Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 266 posts

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#111

Post by kevingadd »

idk_bro_idk wrote: post #46

All those 1200 should threaten to go on strike and hit Google's profits.

1200 employees going on strike will literally have no negative impact on Google's bottom line, at least not unless they do it for a long time period. A lot of the money that comes in is basically automatic, it's being produced by ad sells and stuff like that. You'd need a massive subset of the company's staff to go on strike (not just 1200) before that would have any impact on whether the money-making machine continues to function. In a case like this walkouts or strikes by the tech workers have more of a symbolic purpose + impact on future deadlines/releases than a direct impact on revenue.

Maybe if the entire SRE department went on strike and stopped maintaining the datacenters that would put a dent in the numbers due to degraded service, but something like that would probably just doom the company entirely even if they went back to work after a bit.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#112

Post by tertius »

claudeganon wrote: post #80
rafiki6 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I support employment rights, you are paid by a company to do their bidding. If you don't like it start a company, but then you're just doing the bidding of the customer.

This is a uniquely American notion of employment. “Do my bidding or be done away with” is not the norm across countries with strong unions and worker protections.

No, this is not uniquely American. Which country are you from that doesn't require employees to act in a way as directed by the company that employs them?

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#113

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

op03 wrote: post #75
zartar wrote: post #26

I find the semi-regular condemnations from employees of big tech companies hollow. If you work for one of these companies and find their behavior unsavory, go work somewhere else - this is actually what might cause executives at these companies to reflect on how they might change course. The fact that most of these employees could easily get well paying (just not as _ridiculously well paying_) jobs elsewhere to me fe…

Big Corps have always been taken that stance. Google managers must be saying the same thing up and down the food chain. But the fact that it hasn't stopped walkouts is interesting. It means there are influential people within who back the walkouts.

Walkouts are close enough to strikes that it would be pretty dangerous for a Google executive to try and stop them. (I think some of them may actually be strikes by law - I don't know the exact legal definition.)

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#114

Post by User23 »

brayhite wrote: post #99
w1ntermute wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just another example of the “participation culture” that modern parenting and social media have made commonplace. Who needs to do anything real when you can just upvote or retweet? You get the same sort of participation trophy that you’ve been taught to aim for since childhood.

This is such a bad-faith, shallow take. Ascribing the act of bringing awareness to “participation trophies” is nonsense. I also disagree with the parent. Bringing change is almost always easiest from within. “Don’t like it? Leave.” stances aim to do more to attack the person involved than it does to take a critical look at whatever problem it is that’s being discussed.

It's a moral problem. If the organization you work for is immoral, by knowingly continuing to work for them you are materially cooperating in the evil they are doing and are morally culpable yourself. Sure, you can refuse to materially cooperate, but then they will fire you anyhow, as we see here.

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#115

Post by that_guy_iain »

jlokier wrote: post #93
miked85 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She offered to resign on a particular schedule It is not out of the ordinary at all for companies to walk people out on the day of resignation. The company is not required or even expected to abide by whatever schedule is presented to them.

If the employee says "I'm giving you 1 month formal notice of resignation", and the company responds with "effective immediately you are terminated without pay or benefits", at that point it's not a resignation any more, it's a termination. In most countries (which are not "at will"), I believe if the employee had not breached their contract they could claim wrongful termination in this scenario and likely be awarded…

I don't get why people keep mentioning how things are in other countries. We all know the US is bad for employee rights, why bring up how it is in other countries?

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#116

Post by refurb »

chippy wrote: post #47
ystad wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of the two week notice in this case?

as I understand it, she was on vacation at the time

In California you get paid for accrued vacation when you are terminated. She's not out any money, so why keep her on as an employee while she's out?

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#117

Post by romanoderoma »

yulaow wrote: post #32
dmarchand90 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the subtle, yet important, difference is that she said she would quit by a certain date and they terminated her immediately. Given her role is likely just for PR it seems rather foolish not to at least give her two weeks notice or something.

In her group email she also asked other employees to stop working in any other related project. I mean, I don't see how google could NOT terminate her after such an event. I am in a nation with extremly strong worker protection law but that action alone would be enough to fire you on the spot.

> with extremly strong worker protection law

Serious question: what makes them strong if employers can't organize a simple strike?

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#118

Post by cataphract »

commandlinefan wrote: post #3

But how many applaud it? (In secret because supporting this is something you might get fired for...)

Judging from the comments from some of her ex-colleagues, she was not exactly an easy person to deal with:

> The GPT-3 thread you describe was my first exposure to Timnit. Watching that thread unfold left me feeling upset, frustrated, and disappointed.

> I was so excited in anticipation of other Googler's reactions and insights about GPT-3, but that thread got immediately derailed by Timnit into claims of racism, not being listened to, dehumanization, that the whole forum became icy and dead after that.

https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#119

Post by jlokier »

miked85 wrote: post #101
jlokier wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the employee says "I'm giving you 1 month formal notice of resignation", and the company responds with "effective immediately you are terminated without pay or benefits", at that point it's not a resignation any more, it's a termination. In most countries (which are not "at will"), I believe if the employee had not breached their contract they could claim wrongful termination in this scenario and likely be awarded…

This is completely untrue, at least with 'at will' employments. Once you resign, you quit. Working for any additional length of time after that often occurs if it is in both parties best interests. If it isn't though, the relationship is usually terminated immediately after resignation.

> This is completely untrue, at least with 'at will' employments.

The sentence you are replying to literally excludes 'at will' countries from the scope of their point...

>> In most countries (which are not "at will"), ...

Re: More than 1,200 Google workers condemn firing of AI scientist Timnit Gebru

#120

Post by gok »

paperdropper wrote: post #4

A draft copy of the disputed paper was posted over in Reddit, if this is of interest to anyone: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... https://gofile.io/d/WfcxoF

She wasn't fired over the paper. She was fired because she demanded Google name the employees who gave (anonymous) negative feedback about the paper, and that anyone going forward who gave feedback on her work also be named, or she'd quit.
Post reply on HN