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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#401

Post by rubatuga »

je42 wrote: post #383
rubatuga wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Yann said about data bias is a fact. He wasn’t dismissing your concerns nor distracting from it. A lot of people tried to extrapolate what Yann meant, but from the way I see it, if more people learn about the cause of this racial bias, the more people will be inclined to use fairer and diverse datasets in their future ML research.

The point is that she has an expectation of Yann to go further than just stating a fact. I assume she thinks that Yann has enough intellectual capacity to improve situation of biased ML but doesnt execute. Further, my guess is that the reason why he doesnt execute is not transparent to her, hence frustrating.

Although that is a bit overreaching of an expectation in my opinion, I agree it would be good if Yann was a bit more explicit.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#402

Post by fhrow4484 »

jerome-jh wrote: post #379
black_puppydog wrote: post #2

I think this is actually the better link to be discussing, rather than the twitter threads shared before. The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this: > A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it ha…

> behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager. Maybe my remark is down to earth but, she literally told her group to stop working. I do not know of any company where this is an acceptable behavior for a manager. Besides the disagreements, it sounds to me that was the action that caused Google to pull the trigger. Also from Dean's email it is pretty clear there are a number of new products…

> she literally told her group to stop working.

Where did you read that?

in the email shown,she told a listserv called "Women and Allies" to stop writing docs that are an attempt to better the situation in terms of diversity, equity, inclusion as writing those docs are like pissing in the wind in her opinion

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#403

Post by pb7 »

davorak wrote: post #245
IvyMike wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this tweet: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334343577044979712 > I said here are the conditions. If you can meet them great I’ll take my name off this paper, if not then I can work on a last date. To employers, that qualifies as a conditional resignation.

I read that, not clear without reading the email whether it was a formal offer to resign. If an employee tells their boss they have a plan to offer a resignation on x day or do not get y or are considering it they can fire the employee before then, but I assume they can not push around the day they offer a resignation. An employer not wanting to keep an employee who might soon resign is understandable of course. I am…

This isn’t having a beer with your buddies and spitballing plans. If you email your employer saying give me this or I resign, the employer can accept your resignation simply by saying no to your conditions. It’s grade school logic. They called her bluff and that’s why she’s salty about it. She signaled her intention to resign and due to her behavior with her reports, Google doesn’t want more of that on her way out so she got cut loose immediately.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#404

Post by black_puppydog »

dash2 wrote: post #374
black_puppydog wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, that also took a bit of disentangling for me. As such, I find it really quite baffling that someone would be unwilling to share that scientific feedback with her, or who raised it.

Some refereeing processes are anonymous, and there can be good reasons for that, like preventing academic logrolling. It's standard in academia.

I'm well aware of that. But this was not a (submission) peer review situation. From everything I've seen (not a complete picture of course) this was a process entirely separate from the peer review process of the conference she was submitting to. That still makes it a situation where her paper was apparently reviewed (and possibly by peers) but it certainly doesn't have the same semantics in which anonymity is warranted/guaranteed.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#405

Post by cdata »

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'm partially sympathetic to this point of view. I agree that Timnit will ultimately be fine, despite what she is going through right now. I also agree that Google should ultimately do whatever it wants in accordance with its determined corporate policies.

However, you really should read https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/2004-ipo-letter/

Anyone who recalls this letter should be able to muster sympathy for those who have joined Google with an activist mindset. Google is supposed to be different. Google is supposed to be for people who want to make the world better. Sure, maybe it's all just so much branding, but this is how Google (and by extension many Googlers) styles itself. This news is more evidence that Google is really bad at living up to that image - as idealistic/lofty/unrealistic as it may be - where it counts.

And any way, Timnit isn't toxic. She is upset with the status quo of equity among genders and ethnic groups in her field, and she is fighting to improve it. This is naturally unwelcome - and perhaps comes off as combative - to anyone who is satisfied with the status quo, but I would not call it toxic.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#406

Post by adamsea »

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…

> The worst part is that there was a path for you to be professional and achieve your goals, but then I guess you don't get to bask in Twitter's righteous indignation that way.

IMHO we don’t really know if that part (achieving your goals) is true, or not true.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#407

Post by titanomachy »

iandanforth wrote: post #324
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 b…

I'm not very familiar with the norms of corporate research. Is it normal for corporations to give their researchers tenure-like freedom to publish anything they want? I assume that top researchers (who have their pick of institutions) will choose organizations where they can be relatively free. But what do you mean by "fair academic criticism"?

If a company publishes only papers that clearly advance its interests, but the research is sound and independently reproducible, does that bias really lessen the perceived value and quality of the research?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#408

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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…

What I don't understand is why nobody discusses this from the point of view of academic freedom and research integrity. My boss says "retract your paper" and I retract my paper? In what dystopian sci-fi novel? That's just mad.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#409

Post by pb7 »

no-dr-onboard wrote: post #121
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.

"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.

It is true, just not as often as we would like it to be. No “justice system” (informal here) punishes perfectly.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#410

Post by wan23 »

inglor_cz wrote: post #327
qppo wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

In America, class isn't just about how much money you have. It's also about what accent you speak with, where you went to school, and very obviously what you look like. Many people who aren't necessarily familiar with how this works have an idea that money is all that matters, and that e.g. a black woman has the same opportunity as anyone else to attend the right schools and speak with the right accent and then get a high paying job at Google, and thereby enter the highest level of the professional class. But of course, you can see in this very thread many examples of how someone who has done all of these things can be considered to not have earned the right to speak out or have academic disputes with prominent people.
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