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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#561

Post by fantod »

GVIrish wrote: post #463
hpoe wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I don't know enough to make a well informed opinion; however it seems part of the aggreivement on her part is that she was not given the names of those who peer reviewed her paper. If internally she has a history of bringing race or sex into every discussion I could see why they'd rather be anonymous. Even being accused of being racist can ruin someone's career in this current climate.

They wouldn't even share with her the feedback on her paper to give her the opportunity to fix it. They didn't have to say who the feedback was from, but they could've at least told her the substance of the feedback.

From Dean's email:

"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."

Is it true that this information was not shared with her?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#562

Post by PeterisP »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #408
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.

There's no academic freedom expected - that's private R&D work, the research and the paper is done on behalf of the company and wholly owned by it, not the employees who did it, and so your boss naturally has full control on when, how, where and if that research should be published.

It's just as if you'd want to open source some code that you wrote for your job, and suddenly the boss says "hey, don't do that" - there are many reasons why they might want to not publish it, and it's not your code to publish as you want.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#564

Post by rbanffy »

suifbwish wrote: post #553
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…

It is a big problem that in our current political climate people with those types of built in personal issues float to the top. Gender and race should only be brought up if there is evidence that someone is being discriminated against or harassed based on those traits. I see all kinds of articles immediately pulling race and gender into the equation and it’s dangerous and dishonest because it robs credibility from si…

It's incredibly hard to prove discrimination or harassment was based on ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, or political views, even when it is.

You say "people with those types of built in personal issues float to the top" aren't you implying their positions are not earned based on merit and, therefore, that they are less competent than their peers?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#565

Post by suifbwish »

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…

If given the right opportunity and enough time, every once victimized group will become the oppressor. Note this is true for groups not individuals.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#566

Post by ianbicking »

deanCommie wrote: post #455
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…

> forced ... to give up on Twitter after she took exception to this tweet Can you provide a source for this. What did she say? There are legitimate criticisms of Yann's tweet. Just because he is technically correct about how ML works doesn't mean that what he is saying isn't ALSO a classical dismissal of the concerns people have with AI. The issue isn't that ML is evil or racist. The issue is that if it is used too o…

I agree, reading the article (https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...) and the thread I also don't see how one puts this on Timnit.

Coming back to the original tweet: if you changed the training data have more black people instead of white, would it perform the same but with inverted racial biases? Maybe? You really can't know without doing it. It might generate faces with a dark complexion but also big distortions or unrealistic colors. The original model doesn't just produce white people because of the training data, the hyperparameter tuning, perhaps the entire architecture, would have been modified until it produced acceptable outputs... using white training data. Ultimately the engineers and other humans behind the scenes are the arbiters of success, loss functions are chosen by humans, and swapping training data on the same model won't change those early decisions.

In another context I'm sure LeCun could have offered his somewhat reductionist take on this example of bias (something I might have done myself – reductionism flows in technologists' veins!) A discussion could have ensued, and everyone could have come out with a better understanding. A hot Twitter thread isn't where that will happen. Neither LeCun nor Timnit have the power to change what Twitter is. LeCun (reasonably!) doesn't like the nature of the discussion, and he leaves, and I think that's OK.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#567

Post by sandpigeondrone »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #550
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…

I do not know the details of this case and I can't speak to the subject's character. However I can't help but note that people who study the effects of race and gender tend to bring race/gender into anything and everything, because well, that's their job. If your response is that race and gender should be brought into only the areas where race and gender are relevant, I'd respond that the prevailing opinion among gen…

"Google fired a black researcher". Does the word "black" belong there or is it used just as an attempt to tarnish Google?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#568

Post by cool_dude85 »

robertlagrant wrote: post #316
cool_dude85 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's misleading about the title? You have your own way of characterizing the email, and so does the publication. Them not agreeing with you isn't the same as misleading you.

Disagreement about characterisation matters if one characterisation is just not true.

Sure, only that doesn't seem like the case here. Are you really gonna argue that the email is in a factual, true-or-false sense, not "withering"?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#569

Post by davorak »

sjs382 wrote: post #514
hpoe wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the subtle part might be "It was approved then", I read that somewhere too and it was not clear whether it was approved by google despite it not following the normal 2 week process or if it was talking about some other form of approval.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#570

Post by hpoe »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #550
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…

I do not know the details of this case and I can't speak to the subject's character. However I can't help but note that people who study the effects of race and gender tend to bring race/gender into anything and everything, because well, that's their job. If your response is that race and gender should be brought into only the areas where race and gender are relevant, I'd respond that the prevailing opinion among gen…

I've thought about that filter through which we view the world a lot recently, and I think you may have identified part of where the conflict comes from. People viewing the world through fundamentally different filters.

The problem is that if you focus on race, gender and/or sexual orientation as an important factor underlying interactions, if you're not careful you can soon come to see race and gender as the primary driving force that dictates the outcomes of all interactions, and soon all issues get reduced down to a matter or racial, sexual, or class struggle.

The problem is the real world doesn't work that way, it is a complicated interacting network of events that are often only 2nd or 3rd order events from other completely different decisions made long ago.

To try and reduce all interactions and societal problems to a matter of a 1 or 2 factors is like trying to make money on the stock market solely by looking at the Fed's monetary policy. Sure the Fed's monetary policy is an important overall factor, and in some cases the most important factor in certain changes in the stock market, but that doesn't mean that there aren't a thousand other moving parts to focus on.

The problem is when we interpret every event through a single filter, or give one filter primacy in all interpretations of events that filter now colors everything we see.

So for example if my primary filter for understanding the world is race relations and/or critical race theory, any time someone disagrees with me I really do feel as though it is a racially motivated attack. Why? Because I have chosen to interpret everything in my world through the filter of race, and every event that occurs will in my mind be race related.

Note this applies just as well to any filter, christian extremists will interpret all events that happen as a sign of the times and the devil coming to power. If my filter is the class struggle than I will see every issue be between the haves and the have-nots.

My point is not to discredit people that want to bring gender and race in to everything I think there are many discussions where examining the role these factors played is important. My point is to caution and warn against getting into a single filter mindset, that is the cause of much of the divisiveness we see, we have people that really are living in totally different worlds because the way they choose to view the world is totally different and they refuse to ever consider there might be other filters to view the world through.

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