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Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

theguardian.com

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Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#21

Post by RustySpottedCat »

JCM9 wrote: post #13

The AI items are concerning. The DEI stuff though is gone and isn’t coming back. The concept was well intentioned but, quite ironically, these programs turned into a hub of biased discriminatory behavior and it was becoming increasingly hard to paint them as anything else.

There was a zero chance the company with the best AI LLM models would not get involved in weaponization, willingly or not.

DAI is going to be one of the first things the next administration brings back, mark my words. Saying it's discriminatory is like saying affirmative action is discriminatory

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#22

Post by aprilthird2021 »

JCM9 wrote: post #13

The AI items are concerning. The DEI stuff though is gone and isn’t coming back. The concept was well intentioned but, quite ironically, these programs turned into a hub of biased discriminatory behavior and it was becoming increasingly hard to paint them as anything else.

They are also now illegal by executive order which is the main reason companies are getting rid of them. I agree with you they were biased but companies don't care about that

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#23

Post by gotoeleven »

Larrikin wrote: post #16
malcolmgreaves wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These quotas you speak of do not and have never existed. James was a below average engineer who wanted the special treatment of his daddy’s generation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna835836 Seems like his firing was completely justified. But is also a knock against Google for hiring him in the first place.

You know neuroticism is a term of art in psychology, right? It's a value neutral term, not a pejorative. If your argument is that he deserves firing because he's sexist and your evidence that he's sexist is he called women neurotic then you're part of the reason we can't have reasoned debates.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#24

Post by ddq »

deideiohthatdei wrote: post #8
miohtama wrote: post #6

[flagged]

[flagged]

It's funny that this could be interpreted as either far left (the biases against marginalized people need to be heavily counteracted in order for them to succeed) or far right (without DEI they would be unable to succeed on their own merits because they are less able than the typical white male straight christians). What it can't be interpreted as is reasonable. It's insulting no matter how you look at it, either paternalistic or white supremecist. Saying that everyone who isn't of certain skin color, gender, religion, or orientation is "fucked" without relatively recent HR initiatives is on its face ridiculous and insulting to those who have succeeded without it, which is the vast majority of them! Probably not what you actually meant but this whole topic seems so ridiculously polarized that people will post those type of extemist interpretations without a second thought.

e: ah, just looked at the username and account creation date. I'm now rescinding my assumption of good faith intent.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#25

Post by kotaKat »

rkagerer wrote: post #19

Google used AI to summarize the ~200 questions its employees posed ahead of this meeting regarding its DEI and AI policies. The final two paragraphs of the article are telling: The third-most-popular question employees asked was why the AI summaries were so bad. “The AI summaries of questions on Ask are terrible. Can we go back to answering the questions people actually asked?” it read. I thought summarization was a…

What, Googlers don't like AI summaries shoved down their throat? Too bad, it's a feature, and features can't be disabled! :)

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#26

Post by funkychicken »

rkagerer wrote: post #19

Google used AI to summarize the ~200 questions its employees posed ahead of this meeting regarding its DEI and AI policies. The final two paragraphs of the article are telling: The third-most-popular question employees asked was why the AI summaries were so bad. “The AI summaries of questions on Ask are terrible. Can we go back to answering the questions people actually asked?” it read. I thought summarization was a…

I actually felt bad for the poor bot :(

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#27

Post by rl3 »

Microsoft interestingly enough appears to be standing their ground on DEI. [0]

Yet, they hopped on the layoff train this time around with a particularly nasty twist. [1]

Perhaps they were afraid they'd need to be sociopathic in at least one regard, lest they buck the wider ethos lately. Facebook for example, offered generous severance packages but threw DEI in the trash immediately. [2]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/business/dei-programs-ini...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-performance-based-...

[2] https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/laid-off-meta-employees-blast...

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#28

Post by ndr »

gotoeleven wrote: post #17
malcolmgreaves wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These quotas you speak of do not and have never existed. James was a below average engineer who wanted the special treatment of his daddy’s generation.

What special treatment did he want?

Good question. GP and parent's sibling sound at least uninformed if not misinformed.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#29

Post by ASinclair »

JCM9 wrote: post #13

The AI items are concerning. The DEI stuff though is gone and isn’t coming back. The concept was well intentioned but, quite ironically, these programs turned into a hub of biased discriminatory behavior and it was becoming increasingly hard to paint them as anything else.

> The concept was well intentioned but, quite ironically, these programs turned into a hub of biased discriminatory behavior and it was becoming increasingly hard to paint them as anything else.

I think the programs basically did nothing. They were ineffective. Yet, that made a lot of people really angry.

Re: Google defends scrapping AI pledges and DEI goals in all-staff meeting

#30

Post by Larrikin »

deideiohthatdei wrote: post #8
miohtama wrote: post #6

[flagged]

[flagged]

Fucked because of the deeply engrained racism, sexism, and homophobia in American society right?

It's like people forget many of the people you see in those photos hanging black people, letting the police dogs go into a crowd, putting glass in the chairs of the Little Rock nine, etc are still alive. My living parents and grand mother were both born into a segregated country.

The civil rights legislation was passed in 1965

Donald Trump lived his entire childhood in a country where it was completely fine to use and treat minorities like trash. I think he and a lot of other people miss it.

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