Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research • Hacker News Board

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#291

Post by Veedrac » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 1:19 AM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #192

Veedrac wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the ideas with their presentation. Google never allowed someone to post a paper under their name saying ‘datacentres generate CO₂, that's evil and we should focus on smaller datacentres’, but that doesn't mean they didn't care about CO₂ production; clearly they did, since they're now carbon negative. Same thing here. The researchers' jobs aren't to publically deface Google, they're to help direct Goo…

I agree that Google may have been interested in hiring these researchers to help "direct Google down the right path". That seems reasonable to me. I'm not seeing where I confuse "the ideas with their presentation" or where anyone talked about researchers "publicly defacing Google". The Reuters article is talking about ML and AI researchers who are now (recently) finding their research subject to a new review policy,…

Google always had internal review processes. If your argument is not that the new review process is unreasonable, just that people were hired under the expectation that there would be none, then I get where you're coming from but it doesn't sound very likely to me.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#292

Post by webmaven » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 1:32 AM UTC

cmiles74 wrote: post #212

googlethrow3134 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The policy existed, management just assumed that they would implicitly understand that they shouldn’t work on research that will knee-cap Google. Of course, they also hired unhinged woke employees so it’s no surprised they’re reaping the seeds they sowed

The Reuters article says exactly the opposite. If you have documentation that this policy has been in place but ignored, I think that would have a big impact on this unfolding story, it definitely strike me as newsworthy. The Reuters article clearly refers to this as a new change in policy and procedure. "Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before…

To be clear, there was a review policy prior to the new one, but it's focus was rather different, the primary concern was on not revealing proprietary information. Which is a fairly reasonable restriction, though I would be interested to know what, if any, papers were asked to be withdrawn or retracted under the old policy.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#293

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

daniel957 wrote: post #280

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You appear to be mistaken on nearly all the facts about the Gebru situation. Given this it seems clear we would draw very different conclusions. Anyone claiming Jeff Dean lied must be so disconnected from the actual facts and so prejudiced to blame Google and view Gebru’s actions as acceptable that their opinion amounts to nothing but partisan gainsaying. To be clear, it’s ok to disagree with Jeff Dean or to dispute…

Yes, he literally lied by omission. Internally, there’s an entire data analysis available for viewing. We have literally asked senior leadership why his email does not align with facts and we have not gotten a response. Internally, you can also read the exact feedback that Timnit’s paper received. Like I said, I’m assuming you don’t work at Google because even if you didn’t like Timnit and just think she’s a whiny re…

[deleted]

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#294

Post by jariel » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 2:47 AM UTC

orange_tee wrote: post #182

cmiles74 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps researchers who accepted these positions with Google were naive. That is certainly possible but it can't be argued: Google hired these people under the pretense of letting them do their research free of censorship and, now that they work for Google, this censorship is being imposed. I'm not sure what the rest of this comment is alluding to... The posted article from Reuters doesn't mention race and gender, th…

Here is my theory: these researchers were not naive and they knew the deal, they could work on their research as long as the topics were not too sensitive and as long as the results did now harm Google's image too badly. So what likely happened (imho) was either a miscommunication, or they got results they did not expect. Either they did not realize which topics are too sensitive to touch, or they believed they'd get…

They probably felt that they had 'scholastic freedom' and they generally do.

But if your job is 'AI Research' and you publish a piece about how much electricity Google uses to 'train models' ... well, you can expect scrutiny.

In this case, the researcher was simply asked to hold the paper until more information was included about the fact that Google has actually improved certain paramaters quite a lot since the time the data was referenced in the report.

This is extremely fair from Google.

If the research was purely concerning some AI results, even how they could be unjust - fine. But as soon as your research specifically includes the sponsor, then it's perfectly fair for the sponsor to add more information.

It's not censorship, in that case, it's frankly the opposite.

The 'miscommunication' here is a kind of naive thinking by researchers who probably have never had normal jobs, who have never worn a 'company hat' and may not have any internalized understanding for communications.

For many researchers - money comes from magical taxpayer funds, and the 'Uni Model' is the only model they understand and some might think that's how the world ought to be.

If Google was giving people cancer due to the tar in their products, the researchers were discovering this - and Google was trying to suppress this, then you'd have a serious problem.

This is not Marlborough/Cargill/Exxon, it's Google and it's an entirely different situation.

