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Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

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Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#101

Post by RC_ITR »

canaus wrote: post #56
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22

Obviously don't know the full context of why Satrajit Chatterjee was fired, but I can say that I followed the Timnit Gebru story quite closely, and there was a gigantic chasm, IMO, between what actually happened (and by "what actually happened" I mean that I'm conservatively just considering Gebru's own statements and tweets) and how things were reported in the wider press. The press will always be incentivized to re…

Can you give some example Tweets to where you concluded that these (Gebru in this example) are some of the most toxic individuals you could imagine? All of my searches are of random topics.

Saying a paraphrase of "I didn't quit, I gave my employer an ultimatum that they then rejected" [0] is a very toxic way to interact with people.

1) Ultimatums in general are not a healthy way to interact with others because they intentionally try to skew power dynamics towards the giver (Do what I say or else...)

2) To then act (upon failure of the ultimatum) as though her employer acted inappropriately implies that she really didn't even give an ultimatum, so much as made a demand that she couched as an ultimatum.

You can agree or disagree about whether she was entitled to act this way (academia is a unique field where toxic behavior like this is often normalized), but I think most people agree that if given the option, they'd prefer to not work with someone who approaches conflict in this way.

[0]https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334343577044979712?r...

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#102

Post by adamrezich »

advisedwang wrote: post #67
teakettle42 wrote: post #18

There is insufficient information here to make any judgement. It’s clear that the journalists involved want us to make a set of suppositions that support their narrative about Timnit, but the reporting doesn’t support that conclusion — or really, any conclusion at all. It’s vapor — outrage bait.

There might be insufficient data to make judgement or cause outrage, but it's still news worth reporting that this is going on. Tangent: Often conspiracy theories start from an actual "that's weird" moment. There might be nothing to answer that weirdness one way or another, and for some folks its impossible to leave the question mark hanging forever, so they either dismiss it or construct a complete (and often silly)…

> I wish we were better at taking in information without a final judgement to slot it into immediately.

agreed—I've said this here before but it seems like the human mind pretty much always wants to resolve/collapse uncertainty into something "knowable", and it takes practice and effort to allow yourself to mentally remain in the uncollapsed state when there isn't enough information to make a complete judgement.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#103

Post by true_religion »

lupire wrote: post #80
true_religion wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you cite things that you disagree with? Or cite background material that you feel is subpar? That would be the norm especially if your research paper is focused on new technology. For example you would write Herbet et co, in Journal Blah found results of X with method Y. However method Y has flaws of A, B, and C... Even if a pervious study was utterly stupid in your opinion, if it's been widely publicized you s…

You are right but the implication was that the citations were not rebuttals.

Then the answer is that even papers that don't meet the "high" standard that every organization and journal likes to think they hold themselves to when publishing, still contain relevant data and explanations that are citable.

Although let's be clear... this is bureaucratic issue. Some journals only publish English language papers. No matter how impactful your paper is, they'll never publish it if you wrote it in Tamil. Google only publishes papers that doesn't directly insult them, and spread fear about their own proprietary technology while providing no clear solutions. The paper may be brilliant but they definitely won't put their money and name behind it.

Since they (Google) are ideologically opposed to the paper's findings, I can't imagine they are citing it to talk about how brilliant it is though...

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#104

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

DashAnimal wrote: post #96
canaus wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some example Tweets to where you concluded that these (Gebru in this example) are some of the most toxic individuals you could imagine? All of my searches are of random topics.

I don't know Timnit so I won't argue she is the most toxic or the events were correct/incorrect. However, your reply made me recall this thread from July 2020 (before Timnit and Google parted). https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278565265135906816?t... I just cannot imagine calling someone in your company out like that on a public platform, especially for the crime of not speaking. Both are seniors and that beha…

I do wonder if mid 2020 will go down in history as peak cancel. I definitely have a sense that it is becoming less acceptable to publicly air one's grievances in the name of social justice. "Silence is violence" is another phrase that was very popular at that time. From my limited perspective, it seems like that same slogan today would be much less acceptable and get much less play.

Of course, two years is far too small a lag to do any real historical analysis of the situation. But it seems like the winds are blowing in a different direction now. I wonder where they will take us. Surely we live in exciting and interesting times.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#105

Post by hintymad »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22

Obviously don't know the full context of why Satrajit Chatterjee was fired, but I can say that I followed the Timnit Gebru story quite closely, and there was a gigantic chasm, IMO, between what actually happened (and by "what actually happened" I mean that I'm conservatively just considering Gebru's own statements and tweets) and how things were reported in the wider press. The press will always be incentivized to re…

And it's strange no one in media questioned Gebru's paper. For instance, her calculation of carbon footprint of training BERT is ridiculous, as she assumes that companies will train BERT 24x7. I think Gebru is a disgrace to the community because she always, I mean literally always, attacks her critics by motives. You think bias is a data problem? You're a bigot (See her dispute with LeCun). You disagree with my assessment on an ML model? You are white male oppressor (her attacking a Google's SVP).

