Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

platformer.news

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 926 posts

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#511

Post by anonvenger »

bitbang wrote: post #426
chrisbroadfoot wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about that thread shows she's toxic?

She is defining herself and her existence using critical theory, and so her perception of experiences is filtered through that world view. That will always create a "toxic" environment, not to mention just make a person miserable to be around. Critical theory is useful for the purpose of study and quantification of different social bias, norms, tends, values, or whatever other social aspect you want to slice up. The…

Nitpick. Jesus Christ raised the bar to 'love your enemies'.

43 You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#512

Post by ipnon »

barrkel wrote: post #12

If I understand the document correctly, she wants HR to be biased against hiring "privileged" people (I think that means white, possibly male too, not sure) and wants to get politicians to force the company to report to create pressure for the same.

Which is literally illegal under US laws like the Civil Rights Act!

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#513

Post by ska »

titanomachy wrote: post #407
iandanforth wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, bu…

At least in theory, something like:

Fair academic criticism: We shouldn't publish this paper because it has flaws X,Y,Z. (usually followed by an opportunity for the researchers to address X,Y,Z).

Unfair and/or non-academic criticisms: We shouldn't publish this paper because: I don't like the author/authors institution. I don't like this approach, approach X is better. I don't like the conclusions.

The last is potentially relevant here. And yes, clearly the quality and value of research is reduced by filtering based on results you want to promote. Which well may be in a companies best interest, but there are sometimes difficult lines to draw - when exactly do you move from "promoting the companies interests" to "propaganda intended to mislead the public"?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#514

Post by sjs382 »

hpoe wrote: post #470
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…

I think one in important point is that she submitted the paper the day before the deadline when 2 weeks is usually required for review. It was approved then, but after the review process worked out she was asked to retract her paper.

I think I covered that in #1 & #2, unless there's something subtle I missed.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#515

Post by refulgentis »

joshuamorton wrote: post #501
refulgentis wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thrust of her thread today is that it is shocking how Google dumped her with no warning - it sounds like, instead, they continued employing her for months and months while her lawyer was threatening to sue the company, and the culminating event was making demands for the company to meet if she was to stay. Declining to accept an employee's set of ultimatums, an employee who already engaged in threatening legal ac…

> instead, they continued employing her for months and months while her lawyer was threatening to sue the company This doesn't at all sound like the case. It sounds like the company did something aggressive, she got representation who threatened to sue, and the company backed off, and all of this happened over a year ago and is essentially a closed chapter.

Sorry, dumb question, which part are you disputing? I must be being too literal.

What you called out as "doesn't at all sound like the case": [1: they continued employing her for months and months] [2: while her lawyer was threatening to sue the company]

First paragraph of the email OP posted, which I am defending as worth sharing: "This happened to me last year. [[1]: there has been 11+ months, or months and months, since this occurred and she continued employment] I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which Kat Herller and I hired feminist lawyers who threatened to sue Google [[2]: her lawyer was threatening to sure the company]"

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#516

Post by ska »

Laakeri wrote: post #393
iandanforth wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To me, the Jeff Dean's email sounds like this paper failed to cite some research and as a result made Google look less good than Google actually is. This sounds like somewhat minor academic mistake, but at the same time a major PR mistake.

That sounds like something easily rectified, so why push for retracting the submission?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#517

Post by tinyhouse »

cdata wrote: post #487
tinyhouse wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Sorry, I don't understand how she risked her own happiness for the sake of others. She picked a wrong battle. Google didn't do anything wrong here. An internal review process is something that happens everywhere. It's not always consistent, but it's still important and valuable.

The sad part is that social media, like always, focus on her race rather than the details. Here's an example tweet from Jeremy Howard, a known researcher (114K followers) from fast.ai:

"Whatever else you think of Google, you gotta admit their crisis PR response is staggeringly incompetent.

The day they were found to have illegally spied on and terminated activists - they picked that day to fire their top AI ethics expert (a black woman)."

He completely ignores the most important thing - why she got fired. He calls Google PR incompetent because they fired a famous black woman researcher after what happened. You see, people expect that Google would check their employees' skin color and gender before they decide to fire them. The content is not important.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#518

Post by beervirus »

christmm wrote: post #107

It is surprising she was not fired long ago. I suppose Timnit was usually rewarded for such an attitude, chock full of victim based language. "after all the micro and macro aggressions and harassments I received" "does it just happen to people like me who are constantly dehumanized?" "Silencing marginalized voices like this is the opposite of the NAUWU principles which we discussed" "the next day I get some random “i…

For all its faults, Google bends over backwards (and sometimes forwards) to advance minorities' interests. It's just not plausible that they're doing the opposite in this one case.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#519

Post by stevecalifornia »

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…

"You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." ~ The Social Network

A good number of social activists are rude and abrasive and then blame how people react as racism/sexism. No one wants to be around or work with anyone who is a jerk. The quote above sorta reminds me of how this person is going about their life.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#520

Post by devdas »

wil421 wrote: post #128
sudosysgen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, reading the thread, it's pretty clear that she was correct. There is a second step of metaoptimization which incentives the researchers to encode algorithms to produce algorithms that more easily bias along a certain way. And she is correct that benchmarking models against biased datasets can lead researchers to bias for architectures that are in turn more likely to have a certain bias. I'm sure LeCun knows thi…

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.

Tone policing is a common way to silence people though.
Post reply on HN