Can anyone from google give us the infamous mail she sent to brain ?
AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure some of them have, but their foundational democratic and working class structure makes it possible for them to have a progressive effect on society. By contrast, the corporations that they are in conflict with supported the Nazis and planned a coup against FDR because their foundational interests in a regimented, nationalist, power hungry, and elitist society were aligned. https://newspunch.com/american-companie…
And yet the most unionized industry in the US (at like 75% of overall union membership) is white-collar federal employment. There's nothing working class about that.
Working class are people that have to sell their labour to get income; capitalist class are those that live off capital income. (Dividends, rent, etc)
If someone is employed in a government organization, like the CDC or a secretary of the white house, and they don't have capital income then they are working class.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#143These 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 really is the same story every time, isn't it? They always flame out of the company with some over complicated victim story because the company had the nerve to not 100% buy in to their non-optional radical demands.
It has become an archetype at this point.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#144Too many comments focused on whether Google was justified in firing her/the appropriateness of the email and not enough on the impact/veracity allegations.
Much more interesting questions that might get revealed a bit:
Does Google treat minorities appropriately? Is Google covering up ai ethics research? Does Google care about AI ethics/bias?
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#145These 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…
Seems more like you just don't like progressive people for some reason.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#146These 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 wh…
There are multiple types of impact. The question is whether it brings value to Google as a corporation, and thus leverage to her as an employee.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#147These 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…
> Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles...
> I think this is all a good thing because it may alert some executives to the price for hiring activists into research roles.
Ah, yes. They're going to do their jobs and point out poor ethics and policy in _your_ company. I mean, they were hired for that, but if they could just look down and _pretend_ to care about the space they were hired for, instead of actually caring, that'd be great.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#148Title here is misleading (probably deliberate). The email that got this person “fired” was one that allegedly contained an ultimatum and a threat to resign. The employer then called her bluff and accepted her resignation with immediate effect.
Very hard to take that at face value. This is the email that management took as somehow being beyond what an employee at google can do. The title is quite correct IMHO.
If you accuse unnamed co-workers of not only ignoring your expertise and of micro- and macro-aggressions, but also of dehumanizing you, yeah, someone is going to have an uncomfortable work environment.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#149Unrelated, but hiring by race or gender is inherently racist. We should hire by skill alone whether the person is a Lesbian Black Female, or a White Male
Ok, but how do you do that? It was easy in classical music; they just started doing auditions behind a curtain, without any verbal Q&A, and suddenly a field that used to be dominated by men became pretty much 50/50, and all the people who said that men were better at the highest echelons of musical achievement had to shut up.
But tech companies want to talk to the humans they're hiring, so race and gender are (almost) always available as information inputs during the hiring process. There's no equivalent to the curtain to remove the possibility of bias, so you need to look at alternate methods. Setting hiring targets is one way to do it. If you're going to complain that the targets are unfair, you can't just say "Well shucks, guess we have to stick with the system that produces massively unequal outcomes." You've gotta propose a system that's less unfair than the status quo.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#150I don't think "fired" is the right choice of words -- she gave an ultimatum offering to resign, and they accepted her resignation. Is accepting a resignation the same as firing someone? > Thanks for making your conditions clear. We cannot agree to #1 and #2 as you are requesting. We respect your decision to leave Google as a result, and we are accepting your resignation. https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364…
I recently re-read Noah Smith's essay "Leaders Who Act Like Outsiders Invite Trouble" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-03/leader... . It's not directly on point, but one concept is: "This extraordinary trend of rank-and-file members challenging the leaders of their organizations goes beyond simple populism. There may be no word for this trend in the English language. But there is one in Japanese: ge…
> There may be no word for this trend in the English language. But there is one in Japanese: gekokujo.
Isn't the word "mutiny"?