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A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

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Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

#61

Post by luckylion »

spoonjim wrote: post #60
luckylion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Luke is a male name. It's about Luke's peers. They are his peers (if they weren't, it wouldn't matter who has influence on them). It's not about their status as Timnit Gebru's peers, so her gender doesn't matter and "his peers" obviously referred to "Luke Stark's peers".

Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

#62

Post by DanBC »

throwawayprc99 wrote: post #50
airhead969 wrote: post #44

Personally, 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.

All buildings that allow access to the roof should have suicide nets or tall fencing.

You should compare rates in those factories with similar sized factories in the US -- as far as I can tell the rates are similar.

Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

#63

Post by throwawayprc99 »

DanBC wrote: post #62
throwawayprc99 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All buildings that allow access to the roof should have suicide nets or tall fencing. You should compare rates in those factories with similar sized factories in the US -- as far as I can tell the rates are similar.

I'd love to see data for that. Do you work for Apple? Amazon warehouses, as notorious as they are for working conditions, don't even have a suicide problem. Note that the nets were installed reactively:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

#64

Post by asjldkfin »

moldavi wrote: post #57
asjldkfin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're arguing a false dichotomy

Re: A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

#65

Post by hellokittah »

iainctduncan wrote: post #55

Story: 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…

This had nothing to do with Google ads, it was AI ethics team stuff.

Google did not stop a researcher who issued an ultimatum ..

And also fired one who forwarded company and employee confidential information to another company.

The prof was absolutely ok before that

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