AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#481

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:53 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #449

This person forced Yann LeCun (one of the top 3 AI/ML researchers today, head of Facebook AI, and an ML researcher since the 80s) to give up on Twitter after she took exception to this tweet of his: https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1274782757907030016 She lives her life attacking people who she disagrees with, and brings in race/gender into any conflict where she's involved. I am surprised Google had hired her, beca…

He's still posting on Twitter. Did so today, and yesterday.

Her response to that tweet is a bit harsh, but not completely unreasonable. I'm not a Twitter expert, so I can't really stitch together their conversation on Twitter to see where/when it goes off the rails.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#482

Post by Upvoter33 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:54 PM UTC

sorenjan wrote: post #460

AI ethics researcher sounds like a fluff position anyway, she got hired to give Google a shine of inclusiveness to the non technical people that think AI is going to take over the world and doesn't understand that the current state of it is nothing more than pattern recognition and statistics. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but it still bothers me that people like this get highly paid positions to point out probl…

"but it still bothers me that people like this get highly paid positions to point out problems seemingly without any technical knowledge"

You are making a lot of (wrong) assumptions here. Not too many Stanford PhDs are graduating without technical knowledge

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#483

Post by tasuki » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #339

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 Alex Hanna person accusing Dean is certainly not to be taken seriously. I’ll go with Dean over someone with a twitter feed that looks like that. Managing these people must be a nightmare.

What is wrong with Alex Hanna's Twitter feed?

To me, it looks like Alex Hanna is very woke, and would probably hold Timnit Gebru's back no matter what - but that's just my guess, and even if so: that doesn't necessarily imply they're wrong.

I guess managing people is a nightmare, so managing these people is just a subset of that?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#484

Post by NateEag » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

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?

It's that companies are made up of a bunch of humans, not omniscient rational agents.

The company doesn't "want" anything. It's a big social machine that is not so much designed as evolved, and only the very core of the company experiences selection pressure.

At the center of every company is a system that prints money. This bit is almost all that really matters, and is the part that experiences selection pressure.

Threaten it, screw with it, or break it and you will be out of a job, because you either killed the company or got thrown out by people who were afraid you would (or, sometimes, who are just greedy and were worried you'd hurt the amount of money they make through the company).

Everything outside of that central system is secondary, and doesn't really impact the company's survival a hoot.

People at the company may love their secondary systems, really believe they matter, and pour sincere effort and careers into them, but when secondary systems come into conflict with primary systems, they Lose. Every. Time.

In the very long term, nothing else can happen, at least in for-profit companies. Competition will destroy kinder companies by being ruthless to secondary systems that the kinder ones keep. This is what Scott Alexander of Slate Star Codex calls the "Malthusian race to the bottom". Amazon and Wal-Mart are locked in a violent struggle of this nature right now.

I think most people are not entirely aware of these dynamics, as my premise that companies are mostly evolved not designed suggests.

So, in all likelihood, there are very sincere people who really want to see the company change for the better recruiting activists and noble researchers.

Everyone likes to feel that they're being goodness, so they all applaud the secondary "goodness optimization" systems.

After enough time, though, those activists come into conflict with a primary system, and discover to their shock that they don't have the leverage to change it at all. This is particularly astonishing to them because they've fought to change a lot of secondary systems and had many successes there.

They (rightly, from their frame of reference) refuse to budge, get fired or leave, wash their hands of the place, then start at the next place in one of its secondary systems.

Rinse and repeat.

It's hard being human.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#485

Post by istjohn » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:55 PM UTC

thebladerunner wrote: post #438

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…

To clarify, the first paragraph of defertoreotar@'s comment is a quote from Timnit Gebru's tweet where she admits to recently conspiring a legal battle against Google, while on Google's payroll. A wolf in sheep's clothing...

I'm not sure why you seem to think that her willingness to assert her rights under the law should discredit her in any way.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#486

Post by jsmith45 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

sjs382 wrote: post #397

It's hard to make too much sense about what happened. Here's what I made of it, if anyone can point out any important mistakes/inaccuracies/details: 1. She and her co-authors submitted a paper for review 1 day before its (external, for publication?) due date. It's supposed to be submitted to Google 2 weeks prior, so they can review. 2. The authors submitted it externally before the review was returned. 3. Google deci…

It sounds to me like Google has a policy that papers must be internally reviewed before they can be "published". She understood publish in the academic sense, while Google views sending the paper out for conference review as publishing. The paper ends up failing internal review, so per policy it must be promptly retracted. This is confusing to the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that the paper can be fixed. After all in her mind it is not published yet, and updates can be submitted to the conference to fix the issues.

The underlying reason for the paper failing internal review looks to be that it basically condemns Google's whole approach to AI (big models) while failing to take into account some relevant research that may favor google's approach. (I have no way of guessing if it would have passed review if it did take into account those, but still condemned the approach).

The massive amount of miscommunication makes her feel like she was being oppressed, due to race and or gender. Hence her aggressive tone in her emails and ultimatum.

Looks like a fairly classic case of a major blowup due to poor communication.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#487

Post by cdata » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:57 PM UTC

tinyhouse wrote: post #446

cdata wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tho…

I disagree. In one thread she responds with tweets such as: "“I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. ", "Again. UNBELIEVABLE. , "tell your fanboys to stop trolling me". Basically she was telling Lecun he's an idiot of not agreeing with her. And pretty much everyone else who is not agreeing with her. Did you see Jeff Dean's email they just added to the article? Not surprisingly, she is doing the same thing. The review…

The best and the brightest are elevated to positions of leadership because we trust them to lead the way. I am grateful that she knows her worth, and risked her own happiness for the sake of others. She is paying a short-term price for it because Google is struggling with fundamental corporate identity issues (such as whether or not it can live up to its self-image). In the long run, she will be vindicated.

Where I come from, behavior like this is interpreted as - at worst - iconoclastic when exhibit by white, male leaders. I have found that it is rewarded more often than not when it happens in places I have worked at in the past.

Also, just read some of her Twitter mentions - the fanboy harassment is real.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#488

Post by WitCanStain » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

baryphonic wrote: post #133

roflc0ptic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so unhelpful and dumb. The US has historically been one of the most racist and discriminatory organizations in North America. Does that mean we shouldn’t engage the US? Does that mean the US can’t be less racist? Does that mean the US isn’t a tool we can try to use to make the world a better place? Unions provide countervailing power to corporate power. Racist people are racist. Sometimes these can overlap.

> This is so unhelpful and dumb. The US has historically been one of the most racist and discriminatory organizations in North America. Does that mean we shouldn’t engage the US? Does that mean the US can’t be less racist? Does that mean the US isn’t a tool we can try to use to make the world a better place? I'm not sure this makes much sense. "Racism" (I'm guessing you mean things like slavery or de jure discriminat…

Do you have sources where I can read about this?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#489

Post by dekhn » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

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…

I really think you missed an opportunity to come back as a paid consultant.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#490

Post by Tycho » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 11:01 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #395

Tycho wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original post was updated with more information. Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an…

She called it being fired because Google terminated her employment earlier than she offered to resign.

It’s a strange reaction though. “I’m resigning.” “OK, that’s your prerogative, bye.” “Wait! I didn’t mean NOW! How can you fire me like this?!” Then make a big deal about being fired on social media. Seems to me that someone who genuinely was ready to resign would have just quietly walked away, even if they imagined it ending less abruptly. Can’t know for sure, obviously.