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More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

theguardian.com

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Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#171

Post by yulaow »

lostjohnny wrote: post #90
yulaow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In her group email she also asked other employees to stop working in any other related project. I mean, I don't see how google could NOT terminate her after such an event. I am in a nation with extremly strong worker protection law but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot.

> but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot. They are not as strong as you think then. In countries where there are strong work protections law striking is a right, you don't get paid for the time you don't show up at work but you can obviously convince an entire department or an entire company workforce to go on strike, without consequences. Without it the protection is not strong, it means an en…

As I said in another sibling post, you cannot strike that way. You have to follow procedures to organize a legit strike.

If I wrote an email like that not only my union would not protect me, they would most probably tell me the employer took the right decision because I put at risk other employees positions (if they followed my reccomandations to stop working just because I said it)

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#172

Post by neilv »

zartar wrote: post #26

I find the semi-regular condemnations from employees of big tech companies hollow. If you work for one of these companies and find their behavior unsavory, go work somewhere else - this is actually what might cause executives at these companies to reflect on how they might change course. The fact that most of these employees could easily get well paying (just not as _ridiculously well paying_) jobs elsewhere to me fe…

If you just saw someone get terminated at your employer, and you considered it unfair, wouldn't you fear that speaking up might get you disfavor, perhaps due to whatever element resulted in the earlier unfairness?

Personally, I've been a scaredy-cat about this. I actually didn't go to a different FAANG a couple years ago, partly because I anticipated a dilemma: the company had been in the news for some alleged unfairness, and I decided that I could easily imagine being there, and trapped between wanting to speak up on behalf of a fellow employee facing a similar unfairness in the future, and suspecting that I would be terminated if I did. Had I already been there (rather than merely anticipating the situation with a hypothetical) I don't know whether I'd speak up. (Personally, given past battle scars, I'd probably make quiet and delicate internal inquiries, trying to find a sympathetic person in a position to look into and correct or mitigate what seemed to be unfair, while being clear that I'm still a team player.)

So, I do think speaking up in a big-corporate environment, in the public manner these people have done, would tend to come with some personal risk in most companies. When people do it (perhaps) despite a perception of personal risk to themselves in doing so, we should pause and consider what they are saying.

Also, I don't blame people for not anticipating this situation to which they're objecting (based on the information available I've seen at this point). If the concern had instead been "I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to find the amassing of intimate personal information of Internet users going on here!", then I'd wonder how they couldn't have realized that before going to that company, but I don't think that's the concern.

I'm not taking a position on the concern itself, since the information I have so far is incomplete and complicated -- only suggesting that, when people are saying something at some personal risk, those people and what they're saying shouldn't be dismissed offhand.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#173

Post by ffghhhg »

gok wrote: post #120
paperdropper wrote: post #4

A draft copy of the disputed paper was posted over in Reddit, if this is of interest to anyone: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... https://gofile.io/d/WfcxoF

She wasn't fired over the paper. She was fired because she demanded Google name the employees who gave (anonymous) negative feedback about the paper, and that anyone going forward who gave feedback on her work also be named, or she'd quit.

I totally disagree with her sacking.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#174

Post by _y5hn »

tertius wrote: post #168
_y5hn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We haven't heard any arguments, only that management can do as they please when they don't like results of AI Ethics Research . We'll likely not get anything substantial, ever, either. As I've stated in other post, this is very, very troublesome for AI and Google. OTOH, Google has much emphasis on ethics in AI/ML otherwise. But the whole company, especially management, need to put actions in alignment with their word…

What is the strongest argument that you can come up with? Not that's been presented.

My strongest argument is AGAINST managers at Google getting to micromanage, censor and to revenge-fire a researcher, just because they personally disagree with their published AI Ethics Research. A job said researcher was tasked with and leading.

Such behaviour, unless corrected, undermines Google's entire AI/ML and cloud operations.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#175

Post by PunchTornado »

telltruth wrote: post #103
miked85 wrote: post #13

She gave her employer an ultimatum, threatening to quit if she didn't get her way. They called her bluff. I don't see how that is the same as being fired. At that point she was on her way out, one way or another; most employers would rather not work with people like this.

Initially I took Google's side given Gebru has history of bullying so aggressively and has no qualms to play race/gender cards at every opportunity she gets. But now that more details (including the paper in question) has been revealed, it's hard to stay on Google's side. It is clear that the peer review process that Jeff Dean had described has been optional for all intent and purpose. It says along similar lines tha…

What I do know is that you don't hire a PR team to make you look bad. You hire them to make you look good.

You don't hire an ethicist to make you look bad. You hire them to make you look good at what you do: diversity in AI. Gebru failed at her job.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#176

Post by jkestner »

_y5hn wrote: post #133
tertius wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She merely states that there are various risks associated with processing large datasets. What's the strongest argument against her "merely" doing this?

We haven't heard any arguments, only that management can do as they please when they don't like results of AI Ethics Research . We'll likely not get anything substantial, ever, either. As I've stated in other post, this is very, very troublesome for AI and Google. OTOH, Google has much emphasis on ethics in AI/ML otherwise. But the whole company, especially management, need to put actions in alignment with their word…

"No artificial neural network is near a point where we can talk about it having moral responsibility separate from its trainers’ and deployers’ – but we can make it sound like it does, and exonerate them, if we call it AI." https://twitter.com/shashashasha/status/1335067153402355714

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#177

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

true_religion wrote: post #137
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, Gebru wouldn't have been allowed into a union.

Is she really a manager? In factories the foreman was considered part of the Union rank and file. PMs and other developer leadership could be integrated into a union. Basically if you can be promoted up into a position it can be a union job. If you need a business degree to do it though then it’s non union.

I don't know exactly what her job responsibilities were, but it's not the case as a rule that any position you can be promoted to is a union job. Anyone who has independent authority to "hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or responsibly to direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action" is by law a supervisor, and they can't join an NLRA-protected union because supervisors aren't protected by the NLRA. As far as I know, all Google managers have the power to assign, reward, and discipline their reports.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#178

Post by [deleted] »

neilv wrote: post #172
zartar wrote: post #26

I find the semi-regular condemnations from employees of big tech companies hollow. If you work for one of these companies and find their behavior unsavory, go work somewhere else - this is actually what might cause executives at these companies to reflect on how they might change course. The fact that most of these employees could easily get well paying (just not as _ridiculously well paying_) jobs elsewhere to me fe…

If you just saw someone get terminated at your employer, and you considered it unfair, wouldn't you fear that speaking up might get you disfavor, perhaps due to whatever element resulted in the earlier unfairness? Personally, I've been a scaredy-cat about this. I actually didn't go to a different FAANG a couple years ago, partly because I anticipated a dilemma: the company had been in the news for some alleged unfair…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#179

Post by civilized »

According to a seemingly credible account from a former employee, Timnit terrorized a Google Brain manuscript discussion forum with unfounded accusations of racist disregard for her contributions https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/com...

The thread is filled with agreeing comments from many people who seem to be ex-Google and who had access to the relevant thread.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#180

Post by Aunche »

paperdropper wrote: post #4

A draft copy of the disputed paper was posted over in Reddit, if this is of interest to anyone: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... https://gofile.io/d/WfcxoF

> As shown in the amount of compute used to train deep learning models has increased 300,000x in 6 years, increasing at a far higher pace than Moore’s Law which posits that the amount of computation that can be done per unit area would roughly double every two years. This means that power consumption per unit area is not staying constant as implied by Moore’s Law [108].

IIRC Moore's law doesn't make any predictions about power consumption at all, let alone ones meriting being cited in a scientific paper.

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