Gebru is not a researcher. She is a modern-age Trofim Lysenko, who politicizes everything and weaponizes political correctness.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#106

Post by kettleballroll »

civilized wrote: post #95
chaps wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are supposedly some posts from ex-colleagues of hers: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/com...

I have no strong opinion on Gebru, but... it's so easy for a random person to make a throwaway account on Reddit, and these comments don't have any specific info to suggest they are anything more than that.

As those comments say, any googler can verify that the mentioned email threads exist. And someone would've spoken up if that was a lie.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#107

Post by DashAnimal »

civilized wrote: post #95
chaps wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are supposedly some posts from ex-colleagues of hers: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/com...

I have no strong opinion on Gebru, but... it's so easy for a random person to make a throwaway account on Reddit, and these comments don't have any specific info to suggest they are anything more than that.

One of the replies further down had a more concrete example. I did not see any Googlers refute it:

To give a concrete example of what it is like to work with her I will describe something that has not come to light until now. When GPT-3 came out a discussion thread was started in the brain papers group. Timnit was one of the first to respond with some of her thoughts. Almost immediately a very high profile figure has also also responded with his thoughts. He is not Lecun or Dean but he is close. What followed for the rest of the thread was Timnit blasting privileged white men for ignoring the voice of a black woman. Nevermind that it was painfully clear they were writing their responses at the same time. Message after message she would blast both the high profile figure and anyone who so much as implied it could have been a misunderstanding. In the end everyone just bent over backwards apologizing to her and the thread was abandoned along with the whole brain papers group which was relatively active up to that point. She has effectively robbed thousands of colleagues of insights into their seniors thought process just because she didn't immediately get attention.

The thread is still up there so any googler can see it for themselves and verify I am telling the truth.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#108

Post by 0des »

leephillips wrote: post #58
yodon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT CSAIL is not hard up for funding, nor is Hal Abelson. They can choose who they want to take money from. Funding sources that restrain a researcher's ability to publish damage that researcher's ability to advance their own career. Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Microsoft Research, however is one of the biggest sources of computer science research funding i…

“Many people here on HN have, for example, an irrational hatred and distrust of Microsoft”. Perhaps. Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research.

> Many people here on HN also have an entirely rational hatred and distrust of Microsoft. Some of those people are also capable of appreciating their support for research.

I am standing right here, you dont have to point.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#109

Post by Manuel_D »

dekhn wrote: post #100
brimble wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's... still a firing, no? What it's not, is a lay-off.

People argued about this a bunch. here's a simple summary that is consistent with the reality: Google (Jeff's docs) says that Timnit offered her resignation (over the paper withdrawl demand and a refusal to let Timnit confront her internal reviewers) and Megan accepted it. In reality, Megan terminated Timnit for cause, but used Timnit's offer to resign against her. At google, resignations are normally triggered by th…

I mean, if you say "do X or I quit" and the company responds "we're not doing X, bye" is it incorrect to say that the employee quit? That's the situation here, Gebru issued demands and said she'd quit if they weren't met. Google said, "we accept your resignation".

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#110

Post by jeffbee »

hintymad wrote: post #105
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #22

Obviously don't know the full context of why Satrajit Chatterjee was fired, but I can say that I followed the Timnit Gebru story quite closely, and there was a gigantic chasm, IMO, between what actually happened (and by "what actually happened" I mean that I'm conservatively just considering Gebru's own statements and tweets) and how things were reported in the wider press. The press will always be incentivized to re…

And it's strange no one in media questioned Gebru's paper. For instance, her calculation of carbon footprint of training BERT is ridiculous, as she assumes that companies will train BERT 24x7. I think Gebru is a disgrace to the community because she always, I mean literally always, attacks her critics by motives. You think bias is a data problem? You're a bigot (See her dispute with LeCun). You disagree with my asses…

That's what kills me. A person in a privileged position inside a company with all the easily-accessed data available to make concrete conclusions about the actual energy consumption of these systems chooses to not learn from that, but instead to publicize wildly inaccurate guesses with no basis in reality. And this person is an "ethicist" somehow.
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