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Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

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Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#221

Post by whimsicalism »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #194
Certhas wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A quick look through a few of the last Linus threads and there is a lot more "taking his word as gospel" over calling him an asshole:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739076

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22176032

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22005181

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#222

Post by TearsInTheRain »

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…

> 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 follow. Just listen.

She says talking down to an actual expert in ML who gave an opinion on ML

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#223

Post by whimsicalism »

busterarm wrote: post #220
akarma wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the full quote, it does give it much more perspective! (It wasn't in the linked article). If a manager within the company wants to publicly express her frustration with leadership, then this is an alright message to send — leaving aside the very implicative final sentence. It still seems reasonable to fire anyone who sends such a message to their colleagues rather than working through the office's polit…

If a manager tells anyone at their company that their humanity is not valued in the company, I would expect them to be walked out the door on the spot. Managers act as agents of the company and the amount of legal assfucking that statement opens the company up to is enormous.

> If a manager tells anyone at their company that their humanity is not valued in the company, I would expect them to be walked out the door on the spot.

Well thank god I don't work for you. Most tech companies don't fire everyone engaging in employee activism or they would have much larger labor issues to deal with.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#224

Post by JamesBarney »

virgilp wrote: post #186
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…

Probably "AI researcher was let go after threatening resignation" is probably the most accurate description.

Also "AI researcher was let go after submitting resignation letter" is pretty close to accurate.

But if we had to choose between "AI researcher resigned" and "AI research was fired" I think the first would give you a more accurate idea of questions like

"did she submit a resignation letter" (yes), or "who initiated the break up" I feel resignation tells you she initiated it, which I think that is closer to the truth Google initiating it.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#225

Post by athms »

prionassembly wrote: post #82
minikites wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time a marginalized group gained rights by asking politely?

Are we evaluating her as a researcher or as an activist? I’ve read some of her research (that’s on arxiv) and it’s... not on the level that “Google AI researcher” implies. It’s good that they hire from the Humanities, but we tend to smush all academics as if they all had equal rigor and value. Maybe she’s a great activist. Or a great cook. Being it that I’m not into activism, I can’t judge that. ---- Edit: I have to…

>It’s good that they hire from the Humanities...

Gebru has a BS and MS in electrical engineering, and a PhD in computer science, specializing in artificial intelligence; all from Stanford. After receiving her MS, she worked at Apple's hardware engineering group. After her PhD, she worked Microsoft's AI research lab.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#226

Post by mellosouls »

whimsicalism wrote: post #188
JamesBarney wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

You are self-aware enough to acknowledge you are in a bubble in that respect (as most of us are but not everybody likes to admit); you should consider going a step further and understand that the larger community you talk of ("Conditioning on that type of person, who make up most people on HN, Reddit, and Twitter") is itself a bubble that is perhaps rather more liberal leaning than society as a whole - or at least not as sympathetic to the more activist types being discussed here.

Even if in the long run it turns out your position becomes the mainstream, that isn't necessarily nearly the case now.

This is why your original "elsewhere" is being questioned as it's likely not a representative baseline in that regard.

Whatever HN is, it certainly isn't right-leaning.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#227

Post by whimsicalism »

TearsInTheRain wrote: post #222
whimsicalism wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 follow. Just listen. She says talking down to an actual expert in ML who gave an opinion on ML

Unclear what the usage of "actual expert" means in the context of an AI ethics question, when Timnit is an "actual expert" in AI ethics.

I can see how this would get frustrating fast if your opinion is held among many Google engineers.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#228

Post by root_axis »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #204
root_axis wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Are you saying she was undeserving of the position based on her qualifications?

I think they mean that a brilliant asshole of a different type of assholery would have been fired much sooner. The fact that she’s qualified is separate.

Ah, I see. I would say in response that we're pretty much at a subjective impasse then. The thrust of my argument is that brilliant assholes are generally well tolerated. By "asshole" I don't mean someone who got canned for a harmless joke, I'm talking about toxic aggressive egomaniacs who wield their expertise and prestige as a cudgel to demean and abuse their colleagues.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#229

Post by akarma »

dvtrn wrote: post #219
akarma wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the full quote, it does give it much more perspective! (It wasn't in the linked article). If a manager within the company wants to publicly express her frustration with leadership, then this is an alright message to send — leaving aside the very implicative final sentence. It still seems reasonable to fire anyone who sends such a message to their colleagues rather than working through the office's polit…

It still seems reasonable to fire anyone who sends such a message to their colleagues rather than working through the office's politics more quietly Can you unpack this a bit? Several employers, past and present have encouraged employees to communicate and attempt to resolve conflicts (presumably, maybe ostensibly, giving them opportunities to work it out as adults and professionals) amongst employees first as the fi…

> In fact, current employer has this as a point of policy for interpersonal conflicts barring severe enough circumstances where a reasonable person would say "yes this requires intervention from on high".

I completely agree with you, but what happened here was that this manager sent this email to a large group of employees, not the specific employees she had the issue with (which would be fine!).

This email wasn't an attempt at conflict resolution, it was sharing how upset she was, at her manager, with a bunch of coworkers.

For the last sentence: in the event where one wants to complain to a large group of coworkers, I think it's pertinent to stick to the basic, unarguable facts of what occurred. Suggesting that you've been dehumanized by the company is adding fuel to a fire that you should instead be aiming to resolve privately, if you want to continue to work at the company.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#230

Post by julianapostate »

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?

historical comparisons with clearly demarcated "bad" sides are pretty much just veiled bad faith arguments.
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