scientist at Facebook, Yann Lecun, quit Twitter after a back and forth with this particular AI researcher - https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter... >I’m always amazed at how people can continue to do thing after thing like this and then turn around and ask me for some sort of extra DEI work or input. This happened to me last year. I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which K…

The tone of her replies is regrettable: Yann: “ML systems are biased when data is biased" Timnit: “I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias. Even amidst of world wide protests people don’t hear our voices and try to learn from us, they assume they’re experts in everything. Let us lead her and you fol…

> "I'm so tired" bit

Yeah, it sort of implies that, yes, you're angry about something, but actually have no constructive advice or solutions, other than to accuse someone of being a bad person or even a racist.

The "I'm so tired" bit is similar to the "I'm not here to teach you" bit. Maybe someone can't teach you because they actually have nothing to teach.

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