The 'hammers' used by the social justice fronts from the 1960s just don't work anymore, because we have made progress and nothing is obvious.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#295

Post by webmaven » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

Veedrac wrote: post #291

cmiles74 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Google may have been interested in hiring these researchers to help "direct Google down the right path". That seems reasonable to me. I'm not seeing where I confuse "the ideas with their presentation" or where anyone talked about researchers "publicly defacing Google". The Reuters article is talking about ML and AI researchers who are now (recently) finding their research subject to a new review policy,…

Google always had internal review processes. If your argument is not that the new review process is unreasonable, just that people were hired under the expectation that there would be none, then I get where you're coming from but it doesn't sound very likely to me.

> Google always had internal review processes. If your argument is not that the new review process is unreasonable, just that people were hired under the expectation that there would be none, then I get where you're coming from but it doesn't sound very likely to me.

Here is my steelman position: I think the objection is that the old internal review was reasonable, and while the argument can be made that the new one does not seem unreasonable to many people under the principle of "don't bite the hand that feeds you", it's reasonableness in a faux-academic setting is at least debatable, and in any case it is inarguable that the new one is more restrictive than the one that was in place when these researchers were hired.

So, at the very least, this seems like a unilateral bait-and-switch on Google's part. The company is now reneging on the representations made to prospective employees regarding their academic freedom.

"I have altered the deal; pray I do not alter it any further.": https://youtu.be/WpE_xMRiCLE

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#296

Post by Closi » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 12:28 PM UTC

LoSboccacc wrote: post #63

Closi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think journalists get stories like this if not from insider sources?

journalist should at the very least receive, see and validate documents veridicity. here it's "internal correspondence read to Reuters." from a highly politicized topic with a lot of disinformation being thrown around from both side, it's hardly sufficient. but apparently you all happy enough to live in a post factual society where journalist have no longer to validate sources' claims, so be it

Lol, this is how journalism has been done for decades - There is nothing 'post factual' about it.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#297

Post by csharptwdec19 » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

Grazester wrote: post #86

bitcharmer wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Google removed "Don't be evil" as their slogan quite some time ago. Don't think that was by an error.

Am I the only one that gets tied of the "Don't be evil" post each time a Google related post is made? It's like beating a dead horse.

Maybe because the horse is still sitting there dead? :)

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#298

Post by bagacrap » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #46

I deal with this on a regular basis in the research world, there is what is a really toxic and dangerous bias towards constructing the positive, i.e., making things seem, appear, and even fabricate outcomes that will be affirming of desired outcomes or other group biases. It is not research, let alone science when you are striking a positive tone, it’s fraud.

bit of slippery cliff you've tripped over there. From "strike a positive tone" to "fabricate outcomes" (data?). The latter is clearly fraud, and qualitatively different from the Google manager's suggestion.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#299

Post by dekhn » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #246

jchallis wrote: post #146

Every specialty has taboos and learning what they are and how to avoid them is part of being successful with the job. As a physics graduate student I made an impassioned case to a high energy researcher that the money spent on high energy research was low yield and should be pushed to the biological sciences ... suffice it to say he did not take my points on their merits. Upton Sinclair’s famous “ It is difficult to…

How did you know, as a graduate student no less, that research money spent on high energy research was low yield compared to the biological sciences? I think that's a pretty bold and naive statement to make. For example, research on quantum-mechanical light-matter interaction was considered not very practically relevant in the 80s and 90s. In the 2000s the results were picked up by the superconducting qubit research…

The difference is that some of the biological research money ends up going to discoveries that dramatically improve the human condition, while quantum computers don't have any path to doing so yet (while conventional computers solve most of the important problems we have today).

Even biology has a pretty low dollar-to-discovery rate, though.

Re: Google told its scientists to ‘strike a positive tone’ in AI research

#300

Post by zests » Thu, Dec 24, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

Barrin92 wrote: post #263

zests wrote: post #190

$COMPANY is a private company and they can censor however they see fit. If you do not like it, you can start your own company and do it your own way. If you agree with this statement for one company you should agree with it for another.

I don't agree with it for any company. When the private sector crowds out basic research and takes over the function of public institutions, there are three reasonable scenarios. 1. they let the researchers do what they want and science goes on, 2. they're regulated so they can't compromise science, 3. they do what Google does, in which case it's time to take the gloves off and go to 2. because the integrity of scien…

This take does not make any sense to me. The scientific community is responsible for peer reviews and journals can operate however they’d like. Google is responsible for google and can submit/censor/only pay for research that they want to pay for. Good luck finding any academic that is not beholden to their source of funding.

Academia is not the “uncompromised land of science” that it may seem to be. What google is doing is par for the course. I have about 50 other complaints about academia before I get to my complaints about private companies censoring research (which I believe is a very harsh take on the situation at hand.)