Margaret Mitchell fired from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#751

Post by reynard_le_faux » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #393

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…

Yeah I have a friend who essentially got fired for the same thing. His crime? Putting some icons he designed for the company on his personal portfolio website. They never used the icons FYI.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#752

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

Aeolos wrote: post #595

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, by legal, I meant, "within the terms of your employment agreement."

> The assumption that corporations, not courts, decide legality seems inane to me. The law > employee agreement.

If there's a law that permits exfiltrating confidential documents from an employer because you don't like one of their policies, I'd be happy to know of it. But I doubt such a law exists.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#753

Post by solipsism » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #712

solipsism wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is a good example of sounds-smart nonsense. Deepak Chopra style. > The only time one player can dominate a limited number of niches is when there are few niches to begin with. What?? What are you even saying? It's an entire world filled with niches. There's no sense in which niches are limited. How does it ever make sense to talk about "a limited number of niches"??

>There's no sense in which niches are limited. If that were true, people would still be buying pet supplies from Pets.com and books from Amazon.com. The fact everyone knows what is meant by 'FAANG' should demonstrate how few actual niches exist in the digital space. Communication is difficult when worldviews are very different and you seem uninterested in meeting me halfway. I'd be happy to explore this area of dialo…

If that were true, people would still be buying pet supplies from Pets.com and books from Amazon.com

I don't understand. Amazon sells some very large percentage of every book sold in the world. What are you saying?

The fact everyone knows what is meant by 'FAANG' should demonstrate how few actual niches exist in the digital space.

What does this mean? A niche is a very specific market segment. The presence of extremely large players does not negate the presence of niches. Niches exist whether or not there companies taking advantage of them.

Communication is difficult, that's why words matter. I think you should choose your words more carefully and make sure you are double-checking that the things you are saying actually make sense.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#754

Post by SpicyLemonZest » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #608

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how can community accountability practices work in an organization like Google, which hires from many different communities? It seems like it inevitably produces loud, angry, unresolvable conflict whenever your community and my community don't agree on a decision.

I think the difference lies between harm and disagreement. How can it work? I don't know or have all the answers, as I've never even seen community accountability in action at a small local scale. This highlights to me the importance of learning how to do this stuff.

I don't think it's as complex as you're making it. Community accountability works through shared cultural standards and social pressure to conform to the status quo; Google employees don't have shared cultural standards, and the whole problem here is that some of them don't think it's right to conform to the status quo. The reason you've never seen it in action is that, in a multicultural society, it doesn't work on any scale larger than a friend group.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#755

Post by Cacti » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

geofft wrote: post #719

JamesBarney wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gebru was a very bright individual who could have gotten a job in academia, but instead chose to work for Google. Part of that arrangement was Google got discretion on what she could print. They wanted her to change what was printed because they believed the paper was unfairly critical of technologies Google had a stake in. She disagreed, threatened to resign, wrote an unprofessional email and then Google accepted he…

Oh, that's not the scandal at all, and I don't know why people think it is. The scandal is that Google, already one of the most powerful entities in the world, is building an AGI and doesn't even want the slightest veneer of accountability for it. Nobody who isn't on Gebru's old team has any realistic access to know what they're really building. All we know is that the AI keeps outsmarting humans. And now they've fir…

If you worked in this field you would know how ridiculous your claims are. Dr Gebru wasn’t trying to stave off the robot apocalypse, she was interrogating biases exhibited by some neural networks due to the data they are trained on and how they are trained, which is something people have been looking at since statistical learning and statistics has existed. And when her colleagues raised reasonable scientific objections to her claims she went on the warpath and started calling her colleagues a bunch of dumb racist and sexist dirt bags. And it is actually fairly well known what Google is working on because they publish most of their work, and anyone in the field can go out and pull up all their research and have a pretty reasonable idea of what they’re working on, there’s not much mystery there. And despite claims to the contrary, the “AI ethics team” isn’t some grand overarching team, they’re a small team in one small part of the Google hierarchy—the leads of the AI Ethics are/were essentially first line managers, which is hardly the grandiose mandate that everyone seems to be attaching to it.

People are attaching far more significance to this whole flap than is remotely reasonable to anyone who works in this area or has any experience in the corporate world.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#756

Post by vorpalhex » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #744

vorpalhex wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is a moral value. The First Amendment is limited to the Government.

