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Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

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Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#271

Post by jeffbee »

joshuamorton wrote: post #237
jeffbee wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ethics" does not really encompass the topic. The topic was that a net trained mostly on white people's faces upsamples a downsampled photo of a half-black man (Barack Obama) into a generic white face. LeCun's point is this is no surprise. If you trained it on leopards, it would upsample pixelated human faces into leopard faces instead. LeCun is an expert on how these nets work.

And nowhere did Timnit disagree that the cause he identified was a cause of bias in the system. Her contention is that there are others, and reducing the problem to just "get better datatsets" is a bad idea (and a way for researchers to abdicate responsibility). To use an example that comes up: do we solve the ethical qualms of a system that predicts incarceration rate based on facial structure by getting a better da…

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I see how reasoned your response is to what I said. It is a clear contrast to how the AI ethics researcher engaged in the Twitter thread. Two totally different hypothetical conversations:

  A: Training data is a cause of this bias
  B: But not the only cause
  A: True
vs.

  A: Training data is a cause of this bias
  B: I am so sick of this. You are not permitted to speak.
  A: I am deleting my Twitter account.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#272

Post by JamesBarney »

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…

> 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.

If most of the people you talk to are college educated people who live in a city than you most definitely exist in a bubble. Remember 47% of the country voted for Trump(I doubt Hacker news came anywhere near this number). Of your friends how many voted for Trump? As an example I'm a college graduate in his 30's who lives in the city. 0% of the 20 people I talk to most often voted for Trump, and maybe 4% of the the extended 200 people I know, voted for trump. And of that 4%, 3/4ths voted for him begrudgingly. And I live in a southern state that voted for Trump. So when you look at hacker news and encounter opinions that are different than your own it might seem like Hacker News exists in a bubble, but I think it's far more likely your life exists in a bubble that's stronger than hacker news.

> 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.

The median senate voter would have voted for a Republican but that's mostly because California and New York didn't have senate races this year.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#273

Post by CydeWeys »

stickfigure wrote: post #253
CydeWeys wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He sold Android to Google in 2005 for a hefty sum, and he drew a large salary and stock package every year since. Why in the world would he need a $90M exit package on top of all that when he's being fired for severe workplace misconduct? He already got paid for those contributions.

What does "need" have to do with anything? If someone walks away with 8-digit sums, there were contracts involved. Nobody pays out $90M for fun.

This is false. The $90M was optional, not contractual. Google did indeed choose to pay out this amount when it didn't have to. Some sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/google-sexual-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/25/18023364/google-andy-rub...

Also, take a step back and consider how there was a worldwide walkout of 10k+ employees. That wouldn't have happened if Google's hands were tied here and they had been contractually forced to pay that money out to Andy Rubin. The outrage was because they knew about his misconduct and yet still chose to let him "retire" and give him a big amount of extra money, rather than firing him and giving him the $0 he was legally entitled to.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#274

Post by JamesBarney »

pseudalopex wrote: post #259
JamesBarney wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Google didn't do that. They terminated her employment immediately. They also said it was because of her email.

Wait what part didn't Google do?

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#275

Post by joshuamorton »

jeffbee wrote: post #271
joshuamorton wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nowhere did Timnit disagree that the cause he identified was a cause of bias in the system. Her contention is that there are others, and reducing the problem to just "get better datatsets" is a bad idea (and a way for researchers to abdicate responsibility). To use an example that comes up: do we solve the ethical qualms of a system that predicts incarceration rate based on facial structure by getting a better da…

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I see how reasoned your response is to what I said. It is a clear contrast to how the AI ethics researcher engaged in the Twitter thread. Two totally different hypothetical conversations: A: Training data is a cause of this bias B: But not the only cause A: True vs. A: Training data is a cause of this bias B: I am so sick of this. You are not permitted to speak. A: I am deleting…

Any support for Dr. Gebru seems to be against the HN ethos at the moment, I have some theories as to why ;)

> You are not permitted to speak.

I really don't think this is a fair reading of her tweet. I don't see any way to read her actual tweet claiming Yann can't speak at all on the subject. I do see a plea to engage more with domain experts (which to reiterate: my understanding is that Yann has a history of ignoring on the subject)

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#276

Post by kenjackson »

busterarm wrote: post #260
CydeWeys wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He sold the company to them in 2005. If he didn't think that was a fair price he wouldn't have agreed to the sale. That was when he was compensated for his creation. After that, he was compensated through salary. I don't understand your point of view here. If I sell something to someone else, I'm not expecting to get more payout for it fifteen years down the line unless some kind of residual was explicitly negotiated…

1. It was an aquihire. Usually there's some performance secondary payout strings attached. 2. It doesn't matter what their deal was. It matters what public perception is. I'm talking entirely about public perception. Regardless of what their deal was, Google has to send a signal that _impacts future deals_. If the general developer public thinks that Android was acquired for too little, then we will all be reluctant…

> Google needs to make more Android-like deals in the future.

I think you'd be hardpressed to find a founder that wouldn't sell to Google for what they consider the right price if he didn't get $90M. Do you think any football players don't want to play for the Patriots, because Aaron Hernandez wasn't supported by them? People get that all bets are off with criminally poor behavior.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#277

Post by pseudalopex »

JamesBarney wrote: post #274
pseudalopex wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google didn't do that. They terminated her employment immediately. They also said it was because of her email.

Wait what part didn't Google do?

Pay her 2 weeks and wish her luck.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#278

Post by courtf »

schoolornot wrote: post #267
courtf wrote: post #187

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'a…

It’s not illegal for a company to marginalize someone for rocking the boat. I’ve worked with tons of people who have been relegated to basement offices or positions where they just “advise” but do nothing all day. Someone thought they had something left of value to add. Then they get a new boss or their current boss has enough and kicks them out.

Indeed! And even that outcome would be considered merciful from most other perspectives.

On one hand, I'm glad that people are sensitive enough to at least pretend to care about this, but on the other hand, they're completely deluded about the nature of work, and the nature of their relationship to their employer. It must come as a shock when, after spending a decade in school and moving directly from a university dorm/cafeteria to a corporate one, all of a sudden they can just ask you to leave. Maybe Google should start charging tuition.

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#279

Post by kenjackson »

joshuamorton wrote: post #237
jeffbee wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ethics" does not really encompass the topic. The topic was that a net trained mostly on white people's faces upsamples a downsampled photo of a half-black man (Barack Obama) into a generic white face. LeCun's point is this is no surprise. If you trained it on leopards, it would upsample pixelated human faces into leopard faces instead. LeCun is an expert on how these nets work.

And nowhere did Timnit disagree that the cause he identified was a cause of bias in the system. Her contention is that there are others, and reducing the problem to just "get better datatsets" is a bad idea (and a way for researchers to abdicate responsibility). To use an example that comes up: do we solve the ethical qualms of a system that predicts incarceration rate based on facial structure by getting a better da…

Reading these threads is really disappointing. I can in may ways already empathize with Timnit -- its exhausting seeing people who are typically bright just completely miss the point.

But if you change to a different topic like privacy then these same people really get all of this nuance that they completely seem to miss here...

Re: Google staff rally behind fired AI researcher

#280

Post by apta »

jeffbee wrote: post #208
apta wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not report them for their harassment? Honestly, corporations should step in and put an end to this woke bs.

If you think it's a good move to complain to HR against the visible activists who have assigned themselves to a legally protected class, you don't understand this workplace.

It's unfortunate. It shows their true colors, that they're just after virtue signaling and gaining power, so hopefully people will not listen to their lies anymore.
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