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Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

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Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#81

Post by dekhn »

ergocoder wrote: post #66
totorovirus wrote: post #23

Anyone getting tired of those toxic PC enthusiasts who stirs a fight in a team accusing its leadership for being incorrect on sensitive issues? I don't know if Gebru actually qualifies aside the matters of ethical AI. In my experience those people who work in engineering who sidewalks into some non-engineering matters often lack skills to compete where most do, and decided to leverage their incompetency with some oth…

She is likely fired for her toxicity. Looking at this Twitter thread between her and Jeff Dean 6 months ago: https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360 ... She was being toxic toward Jeff Dean, who is her manager's manager. I looked at that tweet, and yikes. I'll never do that to my colleagues.

I personally think it was this tweet that sealed her fate at Google. Calling out your leadership unecessarily with a tweet about white supremacy is just insane.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#82

Post by thu2111 »

dekhn wrote: post #79
totorovirus wrote: post #23

Anyone getting tired of those toxic PC enthusiasts who stirs a fight in a team accusing its leadership for being incorrect on sensitive issues? I don't know if Gebru actually qualifies aside the matters of ethical AI. In my experience those people who work in engineering who sidewalks into some non-engineering matters often lack skills to compete where most do, and decided to leverage their incompetency with some oth…

She is eminently qualified to do ML research, and established an excellent position in ethical ML. I don't think this is a fair criticism of her abilities.

What AI research has she done that isn't related to "ethics"? She doesn't seem to have any track record for creating new algorithms, for example.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#83

Post by dekhn »

egberts1 wrote: post #73

Tad bit late Mr. CEO of Google; it would makes most sense to fire HR and restore that position back to her.

I think the outcome of the investigation will be that Megan jumped the gun when she prematurely terminated Timnit, and Google will pay Timnit a bunch of money in a private settlement. It's unlikely Megan will see any real punishment for it, though- she's a favorite of Jeff's and is well-protected by HR.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#84

Post by thu2111 »

pseingatl wrote: post #59
academicthrow wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've been in academia for awhile you've seen this happen time and time again. Student does excellently in undergrad, masters, phd coursework* but when it comes to making real technical contributions, they hit a wall. It was a clever move by her to use her pedigree to pivot into "AI ethics" where the standards for publishing are much lower (as we can see from this draft that was circulated). *Given her background…

This is an outrageous racist statement in itself. The idea that she reached her position because of AA is unbelievable. Getting into Google isn't easy, and the company doesn't give a rat's ass about diversity, HR statements and pablum notwithstanding. If any company has a reputation for hiring only talented people, it's Google. She got her position based on merit, like the overwhelming majority of Google employees.

The existence of affirmative action is not in any doubt, and it's not racist to suppose that some people benefit from it, given that's the entire purpose it exists for.

the company doesn't give a rat's ass about diversity

I have no idea how anyone could think that. It's famous for being obsessed with diversity to the extent that they publicly fired, slandered and screwed over a guy who wrote an essay saying maybe the company is approaching diversity the wrong way. This is a company in which managers have apologised for using the word "family" because it's supposedly offensive to LBGT people, in which they organise competitions which ban men (see Code Jam for Women), in which they fund female-only scholarships, which literally has a website called https://diversity.google/, which puts "Google is committed to advancing racial equity for Black communities" at the top of its developer documentation, which labels businesses in Google Maps if they're women or black owned and a million other things that show this is a topic they think about all the time.

As for merit, you're about a decade behind the times. Google was relaxing hiring standards for women in particular a long time ago. For example they could fail phone screens and be advanced to the next stages anyway, whereas men would just be dropped at that point. You can't be so strongly pro-diversity and not have that problem because ultimately the only way to seriously improve in your self-chosen metrics is to hire 'diverse' people aggressively.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#85

Post by dekhn »

busterarm wrote: post #38
6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t believe anyone has claimed she said “I will resign on date XXX.” The wording I think she and Dean have said she used was “or I will work on a last date” or something. As in “or I’ll work on figuring out what my last date at google will be.”

That's a commitment to resign. Many large companies have a policy of walking out a resigned employee immediately.

That's not SOP at Google except in very limited circumstances. When I resigned, I told my manager and we negotiated an exit date 2 weeks after. I volunteered to give up my laptop early etc and not come into the office, but they really wanted me to finish up. People who steal or leak, however, could be terminated immediately and walked out by security. I guess also if you worked on a competitive product and changed to a competitor, they'd walk you out, too.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#86

Post by dekhn »

krageon wrote: post #72
bra-ket wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refer to the so-called SJWs ("social justice warriors"), some of them work or worked at Google like Gebru and her most vocal supporters. Others organized BLM protests for various fake causes during the summer. It's a new activism fad they primarily use to draw attention to themselves. Not a single one of these people care about objectivity nor reason. They're the religious of the new age. It's disgusting to watch r…

You've displayed multiple dogwhistles for extreme-right thinking. That doesn't mean you necessarily are, but you may want to modulate the kind of people you associate with or you might become what they are.

How did you get to extreme-right? They are talking in centrist terms.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#87

Post by dekhn »

thu2111 wrote: post #82
dekhn wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She is eminently qualified to do ML research, and established an excellent position in ethical ML. I don't think this is a fair criticism of her abilities.

What AI research has she done that isn't related to "ethics"? She doesn't seem to have any track record for creating new algorithms, for example.

she worked on object detection with Fei Fei during her PhD. Folks who took classes where she TA'd said she was technically competent.

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#89

Post by seles »

Analemma_ wrote: post #11
hpoe wrote: post #10

It seems to me like we have two different people arguing about 2 (maybe 3) completely different things when it comes to this Gebru situation. 1 - Google fired Gebru for trying to push a paper that presented google in a negative light. Doing so by creating special magic policies for her and then telling her she was fired. The concern in this case appears to be the fact that Google is suppressing criticism and ignoring…

I think the synthesis of both of these narratives goes like this: Google had been wanting to get rid of Gebru for a while, for both good reasons (based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her) and bad (retaliation against the lawsuit she filed last year, which is both unlawful and incredibly unethical). They picked this pape…

I couldn't find any reference to the lawsuit last year, could you provide some more information / link about it?

Re: Google CEO pledges to investigate exit of top AI ethicist

#90

Post by [deleted] »

krageon wrote: post #72
bra-ket wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I refer to the so-called SJWs ("social justice warriors"), some of them work or worked at Google like Gebru and her most vocal supporters. Others organized BLM protests for various fake causes during the summer. It's a new activism fad they primarily use to draw attention to themselves. Not a single one of these people care about objectivity nor reason. They're the religious of the new age. It's disgusting to watch r…

You've displayed multiple dogwhistles for extreme-right thinking. That doesn't mean you necessarily are, but you may want to modulate the kind of people you associate with or you might become what they are.

[deleted]
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