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Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

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Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#91

Post by whimsicalism »

actuator wrote: post #80
elefanten wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Body of work aside, she absolutely is an aggressive-ranging-into-toxic Twitter personality and a very strident proponent of a divisive and dogmatic strain of diversity advocacy.

Her spat against Yann LeCun felt very wrong to me. That is not how fellow academics/researchers should treat each other. Maybe Yann LeCun was wrong, the way she conveyed the message disregarding any knowledge he might have on this was definitely not civil. She could have chosen a different way to address the complaints here, not by getting overtly confrontational. Maybe the review group got it wrong, maybe they were…

> definitely not civil.

I agree that people should try to be kind and charitable to each other, and this conversation didn't show that.

That said, I think we also have to be cognizant of the way "civility" is not objective/neutral, often relies on codifying the norms of a dominant majority, and also preserves the status quo.

It might not have been very "civil" for instance when Google employees walked out of the office, but I also don't think it was "civil" when Google paid $90 million to someone fired for sexual harassment.

Sometimes big problems can't be met just with civil discourse, it's why many of us still voted for Biden (for instance) even after he told Trump to "shut up."

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#92

Post by claydavisss »

whimsicalism wrote: post #57
elefanten wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Body of work aside, she absolutely is an aggressive-ranging-into-toxic Twitter personality and a very strident proponent of a divisive and dogmatic strain of diversity advocacy.

> divisive and dogmatic strain of diversity advocacy. Reading the HN comments section sometimes feels akin to doing archival research on letters to the editor during the peak of the civil rights movement. It's astonishing how consistent the tropes are.

Reading the HN comments section sometimes feels akin to doing archival research on letters to the editor for the Guardian in 2018. The moral preening, the harumph-worthy circle jerks of pithy middlebrow dismissals and vacuous brigading.

It's astonishing how consistent the tropes are.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#93

Post by scarmig »

p49k wrote: post #7
pinewurst wrote: post #3

I'm tired of FAANG "rallies" where the numerator is such a small percentage of the denominator. I bet one could get "hundreds" of Google employees to rally behind a flat earth and many more for the abolition of mayonnaise.

The numerator is such a small percentage because so many fear losing their jobs for speaking out. In that context, this number is quite significant. Even if you disagree with their stance, you have to admit that it takes courage to speak up in these kinds of situations.

No one at Google worries that signing a petition or Tweeting something is going to get them fired. No one in any kind of position of power reads or cares about these kinds of petitions, and it certainly doesn't ever reach the eyes of anyone on a promo committee.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#94

Post by harrisonjackson »

whimsicalism wrote: post #72
laretluval wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She demanded to know the identities of anonymous internal reviewers of her paper, or else she would resign. Google accepted her resignation. What is the evidence that this has to do with the content of the paper?

You don't "accept someone's resignation" and then add terms to it and actually "resign" them a little sooner than they were going to resign. That's called firing.

That's exactly what a lot of companies do when someone gives 2 weeks notice. Send them home right away and pay them for the 2 weeks so you can keep them from filing unemployment and have them on the hook for any exit interview / handoff questions etc. They always want you to sign "something" as part of the process, too.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#95

Post by kitsune_ »

jasonv wrote: post #12
king_magic wrote: post #4

After reading everything that has come out (e.g. her email) and her history of highly toxic Twitter behavior, I honestly can't blame Google for accepting her resignation (she was not fired).

There was something about the writing in her email that felt.. loaded and questionable without enough factual assertions to carry her point. In Jeff Dean's email, he made one point that could be pretty salient: she submitted the paper for approval right at deadline. If that's true, that is poorly handled. The ultimatum is easily a step too far. And all of this right before a vacation/holiday.

I mean the machiavellian interpretation looks like this to me: Google's AI in Ethics initiative is a PR exercise, similar to greenwashing and other models employed by big business. It fundamentally has to be, because large parts of the underlying business model at Google are based on unethical practices. By hiring researchers from underrepresented groups they additionally hoped to a) profit from the power imbalance of the relationship and b) co-opt parts of the social justice movement by having ethics research focus on issues that do not directly touch the bottom line. Now you have a researcher not towing the company line and being fired for it.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#98

Post by mupuff1234 »

ejanus wrote: post #35
king_magic wrote: post #4

After reading everything that has come out (e.g. her email) and her history of highly toxic Twitter behavior, I honestly can't blame Google for accepting her resignation (she was not fired).

I stand with you. This is Google's best decision this week. Workplace should remain workplace and should not be turned into political arena.

That approach seems somewhat naive.

I think we should definitely acknowledge that politics do play a role in these mega corporations. This is especially true in the ML field, where choosing something as "innocent" as a training data set would most likely have political and societal implications.

But that being said I don't think the combative cancel culture is helping anyone.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#99

Post by Veedrac »

contemporary343 wrote: post #37

Google (and Google Brain in particular) benefited immensely from Gebru's work, and her being affiliated with them. This can be seen in how often they (including Jeff Dean) pointed to her work to show they were taking questions of fairness and bias in AI algorithms seriously. The flip side is that you have to respect the researcher, who frankly has more credibility than you do as an organization in this space. Even to…

> it is incredibly anodyne

I don't get why anyone is surprised that Google doesn't want a paper saying ‘we should spend less money on ML’ published under their name, when the whole company is ML driven and pushing for growth there.

What other large company would allow that sort of thing?

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#100

Post by snendroid-ai »

contemporary343 wrote: post #37

Google (and Google Brain in particular) benefited immensely from Gebru's work, and her being affiliated with them. This can be seen in how often they (including Jeff Dean) pointed to her work to show they were taking questions of fairness and bias in AI algorithms seriously. The flip side is that you have to respect the researcher, who frankly has more credibility than you do as an organization in this space. Even to…

> Google (and Google Brain in particular) benefited immensely from Gebru's work

Explain

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