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Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

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Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#191

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

temp667 wrote: post #135

Do google employees actually do work or just rallies, protests and walkouts. Seriously, google staff are walking out / protesting / rallying behind stuff every week. How can you afford to pay 120,000 folks who seem to be focused on being outraged, striking and walking out all the time. I participated in a walkout ONCE when I was much younger, over an issue that was pretty clean cut (this was before me too, things had…

The largest employee protests are driven by legitimate engagement, but there's a small core of Google employees who don't do work. One guy Tim Chevalier actually sued Google (https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17038430/google-james-dam...), claiming that Google broke the law by telling him to do more work and less social activism.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#192

Post by whimsicalism »

jeffbee wrote: post #183
CydeWeys wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some links to specific comments here would help?

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

> Let us lead [here] (I'm assuming "her" was a typo) and you follow.

Aggressive, sure, but also seems:

a. reasonable for AI ethics experts to "lead" in issues surrounding AI ethics

b. not the cardinal sin of discussion that it appears to be viewed as here.

You'll see people here defending Linus or Elon Musk for saying objectively way worse stuff than this.

Somehow Timnit is defined by this discussion, but Elon isn't defined by calling a rescue diver a pedophile with no evidence or Linus telling someone to kill themselves.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#193

Post by swalsh »

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 post WW2, there was this unwritten social agreement. The company took care of you, and you took care of the company. At some point that agreement was severed. Companies stopped being loyal to employees, and slowly employees have learned to stop being loyal to companies.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#194

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

Certhas wrote: post #160
kenjackson wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried to piece together the debate with LeCun, but I can't find anything she said that seemed all that bad. It seemed like, if anything, she just simply wouldn't let him off the hook. And it's very possible I missed several tweets that were really toxic...

Also, to put the double standard here into context, HN comment threads always had plenty of people defending Linus Torvalds tone.

And plenty of people attacking him. Every Linus thread has a massive debate about him being an asshole. Just like in this thread there are plenty on each side. Where’s the double standard?

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#195

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

whimsicalism wrote: post #177
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the specific comparison you're using. The problem is that you're attempting to cut off discussion rather than engage in it.

We're actually having an extensive discussion in the comments. Welcome! Don't really know how else to respond to vague accusations of engaging in a "divisive and dogmatic strain of diversity advocacy."

Fair. I just kinda saw this in passing as I was scrolling down the thread - if the discussion's working out then more power to you.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#196

Post by JamesBarney »

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.

If you sent your boss a letter that said "I will resign if you do not meet conditions X, Y, and Z." and they decide to not meet those demands, what do you expect the company to do?

Let you continue to have access to company resources? My expectations are they would immediately terminate access to all company resources, pay me 2 weeks, send me a letter wishing me good luck on my future endeavors, and send an email to my co-workers saying I resigned.

Now later I might think, shoot maybe I shouldn't have threatened to quit if they didn't meet my demands because I really liked my job. But I don't think we should pretend this isn't exactly what 95% of all corporations would do in a similar situation.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#197

Post by justicezyx »

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…

LMAO

Timinit has been showing her aggressive side without much self awareness for a long time. Instead of relying on her research work and data, she routinely try to shut down the opposite side's "matter of fact" statements.

In contrast, the proclaimed "bad" guy, Jeff Dean, never do that. I know a co-worker who is level 4 engineer, reviewing Jeff's code changes, with Jeff never show a slight hint of his status. At the moment Jeff is level 11 engineer.

If Timinit could be that patient, then given enough time, she will make impact equal or beyond Jeff as in pure engineering. Instead, she tried to let loose her emotions.

Her continue staying at Google and the ethical AI research community would become a long term risk and overall negative factor, given the trajectory. That's my pessimistic prediction.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#198

Post by whatshisface »

whimsicalism wrote: post #182
whatshisface wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

But what is the conclusion we are meant to draw from the historical comparison? Accusations of belligerence have been thrown around many times in history - Soviets accusing NATO, the Allies accusing the Axis, the Axis accusing the Allies, North Korea accusing NATO, pretty much everyone accusing NATO... NATO accusing everyone else... ;) Virtually every pair of groups that don't get along exchange accusations of aggression.

In order for the comparison to be informative, it must also be accompanied by some argument about whether or not the accusations are accurate, which sort of takes us back to the original question.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#199

Post by jeffbee »

whimsicalism wrote: post #192
jeffbee wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Let us lead [here] (I'm assuming "her" was a typo) and you follow. Aggressive, sure, but also seems: a. reasonable for AI ethics experts to "lead" in issues surrounding AI ethics b. not the cardinal sin of discussion that it appears to be viewed as here. You'll see people here defending Linus or Elon Musk for saying objectively way worse stuff than this. Somehow Timnit is defined by this discussion, but Elon isn't…

OK, but imagine that you are the expert in your field and you have work for this person, who controls your career and compensation, who has a tendency to say that domain experts need to shut up and defer to her.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#200

Post by apta »

virgilp wrote: post #170
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).

She was absolutely fired, her boss even admitted as much (paraphrasing, "we accept your resignation but can't agree to your timeline, termination is effective immediately"). TBH, given the behaviour (public email saying "stop working on what mgmt asks you to, it doesn't really matter!" and email to manager saying "do X,Y or I'll quit!") - the way this was handled is not discriminatory, it's what would happen to 99% o…

Hopefully these "woke" SJWs will receive a dose of reality.
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