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Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

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Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#391

Post by monocasa »

Crash0v3rid3 wrote: post #387

“After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. This feels pretty cut and dry to me. Meg exported business material from the company. That a fire-abl…

The rumor going around is that she thought she was going to be retaliated against, and the documents were her backing up some of her emails in case she was fired illegally to discuss with her lawyer.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#392

Post by ulfw »

worker767424 wrote: post #386
dragonwriter wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior? The same reason to hire a token minority in a position of on-paper significance: something to point to for PR purposes. But, with an ethics team, there's also another advantage; if you get strong people who would be contributing to the field anyway and constrain their output to suit your interests, you reduce the degree to which areas you…

The real question is why would you join an ethics team that's obviously for PR purposes, then complain about it being for PR purposes. These resigned/fired researchers might be good in their field, but they're pretty dumb when it comes to their jobs.

Money rules the world

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#393

Post by crazygringo »

Crash0v3rid3 wrote: post #387

“After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees,” a Google spokesman said in a statement. This feels pretty cut and dry to me. Meg exported business material from the company. That a fire-abl…

It's so vague it's hard to draw any conclusion without specifics.

"Exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents" could be nefariously downloading proprietary research for personal gain... or innocently downloading a Slides presentation to your personal phone as a PDF in preparation for a client meeting in case it's impossible to connect to their Wi-Fi. Or saving e-mail communications with your manager in case you need them for personal legal defense purposes.

Companies can be amazing at twisting innocent actions into horrible-sounding policy violations when they want.

I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying we don't have enough information to jump to a conclusion.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#394

Post by [deleted] »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #370
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly did this training say? I'm just a little suspicious that Google was saying you couldn't socialize with friends outside the office, since that's unenforceable, not in their interests, and also deeply stupid.

Curious as well. And skeptical. So far every example I ever saw of a conservative complaining about their freedoms and speech being limited, they either don't disclose the full story, or when they do, I never end up agreeing that any valid right of theirs was violated or infringed. Instead it's always just crying about having to be even the most basic level of civilized. And I'm very much in the Bill Maher camp when…

[deleted]

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#397

Post by solveit »

wpietri wrote: post #377
D13Fd wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interrogating corporate behavior and publicly embarrassing the corporation are two totally different things. You can employ someone and have them develop and even publicly espouse ethics principles, while also instructing them to keep their criticism of corporate behavior confidential to the corporation. This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, i…

I suppose that depends on whether you think an "Ethical AI" group's job is as window dressing or to actually make an ethical impact. If the former, then they probably shouldn't be doing it in the first place; PR people are cheaper and more tractable. If the latter, then there's only so long you can ask good people to stay quiet. Enabling ethical failure is also an ethical failure. Your analogies don't really work, I'…

I think the one thing both sides can agree on is that there should be whistleblower protections enshrined in law for people reporting ethics breaches. (I'm not going to try and suggest how it should be implemented, that's legitimately difficult)

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#398

Post by solipsism »

pwinnski wrote: post #282
leetcrew wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would a company pay someone to publicly criticize them? in the case of google, there's already plenty of people willing to do that for free.

It is literally the job of an AI ethicist to highlight ethical issues, so if they're publicly criticizing you, then you're likely doing something unethical. If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the la…

I don't understand why people seem so confused about the notion of employment.

If a company hires a security researcher, and that security researcher finds that the company is not listening to their advice, is it their responsibility to publicly expose the security flaws of the company?

What if you hire a plumber, and the plumber doesn't find that you're taking his advice regarding your toilet. Is it the plumbers responsibility to publicly comment on that?

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