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About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

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Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#31

Post by foota »

throawaydmg wrote: post #24

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback It always amazes how blatantly authoritarian these "woke" types are. I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of…

I can imagine she felt helpless when her work was being blocked. Imagine you were going to start a project and was told someone in your org was against it and that you couldn't do it as a result.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#33

Post by theobeers »

gcr wrote: post #2

Maybe different teams are different, but on my previous team within Google AI, we thought the goal of google's pubapproval process was to ensure that internal company IP (eg. details about datasets, details about google compute infra) does not leak to the public, and maybe to shield Google from liability. Nothing more. In all of my time at Google AI, I never heard of pubapproval being used for peer review or to criti…

And the examples of issues flagged in review that Jeff keeps highlighting—like Timnit’s alleged failure to mention recent work to reduce the environmental impact of large models—are themselves a bit worrisome. Jeff gives the impression that they demanded retraction (!) because they wanted Timnit and her coauthors to soften their critique. The more I read about this, the worse it looks.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#34

Post by hackcasual »

vikramkr wrote: post #20
gcr wrote: post #2

Maybe different teams are different, but on my previous team within Google AI, we thought the goal of google's pubapproval process was to ensure that internal company IP (eg. details about datasets, details about google compute infra) does not leak to the public, and maybe to shield Google from liability. Nothing more. In all of my time at Google AI, I never heard of pubapproval being used for peer review or to criti…

They might have enough of a PR budget to make the Google version of the story stick. But, its concerning that, if what you say is true, they are hoping to make that work by leveraging the public's ignorance of how the Google specific process works. Its also not the smartest move, since Google is important enough and public goodwill towards tech is low enough that journalists will have a field day looking for evidence…

This really seems like whistling past the graveyard on google's part here. There's too much meat to the story for them to really do much more than obfuscate. The intersection of race and gender, ethical implications of big tech, the capitalistic pursuit of innovation at the expense of individual freedom. All of these look bad for google

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#35

Post by Orthw2020 »

throawaydmg wrote: post #24

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback It always amazes how blatantly authoritarian these "woke" types are. I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of…

That is the only reason.

If your entire career is built around solving a problem, then actually solving it is against your personal best interest.

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#36

Post by Footkerchief »

The followup does not answer the major questions raised by this part of Dean's original email:

> Unfortunately, this particular paper was only shared with a day’s notice before its deadline — we require two weeks for this sort of review — and then instead of awaiting reviewer feedback, it was approved for submission and submitted. A cross functional team then reviewed the paper as part of our regular process and the authors were informed that it didn’t meet our bar for publication and were given feedback about why. [...] We acknowledge that the authors were extremely disappointed with the decision that Megan and I ultimately made, especially as they’d already submitted the paper.

When it was "approved for submission," was that approval final and actionable, or some kind of conditional approval? Is demanding a retraction after an approval the normal way it works at Google, or was this an unusual occurrence that Gebru was right to question?

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#37

Post by saagarjha »

choppaface wrote: post #30

It's frankly unprofessional for Jeff Dean to post only his email in this document without providing more context. The news media has in cases provided balanced coverage that included the email from Timnit that prompted Google's action: https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... This post from Jeff Dean simply underscores that he has failed to balance the need for diplomacy with the research thesi…

I mean, this is obviously a place where Jeff Dean is providing the voice of Google on the topic. Why would they provide balanced context?

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#38

Post by chrisdinn »

Why doesn’t Jeff just suck up his pride, apologize and hire her back rather than write increasingly thin rationalizations for his reaction?

High level research (and engineering) will involve egos and you should expect this kind of push back when you stop someone from publishing. Nothing here justifies how he handled it

Of course, I think many of us have seen this reaction before, maybe even done it ourselves. It’s bad for everyone, don’t do it Jeff!

Re: About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

#40

Post by [deleted] »

nova22033 wrote: post #19

Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resig…

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