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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#251

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

tehjoker wrote: post #227
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US has historically been one of the most racist and discriminatory organizations in North America. That seems like a very US-lib centric POV where the US is a cartoonish evil-dooer. In my experience Mexico is pretty much just as bad, even more so in different ways too - classism, racism, anti-indigenous sentiment, Malinchismo, rampant feminicide, etc.

You have a point, but the key difference is the US is able to export its product worldwide using the military and corporations. I don't think Mexico has the same level of power.

That’s circumstantial though.

My point is that these countries aren’t cosmic forces. We’re all humans that instantiate the same fundamental prejudices, instincts, biases, etc. wherever you find us.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#252

Post by harrisonjackson »

effingwewt wrote: post #214
idlewords wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is more like giving two weeks' notice and then being asked to leave the building immediately. It's not pleasant but it also isn't the same as being fired. Google called her bluff here.

I think this isn't nearly so bad as forcing an early termination of two weeks notice. I had a job pretty recently, was senior tech and was eager to please, which ended up meaning having to take the hard/after hours calls no one else wanted to handle. It also meant I eventually became the only on-call tech for over 4 months straight. This in turn meant I knew the most about all of our accounts, knew the most about the…

Did you get paid for those 2 weeks? If not then I would say you got fired.

After those 2 weeks, if the employer still wants help/answers then they should expect to pay a very very expensive hourly rate. :D

As an employer, it makes a lot of sense to accelerate someone out the door that has given notice. That said, you still want them on the hook to answer questions so you should send them home but pay them for those 2 weeks (or however long).

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#253

Post by wil421 »

igor47 wrote: post #208
wil421 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Have you considered that there are many other people with the same thing to say, who are saying it with the respectful tone you demand, and are being just as politely and quietly ignored?

Yes but I’m not a prominent AI Ethics Academic with ties to 2 of the best colleges in the country, Stanford and MIT. Who also had a very good job at one of the most sought after companies in the world, Google.

When she speaks people listen. Nobody listens to wil421.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#254

Post by compiler-guy »

uoaei wrote: post #171
idlewords wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is more like giving two weeks' notice and then being asked to leave the building immediately. It's not pleasant but it also isn't the same as being fired. Google called her bluff here.

But she didn't ask for two weeks' notice. She signaled she was considering giving notice but had not done so yet.

She said, "If you can't meet these conditions, I will resign effective ." Google said, "We can't meet these conditions, we accept your resignation and move it to ."

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#255

Post by tehjoker »

ardy42 wrote: post #177
nickff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private enterprise was usually castigated for not being racist enough. Economics was the 'dismal science' because it didn't support racism, segregation, and slavery.

> Private enterprise was usually castigated for not being racist enough. Economics was the 'dismal science' because it didn't support racism, segregation, and slavery. I had slavery in mind with the private enterprise comment. But it's not like businesses are actually run by perfectly rational automatons according to textbook economics. They're run by owners and managers who can be just as racist as the surrounding c…

Don't forget that creating arbitrary hierarchies among workers is good for business by creating divisions among the working class, which keeps them from banding together effectively against the ownership class.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#256

Post by thex10 »

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…

> Until they overstep, get fired, and cause drama by claiming everything that happened to them was due to discrimination, and not because they are toxic and disruptive.

IMO it’s the _companies_ that strike me as toxic drama queens with their shady tactics and obfuscations, hiring ethics and policy folks to look good without any intent on following through with support or respect.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#258

Post by jodrellblank »

greatjack613 wrote: post #48

Unrelated, 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

Do you think the predominance of men in tech is "hiring by skill alone" and that it just happens there are almost no skilled women?

Do you think it's possible that you can "hire by skill alone" and given two equally skilled people - one man, one woman - always hire the man, and that you could hire some equally skilled women if you randomised or removed whatever male-bias exists in your hiring?

Do you think it's possible that there are equally skilled men and women available to employers to hire, but that employers have built frat-boy workplaces where only men are interested in working, and cultures that drive away skilled women?

Do you think "hire by skill alone" means always hiring the most expensive people - like buying jewellery by value alone? What if a company can't afford to staff with all the maximally skilled people, but can get 80% of the skills for 50% of the money?

What about hiring people who can be trained or skilled up, and training them?

What about teams, where the collective skills can be greater than the sum of their parts, but maybe not if all the parts are identical?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#259

Post by NationalPark »

greatjack613 wrote: post #48

Unrelated, 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

Er, if this is unrelated, why are you commenting something that you must be aware is certain to stir up unproductive, culture-war-y discussion? Anyone who's been within 10 feet of hiring responsibilities knows you can't even think about race and gender when considering a candidate.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#260

Post by jpab »

tkfu wrote: post #149
greatjack613 wrote: post #48

Unrelated, 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…

> 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.

This is actually kind of funny to me, because in the open source world plenty of people have extremely productive working relationships without ever seeing or hearing each other, and in many cases without even knowing what country the other person lives in, how old they are, or what their legal name is.

So while there are definitely arguments that face to face communication is "higher bandwidth" or has other advantages, it doesn't seem out of the question to me that the hiring process could be "blinded" to a similar extent to orchestra auditions, without any significant reduction in hiring accuracy.

(Ok, maybe not quite the same extent; language fluency and style of speech are still significant signals even if everything is done over text)

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