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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#891

Post by somepersoninny »

contemporary343 wrote: post #292

It looks like the paper was critical of large language models: https://www.fastcompany.com/90582375/timnit-gebru-google-fir... The original article has been updated with Jeff Dean's response, while a member of Gebru's team (who still works at Google Brain) states that Dean's email is misleading and inaccurate: https://twitter.com/alexhanna/status/1334579764573691904 As I understand it: The paper had already been subm…

Her exit from the company was not due to her research. It was for her behavior and her attitude. The paper was just the catalyst that kicked everything else off.

Why did they not fight to keep her, if she was so singularly brilliant? IMO, it's because she wasn't an employee they wanted to keep around.

People don't get fired for asking for opportunities to respond to criticisms. My guess is there were previous incidences regarding her behavior and, in this situation, she threatened to quit and they accepted.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#892

Post by pgayed »

AlexandrB wrote: post #325
pgayed wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business doesn’t get to exist because of its employees. It gets to exist because of its customers.

Or increasingly: because of its investors.

Investors are an instantiation of the class Customer.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#893

Post by kthxbye123 »

KentLane wrote: post #57
silisili wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that Lecun argument was a really bad first impression of her from me. I guess she found out life isn't Twitter and you can't just go around telling everyone they are bad and wrong without consequences.

She will land on her feet. There is a huge demand for ideologues willing to lobotomize ML. “Let’s generate fake data with GANs to prevent our AI from discovering politically uncomfortable regularities!” It’s ugly work but someone has to do it, right?

What politically uncomfortable regularities are those? Please name the specific uncomfortable true facts about reality that you think these models are capturing.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#894

Post by throwaway74453 »

cbsks wrote: post #844
shuckles wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say that having many processes, selectively enforced is a common cover for disparate treatment.

That’s a good point. How many other Google researchers have submitted papers to conferences without waiting for the 2 week internal review to complete? What happened in those cases if the paper failed the internal review? Without more context it’s impossible to tell if this was a case of discrimination or just a case a researcher not following Google’s internal policies and suffering the consequences.

I worked as a run-of-the-mill engineer at Google and was involved in publishing a paper externally. We couldn't do it the first time around because we finished only 3 days before the external deadline and there wasn't enough time to get it approved internally. This seemed to be very standard around me. People were actually submitting well ahead of time and to me it seems like that Gebru expected the rules to be bent for her if she realistically believed a single day would be enough. Let me just point out that this is a standard practice even in academic research at universities when larger teams are involved.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#895

Post by throwaway74453 »

ehsankia wrote: post #743
jsmith45 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds to me like Google has a policy that papers must be internally reviewed before they can be "published". She understood publish in the academic sense, while Google views sending the paper out for conference review as publishing. The paper ends up failing internal review, so per policy it must be promptly retracted. This is confusing to the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that…

> the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that the paper can be fixed. Asking for the review notes is one thing, it seems like the main demand Jeff refused was giving the names of every reviewer. Why would the names of the reviewers be relevant to the academic, unless they specifically wanted to use the reviewers identity in order to undermine the notes?

Gebru has a history of using her considerable social media following to bully people she has minor disagreements with. This alone would practically warrant anonymity to make sure the reviewers do not get doxed by her.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#896

Post by kthxbye123 »

thu2111 wrote: post #850
whymauri wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a rude dismissal of an entire field within machine learning and statistics (ethics, bias, and robustness).

