We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google

Post by jka » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 12:27 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #17

nullc wrote: post #3

> A version of Google’s language model, BERT, which underpins the company’s search engine, produced 1,438 pounds of CO2 equivalent in Strubell’s estimate So... they're saying it used about $100 worth of electricity. [ https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11 ] [ https://www.statista.com/statistics/190680/us-industrial-con... ]

1438 pounds of CO2 is 250 liters of gasoline, or thereabouts, that's pumping gas five times. How long does a tank of gas last the average Google employee? Less than a week, considering what East Bay traffic looks like. People get paid to publish that stuff?

Post by lolc » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 12:28 PM UTC

silveroriole wrote: post #263

lsiebert wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was the technical co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, publishing papers like this was exactly what she was hired to do. Here's Google's Principles for Artificial Intelligence https://ai.google/principles/ From the second paragraph of item 6: "We will work with a range of stakeholders to promote thoughtful leadership in this area, drawing on scientifically rigorous and multidisciplinary approaches. And we will re…

If a megafarm hires you to write papers for the Ethical Milk Production team, any modicum of social awareness will tell you that they don’t actually want you to write a paper about the ethics of animal products.

Post by pseudalopex » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 12:29 PM UTC

throwaway74453 wrote: post #315

sillysaurusx wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your feelings are justified. I felt the same way as you two days ago. You might be interested to know that I’ve changed my mind. The reasons are documented here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25308233 Basically, every one of those arguments evaporates when you dig into the details. She was doing her job. The paper was anodyne and perhaps even boring. She was rightfully pissed off that some middle manager was t…

Re the existence of an internal review (tl;dr: it definitely does exist!): A Google employee here who's actually published research there. There definitely IS an internal review and an approval process and every single paper I have published while there had to go through it. Everyone I knew had to submit for an internal review well in advance and I personally couldn't even submit to a conference review once because w…

Post by CyberRabbi » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 12:30 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #289

CyberRabbi wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article states her paper focused on the dangers of large language models: “Environmental and financial costs,” “Massive data, inscrutable models,” and “Research opportunity costs.” The dangers of large language models is an interesting topic but it’s not AI research and it doesn’t advance the state of the art of AI. When it comes to technical substance in the field of AI, her paper is indeed lacking in that unles…

Her job was AI ethics.

Post by dash2 » Sat, Dec 05, 2020, 12:35 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #225

mschuster91 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The thing is: The language that people use is often enough offensive: racial slurs, sexism and other forms of discrimination, plus seemingly innocent "code words" like "globalist". AI developers should know about these proble…

I think your “social justice” cause(s) would be much better served if you didn’t make up problems where there are none (what’s the issue with “globalist”??) and didn’t project ill intent where there is none (the soap dispenser wasn’t “racist”, it was just “bad”). It’s just basic intellectual honesty, sorely missing in the SJW circles.