AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

Post by dheera » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

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…

Post by njanirudh » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 3:53 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #450

parliament32 wrote: post #26

I don't think "fired" is the right choice of words -- she gave an ultimatum offering to resign, and they accepted her resignation. Is accepting a resignation the same as firing someone? > Thanks for making your conditions clear. We cannot agree to #1 and #2 as you are requesting. We respect your decision to leave Google as a result, and we are accepting your resignation. https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364…

Wife says to her programmer husband, "Go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. If they have eggs, buy a dozen." Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread. Most software engineers can read the above joke, and laugh at themselves, then go ahead and upvote your comment not realizing that it is EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Employee: "This is extremely important to me. If you can't address what is important to me, then I can't w…

Post by njanirudh » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 4:01 AM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #81

prionassembly wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of her replies is regrettable: Yann: “ML systems are biased when data is biased" Timnit: “I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias. Even amidst of world wide protests people don’t hear our voices and try to learn from us, they assume they’re experts in everything. Let us lead her and you fol…

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…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

tfehring wrote: post #705

njanirudh wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its more like " There are difficulties on collecting data and historical reasons that leads to bias in the trained model" Other side " no you are a racist and responsible for bias due for being a white male"

It's pretty clear that Gebru criticized LeCun for being apathetic about an obviously biased model, not because he's a white male. And again, "There are difficulties on collecting data and historical reasons that leads to bias in the trained model" is accurate, but it's still a total cop-out! There's no way Facebook would let results like [0] slide if there were money at stake - they'd get more training data, or even…

Post by njanirudh » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 4:11 AM UTC

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #523

dig1 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you are a researcher in academia you won't be asked to retract your research because it makes someone look bad. Not entirely accurate (worked in academia). If your research makes someone look bad or have a chance to jeopardize financing, usually you won't get a chance even to send the paper, because it will be shut down in your research center by either your mentor or other peers. Sound mentors are well connecte…

This is not my experience. As a PhD student I've already had a (strong) disagreement with my thesis advisor about whether to submit a paper or not. My advisor thought I shouldn't, I thought I should. In the end, I submitted it and it got rejected and that's where the whole affair stopped. Actually, I really can't think of how my advisor would tell me not to publish a paper, except to suggest that it's not ready for p…