Rude, maybe but not very. Dismissal, yes. The belief that AI should learn reality as it exists and not some ideologically purified version of it is a completely rational one, and dismissing the "work" of those so-called "ethicists" is no more problematic than dismissing the "work" of the Chinese censors who purify the Chinese internet. Indeed being dismissive of that work is to be praised, as it shouldn't exist at al…

Name the specific true facts about reality you think these models are capturing that are at risk of being 'purified' by AI ethicists. List them.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#897

Post by meragrin »

frongpik wrote: post #620
jerome-jh wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager. Maybe my remark is down to earth but, she literally told her group to stop working. I do not know of any company where this is an acceptable behavior for a manager. Besides the disagreements, it sounds to me that was the action that caused Google to pull the trigger. Also from Dean's email it is pretty clear there are a number of new products…

She was fired for damaging Google's reputation. In her email, she carelessly demanded names of those who reported her, that can be interpreted as extortion, and Jeff didn't miss the opportunity to call her out. Her offer to resign was another mistake: she would be fired anyways, but for a different reason and with more paperwork. Now if she takes this to a court, she would have to tell the judge what she needed the n…

She wasn't fired. She made it clear she could not work there her demands were not met and would resign. Google accepted her resignation.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#898

Post by dragonwriter »

meragrin wrote: post #897
frongpik wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was fired for damaging Google's reputation. In her email, she carelessly demanded names of those who reported her, that can be interpreted as extortion, and Jeff didn't miss the opportunity to call her out. Her offer to resign was another mistake: she would be fired anyways, but for a different reason and with more paperwork. Now if she takes this to a court, she would have to tell the judge what she needed the n…

She wasn't fired. She made it clear she could not work there her demands were not met and would resign. Google accepted her resignation.

> She wasn't fired.

Yes she was. Even the letter communicating to her the termination of employment made it fairly explicit that she was being terminated on terms different than what Google interpreted her resignation to be, due to the internal mail.

It's clear that for external PR purposes Google wants to maintain the story that it was merely accepting her resignation, but while clearly worded with the intent that an incomplete reading would support the narrative, the letter to her fairly directly (and unusually for a case where they viewed themselves as accepting a resignation) mad explicit that employment was being terminated, immediately, based on separate grounds from the supposed resignation.

On the other hand, I guess making it explicit that she was being fired for public internal complaints about a culture of discrimination is one way (like, the worst way possible, but one way) of making the case that what happened to Damore wasn't discrimination against white men, but just what they do to any internal criticism of Google culture.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#899

Post by cauthon »

throwaway74453 wrote: post #894
cbsks wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good point. How many other Google researchers have submitted papers to conferences without waiting for the 2 week internal review to complete? What happened in those cases if the paper failed the internal review? Without more context it’s impossible to tell if this was a case of discrimination or just a case a researcher not following Google’s internal policies and suffering the consequences.

I worked as a run-of-the-mill engineer at Google and was involved in publishing a paper externally. We couldn't do it the first time around because we finished only 3 days before the external deadline and there wasn't enough time to get it approved internally. This seemed to be very standard around me. People were actually submitting well ahead of time and to me it seems like that Gebru expected the rules to be bent…

Having worked at three large academic institutions and been part of the submission process for about a dozen manuscripts, I have never seen or heard of a requirement for an internal administrative approval.

IRB approval for study designs, yes, admin submission of grants, yes, but never an authorization that the results and manuscript could be submitted to a journal or conference

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#900

Post by throwaway74453 »

cauthon wrote: post #899
throwaway74453 wrote: post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a run-of-the-mill engineer at Google and was involved in publishing a paper externally. We couldn't do it the first time around because we finished only 3 days before the external deadline and there wasn't enough time to get it approved internally. This seemed to be very standard around me. People were actually submitting well ahead of time and to me it seems like that Gebru expected the rules to be bent…

Having worked at three large academic institutions and been part of the submission process for about a dozen manuscripts, I have never seen or heard of a requirement for an internal administrative approval. IRB approval for study designs, yes, admin submission of grants, yes, but never an authorization that the results and manuscript could be submitted to a journal or conference

Are you serious? Every large collaboration in e.g. physics has those. You simple cannot create a splinter cell within the organization and publish whatever you want. You have to coordinate with everybody because the work is never truly yours. In case of e.g. CERN, literally thousands of people helped you in some way and they do not want you to potentially tarnish their reputation. Industry AI labs are like that as well. I know this for a fact at least in the organizations I worked at.
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