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Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

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Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#101

Post by lm28469 »

kd913 wrote: post #79
morelisp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will try to shorten my first reply. > Why should I care and why is Google's dirty laundry here in the open? Because Google is big and powerful and how Google treats its workers matters to everyone in the software industry.

>Because Google is big and powerful and how Google treats its workers matters to everyone in the software industry. Nonsense, it affects the people at Google. If it affects everyone in the software industry, feel free to explain precisely how.

Because leaders are... leaders. Google doesn't exist in a vacuum, take crazy jobs interviews for example, it started in companies like Google and now even the smallest startup will make you go through Google like interviews.

Just the fact that we're all talking about it proves it's bigger than just internal affairs. If it was as clear cut as you seem to imagine nobody would talk about it

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#102

Post by zests »

sleepytimetea wrote: post #35

When I worked at Google, there was always this sinister edge to all corporate events and communications and their culture, in general. It was like that Star Trek episode - everything is paradise unless you commit a transgression. Any transgression, even minor, would result in your termination. In the Star Trek episode, it meant death, at Google, luckily, it just meant an involuntary "resignation".

Is there a large corporation that is not an enormous faceless entity resembling 'Big Brother'? All it takes is one person above you in the corporate ladder to not like you and you're done for. They could dislike you for any number of reasons including trivial aspects of your personality or a one off comment that got interpreted wrongly.

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#104

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

This whole question of resigned or fired seems like such a weird one. It's getting so much debate! I think everybody understands that she gave an ultimatum that included a "or else I will resign." I think everybody understands that Google responded with a "you are out as of now" that took her by surprise.

And yet there are a bazillion articles debating what verb best describes that pair of events. I get that there is legal relevance, and let the lawyers argue that one. But the rest of this seems to be a court of public opinion thing, in which case it should have no relevance given that everyone is agreed on the facts. Why do we care so much about the one-word linguistics of it? How about you just don't use a single verb alone, and instead spend the literally two sentences it takes to explain that part?

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#105

Post by okareaman »

bigbubba wrote: post #86
morelisp wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It ruined everyone's life including hers. Source? Last I heard the two men were hired elsewhere fairly quickly. Their names are also hardly ever associated with the story.

And she still has her health and family so it's not like her life was ruined ; talk about hyperbole!

At the time I remember quite clearly that everyone felt wrecked by this incident. I forgot that when you say someone's life is ruined, people translate that to mean ruined permanently. It's not like she got drunk and killed someone with her car.

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#106

Post by ilaksh »

It seemed like she was totally opposed to the basic concept of Google actually -- uses a huge amount of electricity, uses AI which is based on massive uncurated (biased) datasets, etc. Has a ton of white men working there and basically gives the equivalent of a "are you really a CS genius" bar exam to anyone who applies, so that even some developers with massive open source user-bases can't "qualify". Which makes affirmative action even harder in a field that is already very diversity-challenged. So to me it's amazing that she worked there for more than a week.

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#107

Post by lsiebert »

kd913 wrote: post #89
lsiebert wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you not care about Google censoring and firing one of the people who are supposed to keep it ethical?

No not really. Just as I probably wouldn't care if Boeing fired one of their plane testers or Rolls Royce for one of their engine testers. It's 1 employee out of 120k. There are probably other ethicists in AI at Google. Also the story seems to have devolved more specifically to employment rather than talking about the specific ethical issues relating to Google's language models.

https://gizmodo.com/more-than-1-500-google-employees-sign-pe...

I mean google employees including most of her coworkers seem to think it's problematic.

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#108

Post by barbacoa »

djeikyb wrote: post #58
KittenInABox wrote: post #14

Can I ask with the upmost politeness what is going on? I genuinely went into this considering that this was someone who is essentially decrying that normal work difficulties are sexism or racism. But I'm now finding that the procedure claimed actually essentially doesn't exist or if it did it was never enforced until now. What is going on? If this was an issue of the researcher unprofessionally airing her frustration…

Journalists got access to an early version of Gebru’s paper and reported on it: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a...

>>"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 nuances of this vocabulary and won’t produce or interpret language in line with these new cultural norms."

It's terrifying that these are the kind of views people in high places of major tech companies have. And that we are entrusting our tools of societal communication to those who see themselves as fighting in a culture war.

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#109

Post by kd913 »

lsiebert wrote: post #107
kd913 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No not really. Just as I probably wouldn't care if Boeing fired one of their plane testers or Rolls Royce for one of their engine testers. It's 1 employee out of 120k. There are probably other ethicists in AI at Google. Also the story seems to have devolved more specifically to employment rather than talking about the specific ethical issues relating to Google's language models.

https://gizmodo.com/more-than-1-500-google-employees-sign-pe... I mean google employees including most of her coworkers seem to think it's problematic.

Yes because the individual internally can see a better picture as to why the disagreement has occurred and why it's important. More importantly, the individuals within the company can influence the decision much better.

None of that is useful here which from an external perspective looks like a employment dispute. She isn't exactly doing a Snowden here.

Even if the individuals internally view it as problematic, I am not gonna stop using Android, Google or Youtube. What are these individuals expecting to achieve from airing the dirty laundry in public?

Are they expecting people's opinions to have changed at all about Google?

Re: Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

#110

Post by apta »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #81
apta wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it's a lesson for other companies to be very careful for hiring "woke" SJW's after seeing the chaos they're causing.

It sounds like the problem wasn’t the hiring, but rather the questions around the firing.

It definitely was the hiring when HR was targeting SJW's to show how "progressive" the company is. What those employees end up doing is causing tantrums and playing victim then suing their employers. Now that the employers are finding out how expensive and destructive those people are, they'll actively avoid hiring them.
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