321–330 of 460 posts
They should hire Pedro Domingos to clean house and rebuild the group. This talk by him on AI ethics has a lot of maturity and insight on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRL4xtmXE4
Pedro Domingos has the same childish mentality as the worst people he attacks. Petro is "Twitter trash".
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Ethics is a large subject, people can be interested in certain branches and not others. I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices'
> I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices' That is interesting. I wonder if it indicates something about the demographics of HN.
More seriously, it probably does indicate something about the political sentiment of users of HN who comment, which may indirectly indicate something about demographics. A direct link is tenuous.
I find it sad that a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID. Ironically, the self identified "anti-SJW" are cancelling her by complaining about her "toxicity" and "attempts to cancel people" in vague terms. I also find it sad that apparently, freedom of speech and free actions end when it comes to criticizing your employer in public, sho…
> a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID
I didn't feel the need to add a ton of details because it all seemed quite clear. I mean, in this case, all the information I got about what the ethical AI team demanded comes from the posted article. My previous comments about this were all taken from Gebru's public tweets and information in the primary posts. I didn't feel a need to rehash what she actually DID because it was all posted, multiple times, in public forums, and my assumption (perhaps incorrect) was that other people were similarly up-to-date on the controversy.
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No, they are expression of the fact that employees are employed and paid by the company to work for the company. You can agitate against companies all you want, it's a free country. But you can't expect to be paid by them while you do it. Not sure what "morality" has to do with it. EDIT (Since parent added the bit about boards): No, having employee representatives on the board changes nothing about this. The board is…
> the fact that employees are employed and paid by the company to work for the company. The view that the company is separate from the employees and they don't get a say in its direction is a construct of many years of political action. It's not some natural law; it's a political result reached through activism. Anyone is free to try and get a different result, and each side will judge how much power they have in thi…
It is the way companies are currently constructed, pretty much everywhere. Even when you have strong employee representation, in which case that influence is via the employee representatives on the board, not via employees just doing whatever the hell they want.
Once again, if you want to agitate against the company, you are free to do this. Just don't expect the company to employe you.
> But the board also decides what working for the benefit of the company means.
Not without limits. Boards are answerable to shareholders, and may be held liable if they act against the interests of shareholders. But even then it is the board that decides this, not random employee X. As an employee, you are in a chain of command (tends to also be in your contract, which you entered into voluntarily). And once again, you are free to not abide by that contract, but don't expect to be employed by that company.
Basically, what you are talking about are vastly hypothetical constructs that have little to do with how companies actually work.
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The division is metaphysical / epistemological / narrative / tribal / ideological / religious etc. Way deeper than who is right in this Gebru vs Google debacle or the specifics of this one paper. These debates go nowhere because both sides see the other as toxic and a threat and don't agree on basic terms, the basic view of who is in power, who needs to fear for their jobs for dissent etc. "but here Gebru was fired,…
This is true, but perspective is very important. For me realizing that I'm not actually living in a democracy was what gave me an entirely new perspective on how the world works. It took me almost 30 years to realize this, so I know it's not really obvious given how we've been taught to think. That's why I try to spread this message when it fits with the topic. And I feel so many problems have this issue at their cor…
As an employee you get money for using your skills in the way they ask you, like you ask the waiter to bring you the food you picked, not something he rather wants to bring you.
As an employee you are not part of a self-governed community. In a democratic state its the opposite. People pay taxes into a common pool and then (ideally) have a seat at the table to decide how to use it. See how the money goes in opposite direction? You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee!
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As a German who has tested the labor laws himself: behaviour such as that displayed would absolutely be grounds for getting fired without the notice period ("fristlose Kündigung") here. And it's actually pretty hard to legally fire people. The reason is "Verlust des Vertrauensverhältnisses", i.e. loss of trust. You start making demands coupled with threats, and public ones at that, you are no longer an employee.
Where did she make demand coupled with threats? In her own words, she announced that she'd like to discuss an end date for her employment if she wouldn't be given the chance to fix the paper up for publication. This would very much fly in Germany. Her other email to the public list telling people to stop doing what they are doing might not, but then in Germany you'd have the Betriebsrat and the union stepping in and…
A: >she announced that she'd like to discuss an end date for her employment [editor: threat] if she wouldn't be given the chance to fix the paper up for publication [editor: demand].
"I you don't do as I want, I will leave." "Fine, you can leave".
I can't imagine any company that would, or could, react in any other way in this situation.
The Betriebsrat would have absolutely nothing to do here, as the company is just complying with her request. And yeah, once you "discuss an end date for your employment", a "Freistellung" is a completely normal event.
Now in Germany that would result in payment continuing until the official end date. In the US things are different, but I don't have any information that this didn't happen (she just moaned about access to company systems, and that is normal in a "Freistellung").
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A black woman? How is she black?
> A black woman? How is she black? She's not “black” nor was that claimed; she’s “Black”. The first is a common adjective that never really applies to humans except very loosely, the second is a racial identity group formed by and defined largely through oppression by European and (in US usage; usage and identity elsewhere has evolved through different local forces and experiences) later European-descended American b…
You must be deep inside some cultural bubble not to see how hilarious this sounds.
One thing I've wondered: what is the purpose of Google's ethical AI group? What utility does it provide to the corporation? I suspect the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ (or less kindly, corporate propaganda) - to help mitigate damage to Google's brands and reputation by public concern surrounding artificial intelligence. It is well understood that it can be difficult to get someo…
Doesn't the obvious, honest answer make the most sense? Someone in Google management doesn't want their products acting unethically - merely because it is unethical?
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This is true, but perspective is very important. For me realizing that I'm not actually living in a democracy was what gave me an entirely new perspective on how the world works. It took me almost 30 years to realize this, so I know it's not really obvious given how we've been taught to think. That's why I try to spread this message when it fits with the topic. And I feel so many problems have this issue at their cor…
Do you want to give your plumber an equal seat at the table when deciding how to organize the bathroom? Or to the painters of your walls regarding the color? As an employee you get money for using your skills in the way they ask you, like you ask the waiter to bring you the food you picked, not something he rather wants to bring you. As an employee you are not part of a self-governed community. In a democratic state…
That's not the point. I want to give the plumber the choice to decide in matters that regard him in the company he is part of. Like what fees to ask to customers, how to distribute and eventually reinvest the profit, etc. If the plumber is an independent contractor he already has these possibilities.
> You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee!
The membership fee you pay to your employer is the surplus value you generate.
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I don't disagree with you. I was at an adtech startup, and I had bright lines — no payday loans or for-profit education. Luckily we never needed to blur or cross those lines, but as our business evolved, the way I delivered my — and my colleagues delivered their— preferences was not through laying down ultimatums but by having conversations. Some people seem intent on creating drama and casting things not as their pr…
Maybe, but I don't know enough details or background about this situation to debate over its nuances. I'm just criticising the views I see expressed here, that are bizarre even from a capitalistic perspective, that a corporation may do anything legal and will be judged by the market, while employees doing the same -- whether it's smart or not -- is crossing some line.
That accepted conditional resignation (as someone mellifluously put it in an earlier HN discussion) is being interpreted by some as a firing. Having read the original letter, it sure sounded like a conditional resignation to me and, as a manager, I would've done my best to get the writer of the letter out the door ASAP.
Keep in mind that as an IC, I once worked for a company that imposed a 10% across the board pay cut without consulting me. I resigned the day it was announced, because my compensation is a term of employment mutually agreed to by my employer and myself, not something imposed upon me. So I've been on both sides of this.
As a general life rule, I go nuclear on people who play hardball with me, whether I am the manager or the managed.