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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

#141

Post by thorough »

ardit33 wrote: post #125

Ok, so basically she is a bullshit social engineer, masquerading as an 'AI ethics researcher' "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental i…

I sincerely think that your CEOs of large companies are much less powerful than one would naturally think. They have money and power, but much of it is based on a group of people sympathetic to some pretty extreme views approving of you.

We call it “FU money,” but these guys aren’t satisfied with being able to say “FU” and still live comfortably; they want to be in charge of things that are seen as significant.

I believe it will always take more than money to get thousands of largely independent adults to do what you want.

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

#143

Post by ardit33 »

uname_i wrote: post #134
ardit33 wrote: post #125

Ok, so basically she is a bullshit social engineer, masquerading as an 'AI ethics researcher' "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental i…

Ardit, only a Simpleton would characterize social science as BS. Maybe take that naval podcast with a grain of salt and think for yourself.

hmm... not sure what you are talking about, but you are an anonymous person, with no history... retorting to bullying and name calling... not sure how you are contributing to the conversation.

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

#144

Post by threatofrain »

0-_-0 wrote: post #135

"...is known for coauthoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color, which means its use can end up discriminating against them" Wait, isn't that the other way around? If it can't recognize people of some category then it can't be used to discriminate against them, e.g. the police can't use it to identify peaceful protesters with those charac…

When police error in identification can mean getting shot, black people deserve to be identified as accurately as individuals of any other race.

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

#145

Post by CyberRabbi »

ardit33 wrote: post #140
CyberRabbi wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it seems like her paper was light in technical substance and high in social justice activism. Pointing out that google emits carbon is worth consideration in the appropriate venues but it doesn’t really advance the state of the art.

You have to point the alternative costs though.... if non AI trained search, returned worse results, would that waste more energy? She didn't... which are the hallmark of bad research.

Yes I agree. A substantive analysis of carbon emission should look at multiple countries, multiple industries, multiple companies, and all the outputs from those companies to give a good picture of what types of outputs are the most inefficient w.r.t. carbon emission.

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

#146

Post by amf12 »

alangibson wrote: post #124

> I understand the concern over Timnit’s resignation from Google - Jeff Dean That's just outright false. She was terminated, effective immediately. Does anyone else find themselves losing a lot of respect for Jeff Dean in all this?

> That's just outright false. She was terminated, effective immediately.

Without taking sides (I don't know the full story to understand who is objectively in the wrong here), that's not completely true.

She basically gave an ultimatum - meet my demands or I can work on a last date.[1] It is quite common at big tech that once you resign - officially or unofficially - you could be asked to leave effective immediately. Usually happens when you work in critical areas or moving to a competitor or a disgruntled employee.

Could this have been better handled? Maybe, but no matter who was in the right or wrong, she wasn't technically fired.

[1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334343577044979712

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

#147

Post by TomSwirly »

ardit33 wrote: post #125

Ok, so basically she is a bullshit social engineer, masquerading as an 'AI ethics researcher' "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental i…

> Has she calculated the oposite alternatives? People driving to libraries, to search for something?

What has this got to do with anything? How is driving to a library the "oposite" of AI?

We had very effective search engines for decades before AI.

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

#148

Post by jskajakzkjx »

ardit33 wrote: post #125

Ok, so basically she is a bullshit social engineer, masquerading as an 'AI ethics researcher' "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental i…

I think you’re making a weaker version of this argument than you need to, because you’re framing it in terms that oppose the politics of half of the public, when you really only need to argue against a much more specific set of ideas.

For example:

> Ok, basically she is pissed as AI is picking normal language, that people use, and not using the vocabulary that is in vogue on certain political circles. Basically censure, and forced speech.

I think a stronger version of this argument, which can appeal more broadly, would be: an automated system that is constantly being trained on data from social media can more quickly pick up new trends in human speech than a manually-programmed expert system. Furthermore, even if humans are constantly updating an expert system, the biases inherent in the composition of the company-hired set of experts will limit the representation of minority trends in the data. On the other hand, a model examining the entire data set can pick these up automatically. For example, I can easily get AI Dungeon (powered by GPT-3) to communicate using language and concepts that are only present in a minority community that I’m part of that I’ve rarely seen represented in literature.

When arguing against Timnit Gebru or their ilk, you don’t need to just give them the support of liberals. We actually make up the majority of techies, so it’s a bad position to put yourself in if you want your cause to succeed.

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

#149

Post by frobozz »

0-_-0 wrote: post #135

"...is known for coauthoring a groundbreaking paper that showed facial recognition to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color, which means its use can end up discriminating against them" Wait, isn't that the other way around? If it can't recognize people of some category then it can't be used to discriminate against them, e.g. the police can't use it to identify peaceful protesters with those charac…

If face detection defines them as not a person, then things that rely on there being a person in the field of vision will not work for them. (Like the racist soap dispenser that went viral a few years ago)

If face recognition makes the old racist "they all look the same to me" declaration, then peaceful protestors get arrested for looking like criminals.

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

#150

Post by gundmc »

rayiner wrote: post #26

> An AI model taught to view racist language as normal is obviously bad. The researchers, though, point out a couple of more subtle problems. One is that shifts in language play an important role in social change; the MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, for example, have tried to establish a new anti-sexist and anti-racist vocabulary. An AI model trained on vast swaths of the internet won’t be attuned to the nuan…

> Take for example a term like “LatinX.” This term has been proposed and is used by certain people, but is extremely unfamiliar and often alienating to Latinos themselves: https://www.vox.com/2020/11/5/21548677/trump-hispanic-vote-l... (“[O]nly 3 percent of US Hispanics actually use it themselves.... The message of the term, however, is that the entire grammatical system of the Spanish language is problematic, which in any other context progressives would recognize as an alienating and insensitive message.”).

For example, here is Hispanic Congressman (D) Ruben Gallego on the subject: https://twitter.com/rubengallego/status/1324071039085670401?...

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