We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google • Hacker News Board

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#41

Post by machinelabo » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:50 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #38

machinelabo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed it. I know its going to be downvoted though. Because it is going against the grain on HN. But, I am being respectful. We've created an atmosphere of fear. I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinions even after being anonymous on the internet. That's pretty fucked up.

Considering a Pennsylvania law maker made fake Twitter accounts to write "as a gay person", when you start saying you're a non PoC and conflating what happened with Timnit to "firing badly performing PoC"s you do not at all sound genuine. There is no way to prove you are actually PoC. And even if you did, it's incredibly unrelated to the matter at hand. No one has even claimed she was fired for bad performance and do…

That's an insane accusation. You can check my comment history perhaps that will reveal some aspects of it.

Also, I am kind of shocked you would accuse of me something like this. WTF. I am not trolling. I am asking a difficult question that needs to be discussed because no one is discussing it.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#42

Post by HarryHirsch » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

emerged wrote: post #36

HarryHirsch wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical ethics is a serious subject, and then there was Asilomar on the ethics of genetic engineering. Just because this AI ethicist isn't one, it doesn't follow the field is worthless.

I’m going to stand by my post even though AI ethics should be a genuine field. Call me cynical.

The Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA was a high-caliber event. The paper here, done at Google, a leading AI company isn't, and the ethics-washing on view here is deeply concerning.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#43

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #38

machinelabo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed it. I know its going to be downvoted though. Because it is going against the grain on HN. But, I am being respectful. We've created an atmosphere of fear. I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinions even after being anonymous on the internet. That's pretty fucked up.

Considering a Pennsylvania law maker made fake Twitter accounts to write "as a gay person", when you start saying you're a non PoC and conflating what happened with Timnit to "firing badly performing PoC"s you do not at all sound genuine. There is no way to prove you are actually PoC. And even if you did, it's incredibly unrelated to the matter at hand. No one has even claimed she was fired for bad performance and do…

[deleted]

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#44

Post by seraphsf » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #38

machinelabo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed it. I know its going to be downvoted though. Because it is going against the grain on HN. But, I am being respectful. We've created an atmosphere of fear. I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinions even after being anonymous on the internet. That's pretty fucked up.

Considering a Pennsylvania law maker made fake Twitter accounts to write "as a gay person", when you start saying you're a non PoC and conflating what happened with Timnit to "firing badly performing PoC"s you do not at all sound genuine. There is no way to prove you are actually PoC. And even if you did, it's incredibly unrelated to the matter at hand. No one has even claimed she was fired for bad performance and do…

She was fired after sending a mass email, to hundreds of colleagues, criticizing her employer in very strong terms. What company wouldn’t fire an exec who sends a “f* this place” email to the company mailing list?

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#45

Post by aaomidi » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:53 AM UTC

machinelabo wrote: post #41

aaomidi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering a Pennsylvania law maker made fake Twitter accounts to write "as a gay person", when you start saying you're a non PoC and conflating what happened with Timnit to "firing badly performing PoC"s you do not at all sound genuine. There is no way to prove you are actually PoC. And even if you did, it's incredibly unrelated to the matter at hand. No one has even claimed she was fired for bad performance and do…

That's an insane accusation. You can check my comment history perhaps that will reveal some aspects of it. Also, I am kind of shocked you would accuse of me something like this. WTF. I am not trolling. I am asking a difficult question that needs to be discussed because no one is discussing it.

It needs to be discussed? Why on this article then?

Why not make a new HN post and discuss this? How is that discussion point related to this article?

What part of this article or the events surrounding it suggested there is a fear of firing PoC?

There is absolutely no reason to bring this up on this article other than to derail the conversation into FUD.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#46

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:55 AM UTC

machinelabo wrote: post #24

I have a genuine question: If a person of color (I am myself non-white) is not performing, what does it take to fire them without the entire world playing the race card on you? Are we creating a society that makes it impossible to fire a person of color? You know there are bad apples in every race, right? How do we handle such scenarios? Seems unfair to me, myself being a person of color - I don't want the world to t…

It doesn’t matter because aggrieved employees with a compelling story will always have going public with real or imagined grievances as an option. The persons protected class is just another attribute — this is a story because the subjects are notable.

If a company is responsible in how they manage, follows policies, etc they are fine. If executives or others are allowed to misbehave and the company is too cheap to buy silence, things may not be fine.

What’s the real story here? I don’t see evidence of incompetence. But you can be fired for any legal reason in absence of a contract. Maybe there’s some unknown political or other issue. Maybe some conduct crossed a line. Who knows.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#47

Post by elefanten » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

aaomidi wrote: post #38

machinelabo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I removed it. I know its going to be downvoted though. Because it is going against the grain on HN. But, I am being respectful. We've created an atmosphere of fear. I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinions even after being anonymous on the internet. That's pretty fucked up.

Considering a Pennsylvania law maker made fake Twitter accounts to write "as a gay person", when you start saying you're a non PoC and conflating what happened with Timnit to "firing badly performing PoC"s you do not at all sound genuine. There is no way to prove you are actually PoC. And even if you did, it's incredibly unrelated to the matter at hand. No one has even claimed she was fired for bad performance and do…

You seem to have rigid ideas of what it's possible to experience, believe and be genuine about on the basis of the color of one's skins. Maybe that should be a signal to step back and rethink.

You also illustrate beautifully the vapidness of this fad notion of "concern trolling". Because they have not conformed with your view of the issues and used your preferred language, they can only be conceived of as trolling.

The other poster seems to be making a genuine effort to express their thoughts and edited their post to be less combative. Yet you can ONLY see them as being dishonest and disingenuous.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#48

Post by pvg » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

machinelabo wrote: post #32

csnover wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re going to be downvoted, not because of your questions, but because you decided to put “please bring the downvotes” at the end of your comment. Why would you undermine yourself by sticking such an antagonistic comment at the end of your post?

I removed it. I know its going to be downvoted though. Because it is going against the grain on HN. But, I am being respectful. We've created an atmosphere of fear. I don't feel comfortable voicing my opinions even after being anonymous on the internet. That's pretty fucked up.

Downvote goading, things like 'the entire world playing the race card on you' are basically trolling, they don't sound like asking a question in good faith. This particular case is also not about someone being fired for 'not performing' - nobody has claimed that. So if trolling is not your intent, you should edit it down to whatever it is you are actually asking.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#49

Post by hezag » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

I did not read the paper (just like most people here), but by the title — “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?” — it does not look like the CO2 emissions thing is the main topic of this research.

BTW, "Stochastic Parrots" is a very descriptive name for the problem

> Moreover, because the training datasets are so large, it’s hard to audit them to check for these embedded biases. “A methodology that relies on datasets too large to document is therefore inherently risky,” the researchers conclude. “While documentation allows for potential accountability, [...] undocumented training data perpetuates harm without recourse.”

Since these models are being applied in a lot of fields that directly affects the life of millions of people, this is a very important and underdiscussed problem.

I really want to read the paper.

Re: We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

#50

Post by ChrisArchitect » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 5:57 AM UTC

What was this article from technology review - yes it gave insight into the contents of the paper but then barely made any conclusion or added anything about what that meant to the situation other than the very end saying the obvious maybe this cuts into Google's 'cash cow'?

Bah