[deleted]
A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
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Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#52Declining a research award due to supporting a toxic employee with a long history of unnecessarily hostile and combative behavior (just look at the yann lecun twitter thread). Sounds fine to me!
Can you link it? Googling it results in too many threads
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#53This is what is known as a principal-agent problem, where the agent (the professor) has the ability to make decisions for the principal (the university) but their motives are not fully aligned. The university may prefer to have $60,000 and a good relationship with a mega corporation but the professor probably benefits more from having his name out there and known as a crusader.
This is known as having a moral backbone. A condition that is somtimes misidentified due to its rarity.
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#54[deleted]
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#55Story: I knew a dude who made a lot of money early in life doing IT for an online gambling company, where keeping the servers up is worth a whole lot of money. And in my twenties I thought that was super cool, was jealous even 'cause he bought a house at a young age. Then years later, I wound up with a routine (details irrelevant) that had me taking the metro past the local casino very frequently, and saw first hand how the ads on the train for said casino, which you and I would find totally absurd, seemed quite reasonable to the some of the ridership who were less educated, or even borderline mentally handicapped (it went through a poor neighbourhood). And it really brought home how happy these companies are to lie to the most vulnerable populations and make addicts out of them. I saw folks frequently enough to realize they were really getting fucked over and our BC government was happy to collect the taxes from casinos whilst closing down mental care institutions. No amount of money would make me work for that sector now. I'm sure others have similar lines in the sand. So good on the prof, a $60k grant is nothing compared to knowing you took money for something you find morally reprehensible, IFF you're already living comfortable above the poverty line (as a prof would be).
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#56This is what is known as a principal-agent problem, where the agent (the professor) has the ability to make decisions for the principal (the university) but their motives are not fully aligned. The university may prefer to have $60,000 and a good relationship with a mega corporation but the professor probably benefits more from having his name out there and known as a crusader.
This is known as having a moral backbone. A condition that is somtimes misidentified due to its rarity.
Sure, but announcing it loudly and publicly is self-serving.
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is known as having a moral backbone. A condition that is somtimes misidentified due to its rarity.
Sure, but announcing it loudly and publicly is self-serving.
Announcing it loudly puts more pressure on Google to improve, which is the whole point. I don't see any reason to disparage this guy for being public about this.
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#58Personally, I refuse to work for Google no matter how many $100k's or flexibility in role design and department choices they throw at me. This is because "don't be evil" was only an ostensible mission statement that has long since fell by the wayside since it obviously never was a primary value. Of FAANG, Apple and Netflix aren't nearly as evil as the others.
So contracting with overseas factories with work conditions so poor that they need to have suicide nets is not as evil as what Google does as a search engine? Did you hear about the most recent debacle in India where Apple factory workers weren't getting paid their $3 USD monthly wages on time? The fact that this trillion dollar company does this is pure evil.
Evil and suffering are relative, not absolutes. It's less evil than inciting and enabling genocides. Making workers pee in bottles or fire them for not moving fast enough is a different evil.
Netflix seems a pretty ethically- and morally-benign company of the FAANG gang: they're an online (and by-mail) Blockbuster.
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#59Declining a research award due to supporting a toxic employee with a long history of unnecessarily hostile and combative behavior (just look at the yann lecun twitter thread). Sounds fine to me!
Can you link it? Googling it results in too many threads
This article has a summary:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23696427
That’s not how I would interact with a Turing award winner. And it’s not the first time they have had that reaction.
From what I’ve observed it could be a classic case of borderline personality disorder. Generally polite and nice to people but when they get offended they go ballistic.
Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dr. Gebru is a she
I don't think her gender matters, it's about Luke Stark's peers that she has support among. They happen to also be her peers, but that's not the point. If she was in a different field, or not in academia at all, but supported by his peers (which wouldn't be her peers, but might be her fans, or subordinates or whatever), it would be the same result.
Are you daft? You can use “he or she” if you don’t care or “she” if you do but to say “he” is patently incorrect.