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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#681

Post by lawnchair_larry »

wonnage wrote: post #603
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 don't think you understand the word "forced"... did Twitter delete his account? Congratulations on blaming the victim. This is what POC in tech deal with every day.

> POC in tech deal with every day.

Why even repeat such an absurd lie? Surely you don’t actually believe it yourself.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#682

Post by [deleted] »

GVIrish wrote: post #548
hpoe wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To quote from Dean's email "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." I can imagine wanting to know the feedback, but she didn't ask for that she asked for the identity of everyone pe…

A few things don't add up then. Timnit claims that she was told at a meeting called on short notice that her paper was being retracted because of anonymous feedback. She said she asked about the substance of the feedback and they refused to tell her. After that meeting, she is told she can be read a private document with some, but not all of the anonymous feedback. That led to Gebru sending a frustrated email to her…

[deleted]

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#683

Post by croissants »

defen wrote: post #445
malcolmgreaves wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their paper was accepted by the conference's peer review system. Google, not researchers in the community, wanted it retracted. The only logical explanation is that it was good science that did not put Google is a positive light.

> Their paper was accepted by the conference's peer review system. Source? The linked article says it was submitted but nothing about whether it was accepted. If it was accepted, is it available for public viewing?

I don't think the paper has been accepted, because the conference itself has not made decisions on the papers. This article [1] says that the paper was submitted to "ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency", which sends paper decisions (accept or reject) next week [2]. Of course, it might be accepted at that time, but that doesn't seem to be decided yet.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-03/google-s-...

[2] https://facctconference.org/2021/cfp.html

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#684

Post by [deleted] »

jsmith45 wrote: post #486
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…

[deleted]

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#685

Post by [deleted] »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #556
anonvenger wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Jeff Dean's email: > Timnit co-authored a paper with four fellow Googlers as well as some external collaborators that needed to go through our review process (as is the case with all externally submitted papers). We’ve approved dozens of papers that Timnit and/or the other Googlers have authored and then published, but as you know, papers often require changes during the internal review process (or are even deem…

That seems pretty damning to me. Especially considering Timnit is not sharing what her demands were. Google went through their standard process, and the paper was rejected. If they have actually approved dozens of Timnit's papers before, then the likelihood that this rejection is due to discrimination seems low.

[deleted]

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#686

Post by hardwaregeek »

samatman wrote: post #642
hardwaregeek wrote: post #555

Earlier 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…

> it's impossible to be a polite social activist. Fred Rogers and Carl Sagan are standing at the front of a very long line of people who are waiting to gently disagree with you.

As much as I respect Fred Rogers and Carl Sagan, they were white men working for goals that weren't exactly controversial. If we're calling them social activists—I'm not opposed to that, I just didn't consider them as activists in my original comment—then yeah there's plenty of polite social activists. The social activists I was considering were along the lines of MLK, Susan B. Anthony, James Baldwin. People who were advocating for something fundamentally opposite to current societal values. With that definition I believe there's no way to be polite.

I guess if I had to refine my original claim: it's impossible to politely disagree with fundamental societal values.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#687

Post by haram_masala »

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…

She reminds me of an intelligent Adria Richards.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#688

Post by tfehring »

hintymad wrote: post #544
elevenoh wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing. Curious: How did she 'force him to give up on twitter'? There's a lotta companies who've hired ticking time bombs like this. They don't get why they were truly hired.

Easy. Just call that person a racist, a bigot, or an oppressor without a shred of evidence. > A person: I think bias in machine learning is caused by bias in training data. > Me: Why are you ignoring all I've been saying? You're a racist. You're a white man who oppresses. I'm not going to talk to a bigot like you. Repeat this a few times, the attacked will be punished both online and offline. Justice served.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of Gebru's argument there at all. A better summary might be "You're the Chief AI Scientist at a massively influential and profitable company with billions of users and exabytes of data, you can't just throw up your hands and say 'welp, that's what the model spits out so that's what we're stuck with.'"

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#689

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

nwallin wrote: post #631
IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it strange to take issue with the "I'm so tired" line. It would seem to be entirely appropriate for circumstances where you see an argument that you have replied to many times but that completely ignores your reply. It also just doesn't strike me as particularly hostile or profane. Quitting twitter and making a show of it strikes me as a far more emotional reaction, but nobody here seems to take any issue with…

It's not the message, it's the tone. There's a big difference between offering constructive criticism and being a condescending prick. > You can disagree with that reasoning (although you'd be wrong). What you can't do, as a leader in AI, is to pretend to have never heard of it, or that it is so obviously wrong that it warrants no reply whatsoever. There's a third option. You can just decide to not engage with the co…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_policing

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#690

Post by tfehring »

davorak wrote: post #569
sjs382 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

From Dean's email:

>Unfortunately, this particular paper was only shared with a day’s notice before its deadline — we require two weeks for this sort of review — and then instead of awaiting reviewer feedback, it was approved for submission and submitted.

Not sure what to make of that - maybe that Gebru submitted the paper and then immediately clicked the "approve" button herself?

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