How is free speech a moral value? Speaking your mind, honesty, bravery are moral values:-)

Free speech is at it's core dangerous speech. It's speech in favor of trans rights when nobody supports it. It's speech calling attention to inequality nobody wants to hear. It's speech that's unfavorable to the government and our neighbors.

Safe speech isn't free speech. Free speech is the engine of change for things like trans rights, same sex marriage, equal protection under the law and even evolution being taught in schools.

If you do not hold free speech as a moral value, if you don't feel a moral duty to use speech that may be censored or unfavored, then you don't agree with using speech to fix social problems.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#757

Post by mellosouls » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #743

mellosouls wrote: post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer and have no intention of deciding the legal definitions of this case myself, I look to those who actually know what they are talking about to do so. I note you still haven't provided a link to anybody clarifying it in a reasonably neutral way; I suspect there isn't one without bias (either way). Nobody "proposes" resignation in such circumstances to an employer unless they are fully in battle. And ac…

I actually know what I'm talking about. Some other people here actually know what they're talking about. I'm not going to waste my time finding more links when you can just call them biased or too legalistic. You quoted a reporter paraphrasing Gebru. And "proposed" doesn't mean everything was peaceful.

I actually know what I'm talking about. Some other people here actually know what they're talking about.

Considering there is a variety of opinions here on the subject (including many who would reject my impartial take and fervently take the opposing position to you and claim it was entirely her fault), I'm sure you didn't mean to imply that only those who agree with you know what they are talking about.

Anyway, in the absence of clarity on the event itself, I'm happy to agree to disagree with you on what has been established - which rather emphasises my original point about the title...

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#758

Post by Cacti » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #486

marricks wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of. Google will of course phrase it as damningly as possible. So once again, why assume Google has the moral high ground (in any way) in this firing or is being honest at all in it?

I'm not assuming Google has the moral high ground. I'm assuming that Google is not lying about an easily verifiable fact to the media especially when Meg is not disputing Google's events. > She could of downloaded documents for an attorney or to search for the allegations Timnit was accused of This would support Google's description of events as "exfiltrating a bunch of documents related to Gebru". They also have a s…

I’m curious why there needs to be a script involved and feel like we are missing a big part of the story here. You don’t need “a script” to search your email. And you don’t need to take the risk to “exfiltrate documents” if it’s just emails in your possession or if you’re just worried about being fired. And it doesn’t make sense that a computer expert would take the risk to do all this electronically where it is easily monitored.

Perhaps she made a dumb mistake but Dr Gebru and her colleague were both managers, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this script her colleague was running was not just backing up her emails but rather pulling management-only and HR docs related to Gebrus situation. Which would be a much more serious offense and explain a lot of what’s going on here.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#759

Post by Cacti » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #286

sillysaurusx wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I don’t get this. Google’s words are that she exfiltrated company documents. She either did or didn’t do this. And is google going to risk making this into a much bigger story by committing libel against a former employee? Or should AI…

Google didn't say where she sent the documents. Forwarding emails to her own employment lawyers would be exfiltrating company documents technically.

Everyone is assuming it’s email, but you don’t need “a script” to search your own email, and you don’t need to risk getting fired sending emails to your lawyer, you just print them out. Or wait to get fired and get them during discovery. Google isn’t going to go into conspiracy mode and risk hundreds of millions over a line manager getting fired, that’s absurd.

It wouldn’t surprise me if this “script” was trying to pull documents from manager or HR only sources and that they were related to Gebru’s employment—hence the need for a script to do a search. Which would imply she was looking for ‘dirt’ outside of her normal access and responsibilities.

That scenario would explain a lot of what’s going on here.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#760

Post by kleer001 » Sat, Feb 20, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

undoware wrote: post #451

kleer001 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The political activist collective is slowly falling apart. In my heart and heart and dream of dreams, yes I wish that to be true. However my intuition tells me another generation with the same persona will pick up the banner again in a few years.

Dearest ones, we have only just begun. See you next summer.

Thankfully not. For several reasons. Mainly...

"Reality has a way of asserting itself" - Obama

IMHO Philosophy is great and all for motivations and decoration, but for structural items like farming, biology, and architecture it's blind and mute. And the movement in question is a philosophical one, namely a bastard child of post-structuralism and select bone and gristle from Marxism. Sure, it'll rise again, like a bad penny zombie. But for now its lost half its population that just wanted Trump out the door.