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Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

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Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#301

Post by throwawayboise »

b3kart wrote: post #201
throwawayhaxx99 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like Google really likes firing people instead of free speech. Sure they can do that because of at will employment but at some point it has to start leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouths especially when these firings get publicized. At some point CS grads will start taking this into consideration when it comes to working at places and having their own political views. Who wants to work at a place where th…

Maybe when Google stops paying these CS grads obscene amounts of money. Only people with very strong political views will convince themselves to not go there, and I doubt it's a large group of people.

The vast majority of people I've ever worked with do not bring their politics to the office. Maybe it's different in SV.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#302

Post by ashtonkem »

newsclues wrote: post #175
strangeloops85 wrote: post #139

Somehow Microsoft Research manages to be a much more open place than Google and has researchers publish critical pieces all the time. It's ultimately a bit sad that Google, the company started by two PhD students, is incapable of creating a similar culture to MSR.

Google didn’t have time to establish and solidify corporate culture before the current trends began. Microsoft was more entrenched and stable.

I have no insider knowledge, but from the outside it sure as heck looks like Microsoft has rebuilt its internal culture since the founding of Google. It certainly doesn’t feel like the MS of Bill Gates or the MS of Steve Ballmer anymore.

If that is true, wouldn’t this imply that the difference between the two isn’t time since these unspecified “trends” began, but instead quality of management?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#303

Post by dragonwriter »

Cacti wrote: post #298
thirtyseven wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior?

Yeah, that's not why they were fired.

Well, that’s not why Google says they were fired.

But then, if it was, Google would defeat the purpose by admitting it.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#304

Post by Viliam1234 »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #242
dukeofdoom wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google manipulates search results to favour certain political beliefs. Censors people on youtube for expressing counter view points. And quite likely has enough power to skew elections. Plenty of what they do wrong is political in nature. And should be open to criticism.

I seem to remember Google being criticized for having a disproportionate amount of left leaning employees pushing a left agenda while simultaneously being criticized for showing/pushing right/far right content on youtube. So which is it?

Could it be both?

The left-wing employees may have the political power within the company, but the algorithm maximizing clicks could end up recommending right-wing content because more users click on it.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#305

Post by thirtyseven »

dragonwriter wrote: post #299
thirtyseven wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior?

> Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior? The same reason to hire a token minority in a position of on-paper significance: something to point to for PR purposes. But, with an ethics team, there's also another advantage; if you get strong people who would be contributing to the field anyway and constrain their output to suit your interests, you reduce the degree to which areas you…

Seems to defeat the purpose then if the company's response to any criticism is firing them.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#306

Post by cambalache »

achenatx wrote: post #300
cambalache wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She is an authority on Ethics This is so pretentious. Ethics is a branch of philosophy and even religion with deep debates raging from 4000 years ago and no end in sight. Hundreds of specialists have been going at it in multi-decades efforts and yet any of their opinions must not carry more weight than the average citizen's. Mitchell has a BS in Linguistics an MS in computational linguistics and a PhD in CS. Her fi…

Philosophers have already identified the problem. There is no universal standard of morality or ethics. The core of ethics derives from evolution. Societies with certain sets of cooperative and competitive values destroy, dominate, and expand. Mutations are constantly happening and some of those ethics can lead to the self-destruction of a culture, while some make a culture even more dominant. Some are neutral and ju…

Good luck trying to find a consensus in philosophy, specially in such a contentious field like ethics. There isnt, for myriad of reasons, from the banal (PhD theses, and tenure decisions depend on "new approaches"), to the historical(there are several 'schools' in ethics, with their subdivisions), to the sociological (society in general does not grant to professional philosophers the monopoly on deciding what is wrong or right)

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#307

Post by flippinburgers »

Dr. Gebru originally asked, as part of her complaint, that the names of the people reviewing her work be revealed. Does that sound particularly ethical to you? At best she wanted to talk to them face to face about their criticisms. At worst (and this is more likely if you ask me) she just wanted to throw -isms in their faces.

Just to make sure people don't forget that aspect of what appears to be the root of this situation.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#308

Post by geofft »

Cacti wrote: post #291
aerosmile wrote: post #261

You will learn a lot about Margaret Mitchell's firing by simply reading this piece she shared publicly on Twitter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ERi2crDToYhYjEjxRoOzO-uO... A few punchlines: "Every moment where Jeff Dean and Megan Kacholia do not take responsibility for their actions is another moment where the company as a whole stands by silently as if to intentionally send the horrifying message that Dr. Geb…

The whole piece of so amazingly self-entitled. > Dr. Gebru refused to subjugate herself to a system Like working at a gigantic publicly traded US corporation? > belittle her integrity as a researcher and degrade herself below her fellow researchers Funny way of phrasing "paper wasn't good enough yet to pass peer review." > let those of us in positions of privilege and power come to terms with the discomfort of being…

> Funny way of phrasing "paper wasn't good enough yet to pass peer review."

Peer review happens after it's submitted, in a blinded review process, by other researchers who don't have a conflict of interest - i.e., people who are at other institutions. It does not happen internally by people hand-picked by management.

You can disagree about the merits if you want, but it's important that we're on the same page about the facts. The review process Jeff Dean got mad about was an internal review process (for IP etc.), not a peer review process. It also was approved in the internal review process, which Jeff Dean confirmed in his letter. He was unhappy that the reviewer chose to review it and approve it within a day (which the reviewer was allowed to) instead of sitting around for two weeks to give management a chance to stick their fingers into the process.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#309

Post by cwhiz »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #264
cwhiz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like she’s an ombudsman for Google. If she has concerns she should voice those concerns internally. If she doesn’t feel that her concerns are being taken seriously, she should quit. On the way out the door, she should tell her story. It’s honestly just basic professionalism. Don’t publicly trash your employer.

I'm curious how you think someone who is a professional ethicist is supposed to do their job without being allowed to comment on ethics. It's not a cog-in-a-machine profession. Having critical opinions is what the job is about. It's literally stupid for a corporation to employ an ethicist and then somehow be outraged and appalled when they have their ethics questioned and challenged.

She’s not a broad professional ethicist at Google. She’s part of an ethical AI team.

It’s one thing to write a critical research paper on Google AI. It’s quite another to spend months publicly trashing your employer on social media.

You would think someone who is working in ethics would understand the difference.

Share your critical opinions internally, or at minimum share them in a professional manner. Act like a professional adult.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#310

Post by D13Fd »

thirtyseven wrote: post #290
aerosmile wrote: post #261

You will learn a lot about Margaret Mitchell's firing by simply reading this piece she shared publicly on Twitter: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ERi2crDToYhYjEjxRoOzO-uO... A few punchlines: "Every moment where Jeff Dean and Megan Kacholia do not take responsibility for their actions is another moment where the company as a whole stands by silently as if to intentionally send the horrifying message that Dr. Geb…

Why hire an Ethics team if you won't let them interrogate unethical behavior?

Interrogating corporate behavior and publicly embarrassing the corporation are two totally different things.

You can employ someone and have them develop and even publicly espouse ethics principles, while also instructing them to keep their criticism of corporate behavior confidential to the corporation.

This is super common in other professions sometimes charged with enforcing ethical and legal corporate behavior, including law and accounting. It's not a new idea.

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