About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean • Hacker News Board

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#141

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

asfadfdsa wrote: post #46

There are a lot of people commenting that she didn't actually resign. I agree, but it sounds like the conversation went like this: employee: I'm not happy about x, y and z. If you don't do those, I'm going to quit. manager: well we are not going to do those, so thank you for your time. We accept your resignation and would like it to start immediately (i.e. you're fired). If you are gonna tell your manager that you pl…

There are three different discussions happening all at the same time, which is muddying things.

1. Was the treatment of her research in internal review reasonable?

2. Was terminating her employment reasonable after she sent the (now public) email to the women-and-allies brain listserv?

3. Was the end of her employment at Google a resignation or a firing?

To me, (3) is by a wide margin the least interesting part of the story and all of the discussion here is missing the point entirely. Whether she was fired or resigned has zero bearing on whether (1) and (2) show reasonable or unreasonable actions.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#142

Post by fdasfsdafsa » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:29 PM UTC

reikonomusha wrote: post #94

asfadfdsa wrote: post #46

There are a lot of people commenting that she didn't actually resign. I agree, but it sounds like the conversation went like this: employee: I'm not happy about x, y and z. If you don't do those, I'm going to quit. manager: well we are not going to do those, so thank you for your time. We accept your resignation and would like it to start immediately (i.e. you're fired). If you are gonna tell your manager that you pl…

What if the language weren’t so direct? For example, > If I can’t know who is providing reviews to my work, it’s difficult for me to imagine continuing to work as a part of this group. Many people would still describe this (erroneously) as an ultimatum even though it could be bleakly summarized in the same vein as a true ultimatum.

It's more nicely worded to be sure, and definitely less aggressive, but it still says the same thing, which is "I'm gonna be an unhappy employee if I can't find out who reviewed my work". If they aren't willing to tell her who reviewed her work (which they may or may not have valid reasons for doing, but clearly they don't want to do), then they are dealing with someone who is going to be an unhappy employee since their conditions won't be met. Sure, not a resignation, but if your employer doesn't think you'll be a happy employee, why keep you around?

In any case, she has been very vocal on twitter and has not seemed to deny that she gave some sort of ultimatum. If she didn't give an ultimatum, it would only make Google look worse, so why not mention that on Twitter (given that she has tweeted probably 100 things about this incident in the last two days)? Given the absence of a denial, I'm going to assume that it was worded as an ultimatum.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#143

Post by johncena33 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

I've read her email. In my first job, right after college, I have also sent an inflammatory email (nothing compared to the email she has sent) to my manager (not a whole group of coworkers). And I got seriously reprimanded for it by my then manager. Even after a decade I cringe when I remember the email I wrote. I have no idea why people think it's okay to send emails like this and expect not to get fired.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#144

Post by runako » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:30 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #47

bnj wrote: post #5

While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely. Even if Google is acting presenting the chain of events faithfully, their final move to jump on an opport…

> While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely. I wouldn't say this has blown up in their face. But to be honest, I've not seen that much drama about i…

> not seen that much drama about it than one post

This morning, there were front-page posts about this on the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Google, BBC, and Financial Times. It's being covered pretty widely.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#145

Post by sillysaurusx » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

that_guy_iain wrote: post #115

sillysaurusx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe she basically sent an email to fellow employees basically telling them to stop working. That alone is a firable. That is completely nuts and unacceptable work place behaviour. The fact Google didn't fire her for that should speak volumes. This is little more than gossip unless you can point to something specific that people can judge for themselves. Saying “she basically did X” is a clever way to influence…

> This is little more than gossip unless you can point to something specific that people can judge for themselves. Saying “she basically did X” is a clever way to influence how people feel about her. It's gossip as in I haven't seen anyone confirm the validtiy of https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... but I've also not seen anyone deny it. In fact, it seems everyone is confirming it unoffical…

That is totally not the same thing as telling your fellow employees to stop working. I like to think I’m a pretty reasonable fellow, but it’s hard to see that point of view.

