Lol, more like fired after threatening to resign if certain demands were not met.
AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
671–680 of 926 posts
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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This is the thread (it was a retweet with comment, naturally). https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1275162528511860737 Whatever your position, Yann engages on substance, and Timnit is obnoxious: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1275191341455048704?s... https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1275191515380215808?s... Basically the worst of online discourse, but in this case one-sided. Yann is discussing in good fai…
> Whatever your position, Yann engages on substance, and Timnit is obnoxious: For what it's worth, I and many others disagree with this characterization. I find Yann comes across as incredibly condescending and holier than thou in their interactions. Nor does Yann engage on substance. He refuses to take the time engage with, or even acknowledge that he has read, the relevant academic literature (which Timnit repeated…
People can read the thread for themselves and decide.
I see a quote tweet from Timnit with "I'm sick of this framing...listen to us", then misquoting what he said. Ignoring his replies and then following up with "I'm disengaging for my sanity...not worth my time...Maybe your colleagues will try to educate you..." etc.
She attacks him (so he replies) and then she ignores him and talks down to him.
I don't have a dog in this fight, I'm just an outside person reading this - I suspect most people reading that thread would think Timnit's tweets are obnoxious. Imagine if the people were switched.
I wouldn't want to work with someone who argues that way when they disagree.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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I vouched for your comment. It had been auto-marked [dead] due to containing some blocked keyword -- perhaps the very word that you talked about trying to avoid. I have noticed that a few words cause posts to initially show [dead] even when they are from high karma members such as yourself.
Thank you. I didn't know it showed up dead. It didn't look dead to me.
You can see if one of your own comments is dead by checking it in a private/incognito browser session. The status isn't visible to the comment poster while they are logged in.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about that thread shows she's toxic?
For me, toxicity often boils down to these questions: Are you acting in good faith or not? Are you acting to resolve a disagreement and advance knowledge, or is the primary function of your speech to inflame and provoke? Do you accept that it is possible for smart people to disagree with you, or do you believe any disagreement is completely unacceptable? When I view Gebru's Twitter argument with Lecun throug the abov…
Don't do AOC dirty like that. It's not at all the same. You'd employ spicy rhetoric too if you were up against Mitch McConnell and the likes
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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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?
Well, she didn't get ignored. Instead, she got fired. If that was her goal, then she succeeded. If it wasn't, maybe she should have taken a different approach.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a little ungenerous. Social activists may go over the line and be rude or abrasive, but unfortunately it's impossible to be a polite social activist. Activism fundamentally requires telling people that their actions should be modified, that their beliefs may be flawed, that their systems have problems. It's really hard to do that and be a likeable person. Of course social activists may at times cross the line…
May I direct you to watch Daryl Davis's ted talk or really anything he speaks about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw For context he is a black man that has gotten over a hundred leaders of the KKK, including former convicts to leave the Klan. Not by arguing with them, not be reasoning, not by showing them the effects of their behaviour, but instead by sitting down, talking with them and becoming their fri…
"I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anyone can do that. Take the time to talk with your adversaries, you will both learn something."
Thanks for the link, that was an incredible talk, and that guy is cool as hell.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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"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…
I read her email and all I could read was her privilege and her entitlement. I think she knows there is racism and sexism in play but thinks everything is about that. The feedback going to HR was probably because they didn’t feel comfortable telling her it direct for fear of reprisals from her.
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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
> 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?
Many are, yes. I had to hire one because my director’s bonus was implicitly tied to a diversity quota OKR, and the VP’s bonus was explicitly tied to one, which he blogged about as a shameful virtue signaling PR exercise. They didn’t even interview her. Then we way over-leveled her to boot, because there was another stupid OKR to grow diversity among senior levels. And this was at a big tech company that you’ve definitely heard of.
This is happening at many companies who claim that they aren’t lowering the bar.
Truth be told I had already lowered the bar and wanted to pass her but still couldn’t justify it. I didn’t want to deal with the diversity police and had my fingers crossed that she would be the one.
Some perfectly capable white guy didn’t get an opportunity as a result.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you. I didn't know it showed up dead. It didn't look dead to me.
You can see if one of your own comments is dead by checking it in a private/incognito browser session. The status isn't visible to the comment poster while they are logged in.
Or if you log out, if I recall. It just generally doesn't occur to me to wonder if my comments are dead. I'm enough of a social outcast here that if it gets ignored, I figure people were just ignoring it.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a person was fired due to being a racial/gender justice advocate Nope, they were fired for being a douche.
And this is what HN has devolved to, calling a leading Ethical AI researcher a douche!
While there is some overlap, generally speaking Identity Politics != Ethics. She's an Identity Politics researcher, narrowly focused on race and gender topics. Not some philosopher or religious figure interested in the flourishing of humanity at large. Here is an abstract from a larger work, presumably her PhD thesis: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.06165.pdf. Critical gender and race theory through and through.