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Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

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Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#181

Post by nightski »

dmarchand90 wrote: post #118
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).

A subtle but important aspect of her complaint that I would like to point out is she offered to resign, but after some period X. I'm not sure if that was two weeks or a month. Instead, Google layed her off on the same day. Firing her much sooner than the date she requested seems really foolish on Google's side. Arguably, one of the primary reasons a profit-oriented company would hire someone for this kind of job is f…

If someone has a negative attitude towards their employer it could be a liability to let them run with that negative attitude for weeks or months. From what I understand she had already told other researchers at the company to stop their work and was being quite disruptive.

NOTE: I am not trying to take sides as I don't know enough information. Just saying I believe there are good reasons why you'd let someone go immediately.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#182

Post by whimsicalism »

whatshisface wrote: post #148
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 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.

I agree, but I also think historical comparisons are permissible and don't prevent you from using what words you want?

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#183

Post by jeffbee »

CydeWeys wrote: post #176
jeffbee wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gebru did not engage LeCun in a reasoned debate. She said he should stop taking, listen to her and her allies (and only them). She said "Let us lead here and you follow" and "Just listen", essentially telling the inventor of convolutional neural nets that it was now his role to sit and shut up. That's how woke Twitter works: you define the group of people who are allowed to speak as only you and your allies. You purs…

Some links to specific comments here would help?

https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1274809417653866496?l...

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#184

Post by [deleted] »

jeffbee wrote: post #144
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.

[deleted]

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#185

Post by JamesBarney »

whimsicalism wrote: post #61
mellosouls wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is unfortunate that way too many commenters on a prior threads dismissed her as a some twitter personality and trivialized her body of work in spite of the fact that she is well regarded and reputable in the ML community. Both the positive aspects of her contributions and the clear negatives of her approach were rightly pointed out by various people (as well as problems with process and politics at Google); perhap…

I think the tone on HN was markedly more critical than elsewhere and I certainly notice that the divergence in tone seems greatest when discussing black people and women.

Where is elsewhere?

The big online communities I'm a part of are twitter, reddit, hacker news, and facebook.

It's true that hacker news seems to be different from those when discussing culture war topics. With hacker news being father to the right than twitter and reddit, and more center right than my facebook feed.

One conclusion is hacker news exists in a right wing bubble. The other is that twitter and reddit exist in a left wing bubble. Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator. And even the people arguing her being let go was justified are probably pretty center or center left. I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#186

Post by virgilp »

ogre_codes wrote: post #132

She quit. The reason she quit is legitimate, but it's pretty clear that she quit here. If you say "I quit unless...", and they don't agree to the conditions—you've quit. If I'm running a business, I certainly have no use for an employee who has quit under fairly unfriendly conditions. I definitely wouldn't want someone who has quit spending another month or so using corporate resources for what is now their own perso…

No, that's still "fired". Don't get me wrong, it's an entirely legitimate reason to fire someone - but one doesn't quit unless they actually submit the unconditional resignation. What she did was threaten to quit, and Google (rightfully, IMO) fired her as a consequence of that threat (plus previous email where she was advising colleagues to stop working on some company initiatives - that was very likely a preview of things to come, had she stayed any longer at the company).

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#187

Post by courtf »

Turns out, even Timnit Gebru, making ~500k a year researching AI ethics at Google, can still be fired.

Turns out, Google would feed each and every one of their employees, feet first, into a giant wood-chipper if that was the most cost-effective, legal way of disposing of them.

Turns out, the tech industry isn't really all that structurally different than any other industry.

Ignore that pipe full of blood and guts y'all, none of those people were marginalized. Back to work!

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#188

Post by whimsicalism »

JamesBarney wrote: post #185
whimsicalism wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tone on HN was markedly more critical than elsewhere and I certainly notice that the divergence in tone seems greatest when discussing black people and women.

Where is elsewhere? The big online communities I'm a part of are twitter, reddit, hacker news, and facebook. It's true that hacker news seems to be different from those when discussing culture war topics. With hacker news being father to the right than twitter and reddit, and more center right than my facebook feed. One conclusion is hacker news exists in a right wing bubble. The other is that twitter and reddit exis…

> I would guess your "elsewhere" exists in a ideological bubble that is much stronger than the one hacker news exists in.

I am in a bubble where I mostly talk to college educated people and people who have educated themselves in a similar tradition or are well-read. Perhaps it is snobbish of me, but I am mostly okay with that bubble for discussion forums.

Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter, HN seems like it is in a right-leaning bubble.

> Given that the median voter in the last election voted for Biden, but just barely, and maybe voted for a republican senator

Your assessment of the median voter is being super distorted by the geographic layout of the US, btw. The median voter did not vote for a republican senator.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#189

Post by mellosouls »

mrtksn wrote: post #125
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).

Can you please provide some context? What’s the toxic Twitter behavior?

A overview of some Twitter behaviour considered toxic by some that was posted here by people yesterday in the previous discussion:

https://syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yann-lecun-quits-twitter...

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#190

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

tmotwu wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that way too many commenters on a prior threads dismissed her as a some twitter personality and trivialized her body of work in spite of the fact that she is well regarded and reputable in the ML community. It's becoming clear a rising number of her colleagues are in support of what she was seeking to publish. A reviewer on reddit mentioned the authors have plenty of time to make revisions if there…

She seems like a fantastic researcher and brilliant person, but also an new subvariety of the old tech trope of a brilliant asshole. Or the trope of a 10x’er whose toxic behavior should be overlooked because she’s right with regards to her research.

Saying a brilliant asshole is a net negative isn’t trivializing their work. It’s saying the work isn’t the most important factor.

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