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On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

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Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#101

Post by jasmer »

janalsncm wrote: post #39
jasmer wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ok. 90% of research is creative thinking, dialogue. One idea creates the next, some are a foil, some are dead ends. As long as there are not outrageous claims being made for 'hard evidence' where there is none, it's fine. Maybe the format isn't fully appropriate but the content is. Most good things come about in a non-linear process which involves provocation along the line somewhere.

I expect science to have a hypothesis which can be falsified. Otherwise it’s just opining on a topic. Otherwise we could just call this HN thread “research”.

Science is 80% discussion, opining, thinking, reading etc.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#102

Post by freyr »

tlringer wrote: post #67
freyr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect it was Timnit’s behavior after the paper didn’t pass internal review that actually got her fired (issuing an ultimatum and threatening to resign unless the company met her demands; telling her coworkers to stop writing documents because their work didn’t matter; insinuations of racist/misogynistic treatment from leadership when she didn’t get her way).

It was Megan Kacholia, who had put Timnit Gebru and others close to her down for a long time constantly within Google, always talking down and being condescending and rude, failing to respect Timnit in how she confronted Timnit about the paper (which she was ordered to retract by way of not Google's normal paper review process, but by a then-newly-implemented and since retracted secondary "sensitive topics review" pr…

None of that disputes what I said or excuses her behavior. The “resonant” email is public, we can’t pretend it was in any way professional or appropriate.

Vanishingly few people can get away with acting like that at work without getting fired. She thought she was an exception and she wasn’t.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#103

Post by matsemann »

thorncorona wrote: post #69
hardwaregeek wrote: post #50

I'm still midway through the paper, but I gotta say, I'm a little surprised at the contrast between the contents of the paper and how people have described it on HN. I don't agree with everything that is said, but there are some interesting points made about the data used to train the models, such as it capturing bias (I would certainly question the methodology of using reddit as a large source of training data), and…

The sin is not activist language, the sin is applying rhetoric in academic language to distort the truth to make a point. It’s concern trolling to gain academic clout. Page 3 of a 14 page paper already claims with a straight face that LLMs are responsible for the sinking of Maldives. > Training a single BERT base model (without hyperparameter tuning) on GPUs was estimated to require as much energy as a trans-American…

You say it "distort the truth to make a point", and then in your next paragraph lie about the contents of the paper..

Like, it absolutely does not claim LLMs sinking the Maldives. How can you say that with a straight face?

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#104

Post by tlringer »

freyr wrote: post #102
tlringer wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Megan Kacholia, who had put Timnit Gebru and others close to her down for a long time constantly within Google, always talking down and being condescending and rude, failing to respect Timnit in how she confronted Timnit about the paper (which she was ordered to retract by way of not Google's normal paper review process, but by a then-newly-implemented and since retracted secondary "sensitive topics review" pr…

None of that disputes what I said or excuses her behavior. The “resonant” email is public, we can’t pretend it was in any way professional or appropriate. Vanishingly few people can get away with acting like that at work without getting fired. She thought she was an exception and she wasn’t.

It was fine, unless you reach far enough to take it literally, which is quite obviously not what Timnit intended. The call to stop DEI work was a rhetorical device to highlight to an audience that presumably cares strongly about diversity that the current work is not meaningful without broader systemic change within Google. Plus an emotional plea to what should have been a sympathetic audience to understand how exhausting doing any real diversity work within Google is. This is true and resonant and so triggered a lot of said change after she was fired. The change is still ongoing.

Everyone who tries to actually enact real systemic change within Google Research to improve how women and people of color are treated, or the work environment in general, burns out or gets fired. It is only toeing the company line when it's officially your role to do so, taking extremely conservative actions while ignoring real issues like abuse, harassment, and discrimination, that lets you survive while doing DEI work at Google in Research without burning out or getting fired. The sole exception I know of right now is Kat Heller, god bless her.

The feeling of "none of this is worthwhile, what's the point of any of it" is something everyone who tries to do real diversity and culture work within Google Research or even within the computer science research community more broadly has felt, and a diversity mailing list ought to have been a safe place to share that feeling.

Instead it was used against her. Now nobody feels safe sharing these feelings anywhere within Google Research.

