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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#341

Post by dekhn »

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?

I think the simplest thing to be said about messaging and tone is this: If your goal is to say things to convince people to change their behavior, it makes sense to spend some time thinking about how your message and its tone will be perceived, since that has a big impact on how people receive and process the message.

Based on a long career of watching people trying to convince the others, attacking people is typically a failing strategy. Instead, learn how to message in a way that is non confrontational, and most importantly, make it clear what is your opinion, versus fact.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#342

Post by calf »

inglor_cz wrote: post #332
tkfu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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" Be careful here, the wind has changed and blind auditions are now problematic. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/16/arts/music/blind-audition...

That's a good point; the original experiment is a good story that for many was proof that prejudice exists, but it doesn't mean blind screening is a panacea.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#343

Post by inglor_cz »

voisin wrote: post #231
twic wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you really call them toxic and disruptive when they're doing exactly the thing they were told they were hired for? Companies hire activists because they want to look good without actually changing things. Activists go to work for companies because they want to change things. So, naturally, the company has to lie to the activist about their function to do this, and the activist has to be naive about it. If the act…

> Companies hire activists because they want to look good without actually changing things. I agree with this statement but for the life of me I can’t come up with a satisfactory answer as to why companies don’t want to actually change things. Is it purely institutional inertia? Are the benefits of a more diverse workplace not accepted by the powers that be, so efforts to achieve that are undermined?

From behind the former Iron Curtain, I can smell the "we need to pay lip service to a powerful dogma, but we think implementing it would be a disaster" approach. This was a normal state of things in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic.

If Timnit Gebru were a cynical opportunist, she would just hop on the bandwagon, pretend to care and collect her paycheck. But she seems to be a true believer, and true believers won't accept ineffectual groveling. They want to see the real thing. Ergo, collision.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#344

Post by dash2 »

mola wrote: post #282
curiousllama wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the complaint is about academic research in a research institute, then there needs to be a different process. It's typically a fairly conservative idea, in fact (see: Chicago Principles [1]). [1] https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/r...

This is not a research institute, it's a division in a for profit global corporation. I'm frankly disgusted that people who call themselves researchers of the humanities go work in this sort of obvious PR stunt of an "institute".

If you're hired by a private company to do academic work, it may often be reasonable to expect academic norms to apply. I'm not sure why you're disgusted by the idea that people might take jobs at Google, who do quite serious work around AI.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#345

Post by malcolmgreaves »

defertoreptar wrote: post #305

> This happened to me last year. I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which Kat Herller and I hired feminist lawyers who threatened to sue Google (which is when they backed off--before that Google lawyers were prepared to throw us under the bus and our leaders were following as instructed) and the next day I get some random “impact award.” Pure gaslighting. And she was under the impression that her company…

Don't ask questions, just fall in line like a good cog in the machine. You shouldn't question the overlords!

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#346

Post by iron0013 »

Timnit Gebru is very clear that she didn’t resign. The actual headline at the link doesn’t say that she resigned. The moderator editorialization of headlines (and occasionally outright substitution of completely different urls than the ones that were submitted) on HN has gone way beyond disappointing, it’s outrageous. Shame on you dang.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#348

Post by strstr »

xibalba wrote: post #330
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

It’s in the article?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#349

Post by benhurmarcel »

gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #304
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…

> Welcome to the real world, companies have policies and once you join them you lose your freedom to do whatever the heck you want. Yea there is something uniquely activist academic about all these complaints you see surfacing nowadays. As though millenials are landing in industry now and they're surprised their employers are companies selling products and not activist organizations. And you're right it's even funnie…

"Millenials" have been entering the industry for more than 15 years now. Don't put an entire generation in the same basket as a few visible people.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#350

Post by inglor_cz »

ucha wrote: post #262
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…

Timnit Gebru has a BSc, MSc and PhD in electrical engineering all from Stanford. She did actual electrical engineering work at Apple previously. Maybe it's hard to believe but she's not just another SJW. The idea that companies only need to do maximize shareholder value isn't that old and was only popularized in the 80s. If you restrict creating value to that, then maybe she didn't create any at Google. But maybe Goo…

"she's not just another SJW."

How is this either/or? Highly educated people can still join fringe political clubs.

There is nothing about technical education that immunizes you against radical politics. At the risk of Godwinizing the reply: the engineers who built the first liquid fuelled rockets in Peenemunde were N..z..s, including the guy who was later brought into the US and built all kind of powerful and ingenious rockets there (Wernher von Braun).

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