Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 326 posts

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#141

Post by contemporary343 »

teen wrote: post #76
tmotwu wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If she was truly removed for her abrasiveness, we would have a completely separate discussion entirely. What transpired, from both her disclosures and Google's leaderships response, has justifiably reigned in a lot of concern and skeptism from the broader research community.

She was, they said her email was not befitting of a manager. Which is clearly true

Ah yes, Google, where behavior befitting a manager such as sexual harassment (which is found to be credible by internal investigation) gets you $90 Million exit packages (Andy Rubin), or silence (Amit Singhal).

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#142

Post by res0nat0r »

marricks wrote: post #13
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 mean, Google spends billions on lobbying and PR, so if you heard anything new and bad about her in the past day or two you gotta wonder. Her job involves ethics, if you're not stirring the pot a bit you're probably not doing ethics and just acting as PR for your company? *Also, while my reply is source/fact free your comment is as well, so I think they're both reasonably at the same level.

I first heard about her by coming across her Twitter thread out of the blow, the night before this firing was posted here. Seeing her going nuclear on Twitter immediately after this went down just seems by default to be behavior which is Not Great.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#143

Post by tmpz22 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #115
tmpz22 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relating GP to a '60s era segregation apologist for offering a dissenting opinion is proving their point.

They're free to offer a dissenting opinion, my comment was on the rhetorical flourishes around diversity advocates being "divisive", "dogmatic", uncivil are very reminiscent of that period. I think it is very illuminating to read letters from that period, because they aren't just vitriolic racists like schools often teach. These are people trying to come off as "very reasonable", offering a civil, moderate path forwa…

I agree historical context on rhetoric can be absolutely eye opening, but your example was not a 1:1 comparison (neither the victims or actions being of equal consequence). It also reminds me of Goodwin's Law [1] where disagreements on the internet so often devolve into calling someone a Nazi (to me a '60s segregationist apologist is one or two steps removed from a Nazi).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#144

Post by jeffbee »

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.

Reading down the names, it is indeed the usual woke people who are chronically enraged on corp. G+ and mailing lists and whatever. There's also the person who kept harassing me on corp chat about whether I had a non-binary gender identity. I am so completely done with woke bullshit in the workplace.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#145

Post by temp667 »

cheese_van wrote: post #127

I don't fully understand the controversy and so take neither side. However, as I started in IT in in 84, it is curious to me that workforce culture has changed so. I recall the dourly suited IBM guys, all in lockstep, sharing identities, so to speak. One's role was well understood, and conforming to that role -conduct, performance, behavior- was very circumscribed and universally understood. Criticizing one's employe…

I think part of this is the FAANG companies have so much money they can afford to hire these huge quantities of folks to fight the company while getting paid by the company. No one else could afford to do this because it just wouldn't work business / productivity wise. The only other example is perhaps the govt which generally does fund people who then sue the govt around policies the govt adopts.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#146

Post by whimsicalism »

tmpz22 wrote: post #143
whimsicalism wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're free to offer a dissenting opinion, my comment was on the rhetorical flourishes around diversity advocates being "divisive", "dogmatic", uncivil are very reminiscent of that period. I think it is very illuminating to read letters from that period, because they aren't just vitriolic racists like schools often teach. These are people trying to come off as "very reasonable", offering a civil, moderate path forwa…

I agree historical context on rhetoric can be absolutely eye opening, but your example was not a 1:1 comparison (neither the victims or actions being of equal consequence). It also reminds me of Goodwin's Law [1] where disagreements on the internet so often devolve into calling someone a Nazi (to me a '60s segregationist apologist is one or two steps removed from a Nazi). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s…

I think I'm being pretty explicit that I'm not calling them a segregationist, but I think their rhetoric is illuminating. Not really sure how I can be more explicit on this point.

You are the one bringing up comparisons to Nazis, so it appears that you have now fallen prey to Godwin's law.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#147

Post by echelon »

westwing wrote: post #130
sitkack wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most companies want to appear to have a diversity of people who look different but have the same opinions and viewpoints as the rest of the group. What they should strive for is a diversity of backgrounds, viewpoints, experiences and have that process account for the differences in how those people arrived at where they currently are.

Most companies don't care about diversity of any kind for any reason besides PR. Every hiring manager knows that the most productive engineering teams are made up of 100% Asian cis-male Libertarians. Diversity in terms of measurable metrics, such as women/minorities/LGBT++ being adequately represented, is simply a benchmark that can be paraded around for appeasement purposes.

> Every hiring manager knows that the most productive engineering teams are made up of 100% Asian cis-male Libertarians.

What the hell. How can you say that with a straight face?

Of the two best engineers I know, one is is black and the other is trans. They're both 10x engineers.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#148

Post by whatshisface »

whimsicalism wrote: post #115
tmpz22 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relating GP to a '60s era segregation apologist for offering a dissenting opinion is proving their point.

They're free to offer a dissenting opinion, my comment was on the rhetorical flourishes around diversity advocates being "divisive", "dogmatic", uncivil are very reminiscent of that period. I think it is very illuminating to read letters from that period, because they aren't just vitriolic racists like schools often teach. These are people trying to come off as "very reasonable", offering a civil, moderate path forwa…

I don't think that words become permanently unusable if they have been deployed once by a historical losing side... If that could happen, then pretty much every rhetorical technique would already have been burnt to the ground and salted forever by now.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#149

Post by Certhas »

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…

By the judgement of her colleagues inside google this was not a normal internal review process, and according to her own writing, she tried to engage with the review process but was blocked.

Also, to quote LeCunn: “I’d like to ask everyone to please stop attacking each other via Twitter or other means. In particular, I’d like everyone to please stop attacking @timnitGebru and everyone who has been critical of my posts… Farewell everyone.”

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#150

Post by root_axis »

manigandham wrote: post #77
root_axis wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy this line. Toxic personality types are a hallmark of the technology sphere and they are typically given a free pass on such behavior in the name of meritocracy. The problem for Gebru is that her particular type of toxicity is not palatable to the entrenched culture, merit be damned.

Those free passes ended years ago as can be seen by many high-profile removals and resignations (for both corporate policy and social pressure reasons).

I think it's fair to say there is less tolerance for certain extremes in public spaces, but practically speaking the meritocratic mentality still rules the day. If you're a well-known public face of an organization you might have to watch what you say in public (but not always, e.g. Elon), but this is the exception not the rule.
Post reply on HN