Jeff to his credit is now working on many of these things. As is the DEI committee. I hope they all succeed. But I don't think any of that would have happened without Timnit highlighting these very real issues. It's depressing that she was fired for it. She wanted to change things and keep her job and her team, not to be a martyr.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#105

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #100
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a little surprised at the contrast between the contents of the paper and how people have described it on HN. I haven't read the paper beyond the abstract yet, so can't comment on it's contents, but can you specify what you mean by "how people have described it on HN"? To be frank, I don't like this style of argument, because I literally don't know what you're referring to. I'm quite familiar with the hubbub tha…

Apologies, I assumed it would be clear from the other comments. When I posted this the top comment was a very visibly negative take on the paper. Similarly, Google must have considered this paper to be sufficiently outside the realm of valid academic discourse because their actions around the release of this paper lead to the termination of a couple authors and a PR snafu.

Thanks for explaining. FWIW, I don't think your last sentence is a fair assessment of what happened at all. Pointing out major deficiencies in a paper is not the same thing as saying it's "sufficiently outside the realm of valid academic discourse", and, having closely followed the news when this all went down, it's clear that it's what happened in the aftermath of this paper that led to the terminations - it's not like Google said "this paper is so bad, you're fired".

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#106

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

tlringer wrote: post #98
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the next one is easy to get to by train from my current location. That's great (I don't fly). Nice.

Hopefully I'll see you there! BTW what you say about the sadly common assumption Timnit and other AI ethics folks don't have "real contributions" is too real. It has impacted me even though my work isn't on AI ethics at all, just because I bother to talk about it online in public sometimes. Similarly for any social justice work or any work improving the work environment in research. It is like some people cannot comp…

It's lack of training I think. A good engineer should think about the consequences of her actions. People in the industry, it seems, just don't. Very disappointing.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#107

Post by hardwaregeek »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #105
hardwaregeek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apologies, I assumed it would be clear from the other comments. When I posted this the top comment was a very visibly negative take on the paper. Similarly, Google must have considered this paper to be sufficiently outside the realm of valid academic discourse because their actions around the release of this paper lead to the termination of a couple authors and a PR snafu.

Thanks for explaining. FWIW, I don't think your last sentence is a fair assessment of what happened at all. Pointing out major deficiencies in a paper is not the same thing as saying it's "sufficiently outside the realm of valid academic discourse", and, having closely followed the news when this all went down, it's clear that it's what happened in the aftermath of this paper that led to the terminations - it's not l…

I can’t speak to the aftermath but even interfering in the publication of the paper is pretty dramatic. If Google had let it go through and not said anything, or at worst published a milquetoast response saying they disagree but respect the discourse, I don’t think the paper would have had half the attention. If your scientists publish a paper that is not even wrong, do you ask them to retract it? Shouldn’t the response from the larger academic community be enough?

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#108

Post by AbrahamParangi »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #78
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess if one aspires to academic discourse about Truth rather than about Activism or about Power then this will seem somewhat like motivated reasoning.

If you want academic discourse about truth, become a philosopher. Activism and power are just as real as trees and language models. Discussing them is discussing the world. Your concern about motivated reasoning is a valid one – but motivated reasoning is different to persuasive language. If anything, persuasive language highlights the places you should be looking for motivated reasoning (but it also makes it harder…

I think of it as something like the journalist becoming part of the story. Yes we all have our opinions but to the extent that I can tell what yours are the researcher has become the subject and frankly, that is much less interesting.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#109

Post by janalsncm »

jasmer wrote: post #101
janalsncm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect science to have a hypothesis which can be falsified. Otherwise it’s just opining on a topic. Otherwise we could just call this HN thread “research”.

Science is 80% discussion, opining, thinking, reading etc.

A lot of areas are made up of those things. Theology, for example. What sets science apart is testable hypotheses.

Re: On the dangers of stochastic parrots: Can language models be too big? (2021)

#110

Post by freyr »

tlringer wrote: post #104
freyr wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that disputes what I said or excuses her behavior. The “resonant” email is public, we can’t pretend it was in any way professional or appropriate. Vanishingly few people can get away with acting like that at work without getting fired. She thought she was an exception and she wasn’t.

It was fine, unless you reach far enough to take it literally, which is quite obviously not what Timnit intended. The call to stop DEI work was a rhetorical device to highlight to an audience that presumably cares strongly about diversity that the current work is not meaningful without broader systemic change within Google. Plus an emotional plea to what should have been a sympathetic audience to understand how exhau…

Timnit’s backpedaling regarding her email and her ultimatum was absurd. You seem completely unwilling to factor Timnit’s own behavior into the chain of events, so it doesn’t make sense to continue this. This elimination of personal responsibility when it’s inconvenient to the narrative has become endemic among the activist employees. To your credit, it seems like your heart is in the right place with wanting to help her and others.
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