I felt similarly to you yesterday. Now I’m not so sure. It sounds like she was criticizing company process and was frustrated not being able to have any impact on what she perceived were real problems to the integrity of the process. I can empathize with that feeling, and I’ve done some embarrassing or unprofessional things when I was younger and slightly less wiser in similar situations.

I dunno mate, people here are suddenly trying awfully hard to repeat their points about her personal behavior / paint her as an unprofessional loon. And that’s a pretty convenient distraction if her criticisms were true, wouldn’t you say?

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#146

Post by deeviant » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

throawaydmg wrote: post #24

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback It always amazes how blatantly authoritarian these "woke" types are. I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of…

Authoritarian? Please. You seem to be confused.

> I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of every consultant was to engage in some sort of witch-hunting and bigoteering[0]

Right...

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#147

Post by nullc » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

choppaface wrote: post #30

It's frankly unprofessional for Jeff Dean to post only his email in this document without providing more context. The news media has in cases provided balanced coverage that included the email from Timnit that prompted Google's action: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... This post from Jeff Dean simply underscores that he has failed to balance the need for diplomacy with the research thesi…

Excerpts were already being leaked on HN.

The 'email from Timnit' doesn't exactly look good... I would expect a manager posting company lists in that manner to be dismissed (or a junior employee to receive some mentioning about professional conduct, if not dismissed).

I don't believe anyone has published the ultimatum email, which I think would be more accurately described as what precipitated the outcome.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#148

Post by quotemstr » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

bnj wrote: post #5

While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely. Even if Google is acting presenting the chain of events faithfully, their final move to jump on an opport…

Did it blow up in Google's face? A bunch of perpetually angry people on Twitter are angry. So what? Google's actual operations are affected not only tiny bit by this episode. Outrage has no power.

Social media is not real life. Every company, Google included, needs to simply ignore social media outrage and focus on their mission instead.

Internet outrage only has power because companies give it power. Angry words and hit pieces from biased media do nothing on their own. If you don't let them make you afraid, you have no reason to be afraid of them. The internet screamed at Coinbase after the company showed their internal activists the door, but Coinbase is doing just fine. See? Nothing to be afraid of. Just get rid of troublemakers.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#149

Post by siliconmountain » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:31 PM UTC

UncleMeat wrote: post #109

orsenthil wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, put more simply, they pushed out someone in their Ethical AI department because they did not soften critiques against AI enough. I didn't read that. I read the person _demanded_ who said a particular critical feedback, or questioned the approaches instead of addressing them. The person gave the ultimatum to resign if details were not shared.

If your work is suddenly and unexpected roadblocked at the last second by internal review, the only way to make changes that prevent that from happening in the future is to clearly understand the situations and criticisms that led to the roadblock. This is why understanding who raised these concerns is important. Anonymous feedback blowing up a project at the final moments is sure to frustrate anybody. If what she ha…

Isn't the academic journal peer review process generally an anonymous feedback mechanism? Why does this need to be different?

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#150

Post by usmannk » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:32 PM UTC

sillysaurusx wrote: post #127

spinningslate wrote: post #93

I don't know Jeff Dean. I have read some of his work, watched some of his presentations. He seems a credible bloke. This, though, looks and feels like thinly-veiled retroactive and pretty unconvincing PR. It's short on detail and appears somewhat at odds with several points from Timnit Gebru's resignation note [0]: - Dean says the paper was reviewed by a "cross-functional team". Gebru says she received the feedback t…

Dean says the paper was submitted for review on the day it was due to be published; Gebru says they had notified "PR & Policy 2 months before". Wait, really? That’s an important detail if true. The one-day timeline was a central part of the narrative surrounding this story. Notifying them two months ahead of time makes this a completely different situation. I’m a bit skeptical. Could this claim be verified somehow? S…

From what I read it sounds like Timnit cleared the general idea of the paper 2 months before. The paper itself seems to have been submitted for approval 1 day prior to the deadline. Another HN commenter says that submitting papers for approval "hours" before the deadline is common at Google.