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Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

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Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#551

Post by totalZero »

marricks wrote: post #401
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 pretty cool we can just take Google at it’s word after a 5 week investigation with literally no details coming out. Google also decided to drop this bombshell on a Friday the same day they are announcing a rebranded ethics team. It’s clear they wanted to bury this story and the leaders of the old team. I for one don’t plan to in any way give Google the benefit of the doubt here...

Some of these "AI ethics researchers" seem like wingnuts, and their profession appears to serve more of a PR purpose than a business purpose. What am I missing? Why are they so essential? Are these people the canaries in the coal mine, or do they simply exist because of paranoia and political correctness?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#552

Post by pseudalopex »

JamesBarney wrote: post #550
pseudalopex wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exfiltration could just mean forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer. Any lawyer would tell her not to comment on the accusations. Especially before she was fired.

And any lawyer would also tell Google not to blatantly lie about easily verifiable facts around the firing.

It would be misleading to call forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer exfiltration. But it wouldn't be lying.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#554

Post by Maursault »

calylex wrote: post #530

This sounds like a poem she wrote https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_mitchell_how_we_can_build... How does one get to lead such a high caliber team at Google AI with background in Linguistics of all things? What are some of accomplishments this person has achieved, beyond being from one or many oppressed victim group(s) that Google needed to hire to fend off lack of diversity claims?

> How does one get to lead such a high caliber team at Google AI with background in Linguistics of all things?

Wow. I believe you should begin by assuming ignorance, and not assume the opposite. This [1] will get you started. Cognitive Science, Linguistics, and Computer Science, independently, are all valid and highly valued, highly sought after backgrounds for careers in AI. Have all those in a multidisciplinary background, it is likely your career is in AI.

[1] https://www.cio.com/article/3193777/why-ai-careers-can-start...

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#556

Post by throwaway3699 »

GavinMcG wrote: post #492
throwaway3699 wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism must absolutely be measured by intention, not effects. The very definition of racism is somebody actively discriminating against another race. Any other definition just ends up discussing Marxist ideas like "systems of oppression" which go nowhere and actively harm the conversation.

No, you'd like to define racism narrowly. Not that I can get in your head, but doing so sure makes it easier to imagine ourselves as not complicit. But evil is all too often banal, and passive.

I'm not complicit. I've never been in a position of authority over hiring or loans, etc... nor have I ever treated anybody differently for their skin colour. Racism is about intent and your definition expands it well beyond what figures like MLK understood it to be.

To do anything else is evil.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#557

Post by gerash »

nodesocket wrote: post #241
strangeloops85 wrote: post #139

Somehow Microsoft Research manages to be a much more open place than Google and has researchers publish critical pieces all the time. It's ultimately a bit sad that Google, the company started by two PhD students, is incapable of creating a similar culture to MSR.

This behavior starts all the way at the top with Sergey. See Google's leaked internal all-hands[1] after Trump won basically calling for the end of the world without any regard to employees who may be fiscally conservative or Trump supporters. Google is by far the worse of the big bay area tech companies in terms of stifling speech, equality of outcome policies, and being an echo chamber. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/201…

Trump was and is a clown. Brin, in that video, was expressing his personal feelings (that he doesn't like Trump) being a refugee himself. He was not expressing company policies.

That was supposed to be an internal forum. From what I've heard executives treated internal q&a sessions as public press conferences afterwards and try to be "politically correct". Not a good outcome for anyone involved

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#558

Post by [deleted] »

belltaco wrote: post #409
crazygringo wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

According to an Axios scoop from Jan, she was running a script to find emails in her Inbox related to Gebru and sending thousands of files "to multiple external parties". https://i.imgur.com/fDV9kKV.png

[deleted]

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#559

Post by ergocoder »

contemporary343 wrote: post #111

They also seem to have sidelined Samy Bengio (Yoshua's brother) who was the skip-level manager of the team and, as far as I can tell, backed both of them and continued to: https://twitter.com/L_badikho/status/1362892301979312128 As can be seen above, current team members state that Google is running a smear campaign against both of them. We should emphatically not take Google's words at face value here either. All of…

Timnit and her supporters are toxic.

Can you imagine calling out your manager of manager on Twitter like this?

https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278569638532530177

Like wtf. This happened 6 months before Timnit was fired.

I would absolutely not work with this person if they behaved like Timnit.

She and her supporters are absolutely fired for being toxic. They are playing martyr.

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