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Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

engadget.com

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Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#121

Post by throwedawayed69 »

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…

The Times article has some eyebrow-raising details including a written statement from a lead author of the original paper who describes years of harassment and undercutting.

> Ms. Goldie said that Dr. Chatterjee had asked to manage their project in 2019 and that they had declined. When he later criticized it, she said, he could not substantiate his complaints and ignored the evidence they presented in response.

> “Sat Chatterjee has waged a campaign of misinformation against me and Azalia for over two years now,” Ms. Goldie said in a written statement.

> She said the work had been peer-reviewed by Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific publications. And she added that Google had used their methods to build new chips and that these chips were currently used in Google’s computer data centers.

Yet another blot on the Rorschach test, to be sure, but perhaps useful to highlight to consider the total possibility space.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/02/technology/google-fires-a...

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#122

Post by inasio »

I remember reading the original paper [0] when it came out last year, and honestly I found it pretty weak compared to other google or deepmind papers, particularly the comparison to Simulated Annealing methods and the lack of data to enable reproducibility. Felt more like a marketing paper based on proprietary data (the paper reported how they were able to produce an efficient floorplan for one of google's internal processors).

Point being that aside from the controversy being stoked based on previous firings, I'm personally curious about the results showing problems on the original paper (whose senior author was Jeff Dean btw)

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03544-w (the endgadget story has a link to the full pdf)

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#123

Post by BeetleB »

pharmakom wrote: post #114
RC_ITR wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you cannot give an ultimatum then you can always be pushed around.

> If you cannot give an ultimatum then you can always be pushed around.

No finer example of false dichotomy than this.

Hers is a textbook example of how not to negotiate. By textbook, I mean literally every textbook on negotiations that I've read.

Ultimatums are a tool of last resort, and they all caution their high failure rate. It also is typically a signal of a weak person.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#124

Post by oh_sigh »

joshuamorton wrote: post #62
oh_sigh wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What papers are you talking about specifically? Were they reworked at all after being told they weren't up to standard? Does Google have a standard where only papers they would publish can be cited? Imagine if Google had a standard that all papers they publish must be in Comic Sans font. Researcher refuses, publishes paper independently, and then someone at Google publishes a paper in Comic Sans referring to that pap…

The controversy here is specifically around Stochastic Parrots, by among others Timnit Gebru and "Schmargaret Smitchell". Timnit had recently been fired by Google for a controversy that started when leadership prevented her and Margaret from being coauthors on the paper (which is critical of Google in some ways) and Mitchell was fired a few months later. Google[0] claims the paper didn't meet the bar for publication…

If the argument is Timnit was fired for her Stochastic Parrots paper, why weren't the Google authors that referred to her papers fired as well?

Instead, maybe Timnit was fired/resignation accepted not because of her paper, but because 1) she was in management, and 2) she explicitly told her reports to stop the work they're doing, for "reasons", to the point where Jeff Dean had to come in and ask the employees to continue working on DEI programs: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#126

Post by oh_sigh »

21723 wrote: post #42
oh_sigh wrote: post #11

Were they fired because they challenged the findings, or were they fired for their behavior after being told their paper wasn't up to snuff for some reason? Same thing with Timnit...was she fired(or "resignation accepted") because of a paper she was writing, or was she fired because of her behavior after being told the paper needed more review(or whatever)? I really doubt that Google is so wrapped up in the "computer…

Scientists are pretty used to the idea of having their papers rejected. It happens all the time for all sorts of reasons. Never say never, but the likelihood that someone who's already gone through a PhD program would act out in some extreme way is low. Usually, these terminations have more to do with "He's getting close to something untouchable" than anything else. It happens to journalists, when they do their job a…

I don't think you can quantify any of the claims that you made in your post.

Is your argument that the "Computers can design chip components better than humans" paper is so fundamental to Google that they're silencing any critics? Conspiracy theories work better if there is even a kernel of truth to them. Maybe I could accept this if Chatterjee was rebutting advertising as a whole or something, but who exactly is so concerned about this specific paper?

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#127

Post by BeetleB »

verisimi wrote: post #13
xadhominemx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never experienced anything like this during the course of my government funded research. Nor did I hear of anyone else experiencing anything like this. Of course, your topic area has to align with government funders’ interests… but in my experience the conclusions do not.

But if your conclusions do not align with the funders desires, would your research see the light of day? If you have that much money that you can fund lots of studies, the only ones that will proceed are the ones in support of whatever-it-is.

> But if your conclusions do not align with the funders desires, would your research see the light of day?

In academia: Yes. The number of grants that require pre-publishing approval from funding agency is extremely tiny. I never encountered one while in academia.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#128

Post by dekhn »

Manuel_D wrote: post #109
dekhn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Yes, that's not a resignation. At google, to technically resign involves filling out a form on a website, it's not something you can verbally state to your (manager's) manager. Again, Google can still say this and probably even thinks internally that's what happened, but having resigned twice from Google, that's not how it really works.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#129

Post by joshuamorton »

oh_sigh wrote: post #124
joshuamorton wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The controversy here is specifically around Stochastic Parrots, by among others Timnit Gebru and "Schmargaret Smitchell". Timnit had recently been fired by Google for a controversy that started when leadership prevented her and Margaret from being coauthors on the paper (which is critical of Google in some ways) and Mitchell was fired a few months later. Google[0] claims the paper didn't meet the bar for publication…

If the argument is Timnit was fired for her Stochastic Parrots paper, why weren't the Google authors that referred to her papers fired as well? Instead, maybe Timnit was fired/resignation accepted not because of her paper, but because 1) she was in management, and 2) she explicitly told her reports to stop the work they're doing, for "reasons", to the point where Jeff Dean had to come in and ask the employees to cont…

I simply repeated Jeff Dean's own words that he claims the paper "didn’t meet our bar", yet continued to be cited (even by Dean himself, though arguably he's citing it to disagree...but then that's the way academia should work!).

I didn't claim to know why exactly she was fired. I'm just claiming that Jeff's objection to her paper seems dubious.

And keep in mind her coauthor (Mitchell) was eventually fired. But yes, the question you ask is a good one, and I think the answer is revealing (the paper did in fact meet the bar for publication, and it was killed for political reasons, making Gebru's reactions quite reasonable!)

> she explicitly told her reports to stop the work they're doing,

No she didn't. She told them to refocus to be more effective. That's a completely reasonable! Quoting her email: "So if you would like to change things, I suggest focusing on leadership accountability and thinking through what types of pressures can also be applied from the outside."

That doesn't sound like "stop working on DEI" to me.

Re: Google fires another AI researcher who reportedly challenged findings

#130

Post by registeredcorn »

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…

> weaponizes political correctness

I'm sorry to be nitpick-y. I understand what you are saying, but to be clear: Political correctness is a weapon.

The idea is that there is a correct answer (fact), and a separate, unrelated politically advantageous answer (group approval). Following the tactic of political correctness, to any degree, is using the concept for personal gain. There is no way to be political correct without doing so in a harmful manner. Approval of this kind can only be gained by attacking a target.

"So-and-so is using explosives to destroy things." It is the design of the thing.

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