Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

Personally, I am shocked at how unrealistic and immature the demands of these activist employees are:

> The demands in the letter include the removal of a Google vice president, Megan Kacholia, from the team's management chain; for transparency surrounding Gebru's departure; and for Google's head of AI, Jeff Dean, and Kacholia to apologize for how Gebru was treated. It also calls for the company to offer Gebru a new, higher-level position, to commit publicly to the integrity of research conducted at Google, and to guarantee it won't harm any workers who advocated for Gebru.

I sincerely hope Google’s leaders don’t cave in and instead hold firm on their prior decision. Employee activism is highly toxic and distracting, especially when activists organize like a mob to prop up someone as toxic as Timnit Gebru. Anonymous forums like Reddit ML and Blind are full of stories from victims of her aggression/toxicity and yet the alliance of employee activists and tech journalists continue to make her out to be a victim of injustice.

This is the kind of thing the General Counsel gets out of bed for. Civil war.

Weird they don't say how many employees signed this letter. I guess saying ".02% of Googlers send letter" doesn't have quite the impact as an unstated number of employees.

Also interesting how they bring up diversity figures when talking about Timnit leaving, but not that these employees are trying to get Megan Kacholia fired or demoted...yes that's right - a Woman in a field composed mostly of Men(to borrow the article's rhetoric). Not only that, but a Woman with Children of Color.

It's an editorial style that some publications (including CNN) are adopting in service of racial sensitivity. CNN has mandated that all staff must capitalize both "Black" and "White" [1]:

> Both words denote a racial or ethnic identity and therefore should be upper case when referring to a person, community, culture, etc., in the same way CNN capitalizes other descriptors of race, ethnicity and shared identity, including African American, Native American, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, Asian American, African, and other terms

[1] https://www.thewrap.com/cnn-capitalize-black-white-race/

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