Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 179 posts

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

#111

Post by ffggvv »

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…

google hired someone solely for their physical characteristics and then got shocked when they used their identity against google and bit the hand that feeds.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] »

SullyGoober wrote: post #66
ciarannolan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel strongly that it was one particular option that you listed, but I think this is a fair assessment. Wonder why it's being downvoted (maybe I'm missing something from this story too).

This is a very charged subject, akin to a political discussion. I am not surprised if it gets more downvotes. That is why I made an anonymous account. Pick the "wrong" side and now all your opinions are suspect.

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by bigbubba »

okareaman wrote: post #105
bigbubba wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, I agree that your characterization of the situation is fair. If I went through what they went through, I think I would find it fairly traumatic.

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

#115

Post by wombatpm »

Google is not a Academia. There is no tenure or intellectual freedom protections. Poke the bear often enough or make a nuisance of yourself you will be shown the door. The only ones who get to stay around and be a thorn in the side of management are board members who control a chunk of voting stock.

Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Seems like there should be a corollary for companies and difficult employees. Like public complaints that jump the chain of command from replaceable employees usually result in employee being replaced.

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

#116

Post by pseudalopex »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #50
zorpner wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you'll find from a legal standpoint, it does. In fact, it specifically does not: https://cuiab.ca.gov/board/precedentdecisions/docs/pb39.pdf

That’s about whether pay is owed. I’m certain that Google did not simply stop paying her checks, but told her to go home and that the remainder of her employment would be paid out. I suspect that’s enough for the law to agree that she was terminated voluntarily.

You can't be certain unless you handle payroll for Google.

A manager told it was effective immediately and mentioned her final paycheck.

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

#117

Post by uh_uh »

Even if she didn't resign (which is questionable, because she did send an ultimatum), is it wrong for Google to fire a person who writes stuff like this?

> I’m always amazed at how people can continue to do thing after thing like this and then turn around and ask me for some sort of extra DEI work or input. This happened to me last year. I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which Kat Herller and I hired feminist lawyers who threatened to sue Google (which is when they backed off--before that Google lawyers were prepared to throw us under the bus and our leaders were following as instructed) and the next day I get some random “impact award.” Pure gaslighting.

This excerpt is from the email that according to her triggered the firing. This person threatened her employer with a lawsuit in the past and now people are outraged that she got "abrubtly fired". Arguably, the way Google treated her was even too lenient: many companies would have fired her at the time her original threat was made.

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

#118

Post by bigbubba »

Reedx wrote: post #77
actuator wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FB gets criticized a lot in HN but Twitter isn't. IMO Twitter is absolutely the worst platform for things like these because of the prevalent mob culture. It is very easy to organise people using your influence and they can easily hound out any dissenting opinion. I will have to search for them now but I saw people doxxing some of the current Googler's identities if they agreed with the resignation. This is extremely…

That's because Twitter is the platform of journalists.

Facebook radicalized weird uncles, but twitter radicalized journalists.

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

#119

Post by xadhominemx »

apta wrote: post #68
kd913 wrote: post #12

It disturbs me how much of a news story this is. This should be handled internally and not aired in public across several media sites. Why should I care about the dirty laundry of FAANG and some random individual?

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

Much of what was regarded as “woke SJW nonsense” 15 years ago is now completely mainstream. I’m sure even you — who clearly has some preoccupation with progressive social thought as you post on about “SJWs” multiple times per day on average — have some beliefs that would have been considered insufferably woke and obnoxious by people like you in 2003.

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

#120

Post by kd913 »

lm28469 wrote: post #101
kd913 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

Google is a leader in several areas. She isn't.

This could happen at any other company and the outcome would be the same.

The fact that she was fired does not make this news worthy.

The disagreement is the interesting aspect, but that doesn't seem to be the focus of the article.

Post reply on HN