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We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

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

#61

Post by machinelabo »

pvg wrote: post #48
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.

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.

That's why I removed it. I am asking the questions in good faith. I want to know how the society will avoid having chilling effect of not being able to fire underperformers and making difficult choices when they need to be made.

If we cannot sit down and have a peaceful conversation, calling trolls and other non-sense, please don't divulge in this thread.

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

#62

Post by unishark »

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…

The common "nice" way to remove non-performers is a "Reduction in force", also known as "layoff" where they let multiple people go ritualistically, though I've seen it for as few as two people. Then they can argue it was about finances, not personal. They offer a decent severance that requires the employee to sign an agreement that requires, in part, they don't sue.

The word "fired" often is reserved for terminating someone for cause, where you really broke the rules and get no severance, not even the two weeks minimum that is customary. Non-performers usually aren't treated this way. I'm not sure this is really what happened in this story.

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

#63

Post by dragonwriter »

aaomidi wrote: post #30
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…

Yes because this happens everytime a PoC is fired. Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention.

> Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention.

No, they don't.

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

#64

Post by mlyle »

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…

Here we're talking about something different: suppressing the speech of a person of color raising some well-thought out arguments about racism that are problematic to the employer's core business.

Google has set up a research organization that ostensibly is empowered to ask and ultimately work to openly resolve difficult questions like these... but when the rubber hits the road, they instead throw the researcher under the bus.

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

#65

Post by actuator »

> It will also fail to capture the language and the norms of countries and peoples that have less access to the internet and thus a smaller linguistic footprint online. The result is that AI-generated language will be homogenized, reflecting the practices of the richest countries and communities.

It seems amusing to read this when the same person and her followers hounded Yann LeCun for pointing out the same thing with image models.

Anyway, this seems interesting. But I am not sure how you solve this. Do we take representative dataset according to population of a place? Also, assuming this is limited to a single language. How can AI generated language account for nuances from regional differences at the same time in a common model. Isn't what the author asking for here is kind of train, en_US, en_GB, en_IN separately here. For things like completion don't language models already account for this?

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

#66

Post by fastball »

hezag wrote: post #22
juanbyrge wrote: post #16

I was a little disappointed in the quality of this research. I can see where Google is coming from. Some of these topics seem regurgitated (e.g. bias in online text) and some are just irrelevant (CO2 emissions). Training language models does not contribute in any meaningful way to global CO2 emissions. Overall not a very strong paper in contrast to the other reactions I've been seeing online.

> I was little disappointed in the quality of this research But the research is not even published yet

Kinda the point though isn't it?

We're only reading a summary of the paper because apparently the authors aren't confident enough in its quality to release it publicly.

You can't claim that Google dismissed this paper out-of-hand while simultaneously saying "oh, but it's too much of a draft to release publicly". Uh, if it was too much of a draft for the public why shouldn't it be too drafty for Google? Are we really pretending that Google has lower standards of quality than the general public?

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

#67

Post by mike_d »

flipactual wrote: post #39
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…

> what does it take to fire them without the entire world playing the race card on you? A workplace that isn't hostile to people of color and evidence of the cause of dismissal

.

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

#68

Post by mlyle »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
aaomidi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because this happens everytime a PoC is fired. Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention.

> Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention. No, they don't.

I think you're agreeing with someone being sarcastic. But it is text, so one can't be sure.

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

#69

Post by aaomidi »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
aaomidi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because this happens everytime a PoC is fired. Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention.

> Every single PoC who is fired gets this media attention. No, they don't.

That was my point.

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

#70

Post by flipactual »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #52
flipactual wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what does it take to fire them without the entire world playing the race card on you? A workplace that isn't hostile to people of color and evidence of the cause of dismissal

Should companies publicly present their side of the story for every firing?

This seems an extreme solution to media investigation of a small number of people losing their jobs

Perhaps instead, in these situations, employers could provide, at the discretion of the dismissed, information gathered while performing due diligence leading up to the dismissal

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