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Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

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Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#311

Post by ggm »

carmen_sandiego wrote: post #295
ggm wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpacked, uncovered, documented, found. Deep seated, ingrained, established, systematic, breach non aligned, wrong, social societal, norms expectations laws, behaviours, Please. Don't be that person. What did you think it meant? What specifically. Was without meaning. Not what do you disagree with: to even pose the question, you have to be literate and capable of reading. At this point your question is actually a sta…

I’m sorry but as a native speaker your phrasing is awkward and a pain to parse. Unpack isn’t synonym for ‘uncover’ and the rest was equally clumsy. The “if the rules didn’t stop me I’d give you the finger, you imbecile” tact is a little ironic.

Yes. I leave this as an object lesson to self. I do often find the one finger points out, three point in rule, generally applies.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#313

Post by [deleted] »

buildbot wrote: post #131

It’s a really common refrain here that if you are employee critical of your employer you should expect to get fired… Well perhaps, but you’d think that specifically someone in AI ethics needs to be empowered to speak up against both internal external issues. Or did google just want an research ethics hit team against other companies technologies? Makes me wonder if project zero is really trying as hard as possible wi…

[deleted]

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#314

Post by xiphias2 »

jeffbee wrote: post #248
xiphias2 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just the employer. James' Damore's memo silenced a lot of the more conservative thinkers, especially as he didn't even want that memo to be public, just a research on a mailing list. Harassment from the political left was very strong at Google, that it was just a matter of time until it bit back. As for me as a white man although I was just doing my job silently, I didn't feel appreciated and tried to isolat…

Damore posted his stupid screed all over the place for months. He posted it to mailing lists, he printed it out and waved it around at conferences.

Maybe you are right, I was working in Switzerland, not in US.

What I remember clearly though is that Google's training contained material about how I am allowed to socialize with coworkers outside work, which may be allowed in the US, but it was clearly against the Swiss constitution (my job security was more important to me than speaking up about this though)

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#315

Post by NikolaeVarius »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #304
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember Google being criticized for having a disproportionate amount of left leaning employees pushing a left agenda while simultaneously being criticized for showing/pushing right/far right content on youtube. So which is it?

Could it be both? The left-wing employees may have the political power within the company , but the algorithm maximizing clicks could end up recommending right-wing content because more users click on it.

The original claim was that Google uses their political power to push leftish views and censor right/far right views, so that particular claim is not consistent

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#316

Post by geofft »

flippinburgers wrote: post #307

Dr. Gebru originally asked, as part of her complaint, that the names of the people reviewing her work be revealed. Does that sound particularly ethical to you? At best she wanted to talk to them face to face about their criticisms. At worst (and this is more likely if you ask me) she just wanted to throw -isms in their faces. Just to make sure people don't forget that aspect of what appears to be the root of this sit…

Yes, because they were not peer reviewers, and they had no business reviewing the paper in the first place. She went through the process for internal publication review (which does not involve anonymous reviewers, any more than a code review or a preparing-to-open-source-something review or a branding-guidelines review involves anonymous reviewers), and the paper was approved, and then management told her there was a secret extra process and she couldn't know who was involved in the process.

The paper was eventually anonymously peer reviewed by other scientists at other institutions in a process run by the journal (not by anyone's manager) without incident.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#317

Post by rufus_foreman »

buildbot wrote: post #131

It’s a really common refrain here that if you are employee critical of your employer you should expect to get fired… Well perhaps, but you’d think that specifically someone in AI ethics needs to be empowered to speak up against both internal external issues. Or did google just want an research ethics hit team against other companies technologies? Makes me wonder if project zero is really trying as hard as possible wi…

>> It’s a really common refrain here that if you are employee critical of your employer you should expect to get fired

I was just critical of my employer, I called them out on how evil they were, I cost them money, I embarrassed them publicly, and then, all of the sudden out of nowhere I was fired!

That's sort of your assertion, right? Am I misrepresenting anything?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#318

Post by Cacti »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #264
cwhiz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like she’s an ombudsman for Google. If she has concerns she should voice those concerns internally. If she doesn’t feel that her concerns are being taken seriously, she should quit. On the way out the door, she should tell her story. It’s honestly just basic professionalism. Don’t publicly trash your employer.

I'm curious how you think someone who is a professional ethicist is supposed to do their job without being allowed to comment on ethics. It's not a cog-in-a-machine profession. Having critical opinions is what the job is about. It's literally stupid for a corporation to employ an ethicist and then somehow be outraged and appalled when they have their ethics questioned and challenged.

I'm curious why you think she was fired for having critical opinions as opposed to grossly unprofessional conduct. She could have done her job just fine without throwing her colleagues under a bus, badmouthing her employer in the press, and having a paranoid meltdown because her paper didn't pass peer review. Being an ethicist doesn't give you the right to act like an asshole.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#319

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

kamranjon wrote: post #281
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s a really common refrain here that if you are employee critical of your employer you should expect to get fired I don't know how common that refrain is but I have one a little less controversial: if you use corporate email to exfiltrate confidential documents or coworkers' personal information, you really should expect to get fired.

I don't think that's exactly what happened. From my understanding she was backing up emails that served as evidence to support the claim that Google had treated Timnit Gebru unfairly during their termination. Not sure where that legally falls but I wouldn't exactly paint it in the light you did here.

The legal way to handle that is for Dr. Gebru to sue Google and get the emails through discovery. (If Google didn't do anything that Gebru can/is willing to sue over, well, she doesn't have any legal right to the emails.) Exfiltrating confidential documents will get you fired, and saying you did it to assist a friend in badmouthing your employer on Twitter is not going to help matters.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#320

Post by svnpenn »

ggm wrote: post #311
carmen_sandiego wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry but as a native speaker your phrasing is awkward and a pain to parse. Unpack isn’t synonym for ‘uncover’ and the rest was equally clumsy. The “if the rules didn’t stop me I’d give you the finger, you imbecile” tact is a little ironic.

Yes. I leave this as an object lesson to self. I do often find the one finger points out, three point in rule, generally applies.

What is wrong with you? Why do you talk like that? It's like you take a normal sentence, then swap out some random words until it no longer makes sense.

It's not cool, it's just weird.

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