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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#121

Post by no-dr-onboard »

silisili wrote: post #24
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…

Yeah, that Lecun argument was a really bad first impression of her from me. I guess she found out life isn't Twitter and you can't just go around telling everyone they are bad and wrong without consequences.

"life isn't Twitter and you can't just go around telling everyone they are bad and wrong without consequences."

I wish this were true.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#122

Post by aaron-santos »

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…

> The only thing they need to do is keep their end of the deal.

Just to be clear, their end of the deal is to justify Google's actions as ethical, not to ensure that Google's actions are ethical.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#123

Post by lowercase1 »

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?

The anger is a distraction. The allegations are most important.

"Google silences minorities/women/AI researchers" is way more interesting/important than "Google/AI researcher did/didn't misbehave."

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#124

Post by aylmao »

> AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

I think this title could be a little more descriptive. The conversation is about DEI, the fact she pointed out more accountability is necessary, the abruptness of it all, etc. I didn't know who Timnit Gebru was and almost didn't click on it because this sounded like some random researcher and I'm sure Google fires people all the time.

Once I was reading it I realized this is quite interesting after all.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#125

Post by mcphage »

Tycho wrote: post #91
mcphage wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contained an ultimatum and a threat to resign. The employer then called her bluff and accepted her resignation A threat to resign isn't the same thing as resigning. And it seems you don't think so, either, since you characterize her threat as a bluff. It can't be both a bluff and a resignation.

It's the ultimatum part that makes the difference.

So was it a bluff or was it a resignation?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#126

Post by ur-whale »

KentLane wrote: post #57
silisili wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that Lecun argument was a really bad first impression of her from me. I guess she found out life isn't Twitter and you can't just go around telling everyone they are bad and wrong without consequences.

She will land on her feet. There is a huge demand for ideologues willing to lobotomize ML. “Let’s generate fake data with GANs to prevent our AI from discovering politically uncomfortable regularities!” It’s ugly work but someone has to do it, right?

[flagged]

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#127

Post by curiousllama »

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

"As far as I can tell" is doing a lot of work here.

I can confirm this is untrue. I worked with someone like Gebru (definitely an activist researcher) at a non-FAANG and AI ethics drove 3 multimillion dollar deals. Was a better business case than most I built over that time.

Besides, saying they don't drive revenue is a critique of research roles, not Gebru...

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#128

Post by wil421 »

sudosysgen wrote: post #30
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…

Well, reading the thread, it's pretty clear that she was correct. There is a second step of metaoptimization which incentives the researchers to encode algorithms to produce algorithms that more easily bias along a certain way. And she is correct that benchmarking models against biased datasets can lead researchers to bias for architectures that are in turn more likely to have a certain bias. I'm sure LeCun knows thi…

TBH it doesn’t matter if she is right or wrong. Her tone and angry writing is pretty harsh.

The Twitter replies read a lot like her Google message thing. She’s got a lot of good things to say but needs to work on the delivery.

I think she’s playing the victim and race card a lot more than she should. She’s got all the ammo she needs to make her arguments without the angry victim tone.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#130

Post by mcphage »

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.

Sorry, I was talking about the commenter you were responding to above, who described being asked to respond to allegations without being told what those were.
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