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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#321

Post by calf »

webkike wrote: post #80
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…

I don’t think that for a person who lives in a world where AI shops routinely sell software that discriminate against minorities, not just in ways that are explained by poorly thought out datasets, saying you’re “so tired” is at all wrong. This is the exact research that Timnit is an expert on, and these are systems that have real world consequences for minorities. It’s easy for people who are not minorities to say y…

I bet there is research showing how racism and discrimination literally tires out the people subjected to it. And now you have people saying they're not allowed to express that.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#322

Post by Yoofie »

webkike wrote: post #119
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?

The response email by management claims that it was submitted with one day before deadline.

Context:

> Timnit co-authored a paper with four fellow Googlers as well as some external collaborators that needed to go through our review process (as is the case with all externally submitted papers). We’ve approved dozens of papers that Timnit and/or the other Googlers have authored and then published, but as you know, papers often require changes during the internal review process (or are even deemed unsuitable for submission).

And the key point:

> Unfortunately, this particular paper was only shared with a day’s notice before its deadline — we require two weeks for this sort of review — and then instead of awaiting reviewer feedback, it was approved for submission and submitted.

Not sure who approved for submission. Gebru herself or by someone in management? Then they address the weaknesses of the paper (as part of the review process).

> A cross functional team then reviewed the paper as part of our regular process and the authors were informed that it didn’t meet our bar for publication and were given feedback about why. It ignored too much relevant research — for example, it talked about the environmental impact of large models, but disregarded subsequent research showing much greater efficiencies. Similarly, it raised concerns about bias in language models, but didn’t take into account recent research to mitigate these issues. We acknowledge that the authors were extremely disappointed with the decision that Megan and I ultimately made, especially as they’d already submitted the paper.

Granted, its hard to track the timelines and who said what at what time, but there seems to be reasons why the paper would of failed their internal review process.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#323

Post by robertlagrant »

wil421 wrote: post #253
igor47 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's true. No one, for example, thinks you're their ancestral king, do they?

Your majesty.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#324

Post by iandanforth »

contemporary343 wrote: post #292

It looks like the paper was critical of large language models: https://www.fastcompany.com/90582375/timnit-gebru-google-fir... The original article has been updated with Jeff Dean's response, while a member of Gebru's team (who still works at Google Brain) states that Dean's email is misleading and inaccurate: https://twitter.com/alexhanna/status/1334579764573691904 As I understand it: The paper had already been subm…

This. Failure to cite relevant research is a reason to reject a paper from a conference but that's not the job of an internal review. Research independence is fundamental and why professors are given tenure. Sure companies are companies and don't play by those rules, but you can't claim to be making a fair academic criticism if you're not adhering to academic norms.

If the paper was bad it should have been rejected by the conference to which it was submitted. If the paper was critical of things Google does and it didn't like that, that's pure suppression. And, as you say, academic norms provide a period of rebuttal, it's unclear how much was allowed here.

Secondly there is value of having anonymous review in an academic setting, however it sounds like they tried to enforce that anonymous review for the company, which again doesn't serve the same purpose. People should be told exactly why decisions are being made so they can correct their mistakes in the future. If you aren't willing to invite someone into a decision making process, when a large portion of their research is in biases in institutional decision making, then you have got to know you're in for a bad time.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#325

Post by AlexandrB »

pgayed wrote: post #169
whymauri wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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: pe…

A business doesn’t get to exist because of its employees. It gets to exist because of its customers.

Or increasingly: because of its investors.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#326

Post by parliament32 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #302
parliament32 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the response, it was more like "I want you to do X otherwise I'll resign", and google said "ok, cya". Curious the author isn't willing to publish the actual email, just the management's response.

"I would post my email here but my corp account has been cutoff."[1] [1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334353073012158464

See that's interesting, considering she managed to post the manager's response verbatim..

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#327

Post by inglor_cz »

qppo wrote: post #296
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

Diversity initiatives are like a graduated social tax. As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color. Just like I can pay more in income taxes than people in different financial situations. It doesn't bother me if an applicant pool is made a bit bigger for marginalized people than myself, because I do not struggle to fall into any applicant pool whatsoever and have not for mo…

"As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color."

How is this true? What if someone is a broke straight white man with three kids and someone else LGBTQ person of color is a young childless heir of fortune? How is the first person possibly privileged in comparison with the second one?

Looking from Europe, America seems to be very determined to recast its very obvious class problem as a race (or even gender) problem, even if it means introducing disadvantages based on immutable characteristics AGAIN. Two wrongs do not make a right and this farce will bite you again in the future, just like slavery and old style racism did.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#328

Post by robertlagrant »

curiousllama wrote: post #68
colordrops wrote: post #29

I'm very confused by all of this. I've read the tweets and this article and can't make heads or tails of what is going on. What am I missing?

Gebru wrote a research paper and circulated it for feedback. Google managers said "retract the paper because we say so." Gebru responded with "I'd rather resign (and also you suck)." Google "accepted" the resignation (i.e. fired her).

That's not it.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#329

Post by kybernetikos »

faangeng wrote: post #297

I find it funny how all these commenters have come out of the woodwork to question a highly accomplished and respected AI researcher's track record for their "tone" and the "value" of their research. Unsurprisingly, there's a fixation on railing against SJWs, activism, and political correctness. None of these comments offer any substance on the main issue in focus: the fact that Google may be actively suppressing the…

I'm a bit unclear about how corporation research is conducted then. I would have naively assumed that when you undertake research as an employee, that research belongs to your employer and they have a right to decide if they want it made public with their name attached to it, or keep it secret for their own benefit.

Of course there are all kinds of ethical questions that can arise in that situation, but is that not the normal case in corporate research?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#330

Post by xibalba »

tinyhouse wrote: post #95

Good for Google. I don't know anything about her, but her debate with Lecun on Twitter was enough for me to know she is toxic. I don't care how good of a researcher she is. The fact they fired her given the current climate shows they actually have balls. I had no idea... I read her email. You know what's crazy about it? she is talking about Google silencing marginalized voices. She keeps referring to herself as a mar…

> I read her email.

Is this now posted somewhere publicly?

I feel like most of this conversation is pretty speculative until the commentariat (self included) can read it!

EDIT: duh

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