Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#131

Post by derivada » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:06 PM UTC

alew1 wrote: post #119

The comments here are disheartening, essentially a combination of “It was Google’s right to fire her” and “She seemed ‘difficult.’” For an industry-operated “Ethics in AI” group to have any teeth, it can’t fire people when they do research that makes them look bad, or when members of the group are ‘difficult.’ (Multiple members of the team she managed have said that she was a great manager and this came as a total su…

people here have been passing premature judgement, as have you. You are projecting criticism of the commenters onto google; it hasn't been stablished that google fired her because she was difficult or made them look bad. There is indeed a scenario where that is the case, but there are others where Google is right to fire her without undermining their ethical position; to say otherwise is to say that she is infallible, an attribute usually reserved to religious groups. If she wants some non faith based support, she should be transparent about the terms of the email where she put forward conditions to the company.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#132

Post by NalNezumi » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #127

fxtentacle wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised that she opted to publicly put the blame on someone and link to their Twitter. That could be interpreted as a dog whistle to her followers to start the public shaming. But at the very least, I'd guess that this will make any potential future employer think twice if they really want to be her manager. And lastly, I remember the name Jeff Dean from reading about advanced AI research, so if someone publicl…

Jeff Dean isn't just someone from advanced AI research. He's one of the longest time Google employees and a key part of the company's success. He's one of the chief engineers behind MapReduce, BigTable, Spanner, the re-awakening of neural network research and many other incredible achievements. At one point inside Google there was a website called "Jeff Dean Facts" similar to the Chuck Norris facts. The guys reputati…

I'm not sure why this is downvoted? I fact checked the Yann Lecun claim and I learned something new. Similar to Stallmans pitchforking, it's a sad case.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#133

Post by 93po » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #23

cyrus20 wrote: post #17

Racism exists. Pay discrimination exists. Yet, you can't go about breaking every norm and rule if you are famous and from an under-represented group. I also saw the tweets at Yann LeCun. I'm not his biggest fan, but that wasn't right. She's hurting minorities for her own agenda. Edit: removed info about myself.

I've never heard of a 300% pay gap between people doing the same job, how does that even happen? Were you paid significantly under par or did that other person somehow hit jackpot? And at what level are we talking about?

I have personally worked somewhere where the person who did the same work as me was paid 3x as me. I was new to the workforce and he was best friends with the CFO for 15 years. Despite my newness and her experience it was the same work.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#134

Post by draw_down » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

FreekNortier wrote: post #105

Off topic but I thought Timnit was a male name.

Come on

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#135

Post by cvhashim » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

alew1 wrote: post #119

The comments here are disheartening, essentially a combination of “It was Google’s right to fire her” and “She seemed ‘difficult.’” For an industry-operated “Ethics in AI” group to have any teeth, it can’t fire people when they do research that makes them look bad, or when members of the group are ‘difficult.’ (Multiple members of the team she managed have said that she was a great manager and this came as a total su…

Seems to be a large number of people defending Google on here when every other other day, Google is the target (and rightly so) for criticism on HN. Would this be a bigger issue with the HN crowd had it not been a black woman?

Edit: and here come the downvotes :/

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#136

Post by whoknew1122 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

PeterStuer wrote: post #103

trynewideas wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Brain is a deep learning artificial intelligence research team at Google. Google Brain Women and Allies is a mailing list within the team.

Are mailing lists in Google gender segregated?

It's pretty common in large corporations to have 'affinity groups', which discuss topics that affect the group.

I don't work at Google; I work at Amazon. I can only speak about my experience, but it's likely the same at Google.

You don't have to be a part of an affinity group to be a member of the mailing list (that's where the ..and Allies portion comes into play).

The 'Google Brain Women and Allies' mailing list is probably full of women from the Google Brain team, non-binary and men from in from the Google Brain team, and others who aren't on the Google Brain team but are interested in its work.

Again, I don't know. But this is educated conjecture based on my experience at another FAANG.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#137

Post by whoknew1122 » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:50 PM UTC

worker767424 wrote: post #78

> So I've been immediately fired :-) Who ends that sentence with a smiley?

It could be someone who uses humor as a coping mechanism in stressful situations.

I respond to stressful and/or tragic situations with sardonic/dark/derisive humor. It's a coping mechanism for me. Some people cry. I crack jokes.

Just yesterday I said in a meeting with my boss 'No one wants to touch that project, because the customer gives out negative feedback like cheap halloween candy.'

If I were fired from my job in a way I felt was unfair, I'd probably do something similar.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#138

Post by bananaface » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

_y5hn wrote: post #42

unishark wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd call it petty more than sleazy. Drama queens on both sides.

Threat of resignation is not a resignation. Either they follow due termination process, or she might still be employed or have good legal case.

Is this true, legally? Can they not accept a demand for resignation and be legally immune from claims of discrimination?

I assume they wanted her out and she accidentally gave them immunity, so they jumped on it.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#139

Post by timkofu » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

cvhashim wrote: post #135

alew1 wrote: post #119

The comments here are disheartening, essentially a combination of “It was Google’s right to fire her” and “She seemed ‘difficult.’” For an industry-operated “Ethics in AI” group to have any teeth, it can’t fire people when they do research that makes them look bad, or when members of the group are ‘difficult.’ (Multiple members of the team she managed have said that she was a great manager and this came as a total su…

Seems to be a large number of people defending Google on here when every other other day, Google is the target (and rightly so) for criticism on HN. Would this be a bigger issue with the HN crowd had it not been a black woman? Edit: and here come the downvotes :/

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Re: Ethical AI researcher Timnit Gebru fired from Google

#140

Post by visarga » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #61

jariel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google did the right thing and they were civil. She made some pretty serious demands, not having been met, with such politicization there's no reasonable way to accommodate a longer handoff, and she knew that. Waaay too much risk there. She set her own terms, they accepted, that's it. She should have been more transparent in this, because in her Tweets she wasn't forthcoming that it was her terms. There are a ton of…

Do we even know what her demands were? I haven’t seen them posted anywhere. That said, it’s not behooven on either party to be transparent — to the public, or even other employees — because that’s just lawsuit bait. All we know is that she gave a hardball ultimatum, and Google accepted option 2. I don’t know enough about what’s going on, but if you say “Do this, or I quit,” you have to be prepared for them to show yo…

Some third hand hearsay mention:

> In the letter she criticised the use of pre trained language models in Google's products (e.g., BERT is now used for most searches, machine translation, etc.). Apparently, the two conditions she mentioned concern how Google goes forward in deploying these models despite the warning of (their own) AI ethics researchers about biases that are manifested in these models.