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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

#371

Post by guantanamo_bob »

asfadfdsa wrote: post #46

There are a lot of people commenting that she didn't actually resign. I agree, but it sounds like the conversation went like this: employee: I'm not happy about x, y and z. If you don't do those, I'm going to quit. manager: well we are not going to do those, so thank you for your time. We accept your resignation and would like it to start immediately (i.e. you're fired). If you are gonna tell your manager that you pl…

This debate over whether she was fired or resigned is distracting from the real issue. Why isn’t Google willing to listen and work with Timnit? What are the issues she’s raising? These are more important questions, fired/resigned is just an easy thing to be outraged or give leeway over.

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

#372

Post by dekhn »

calf wrote: post #134
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…

The key sentence is the bullshit about a paper not offering mitigation as not helping. Since when is a scientific paper required to do that.

beyond reviewers or editors asking you to make changes like this (for example, "so-and-so just published which means that your sentence about is obsolete"), we're talking about research coming from a corporation. If one part of the company is trashing another part of the company, and it's based on stale results, asking to have the paper updated to include the latest results is reasonable.

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

#373

Post by ALittleLight »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #145
that_guy_iain wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is little more than gossip unless you can point to something specific that people can judge for themselves. Saying “she basically did X” is a clever way to influence how people feel about her. It's gossip as in I haven't seen anyone confirm the validtiy of https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a... but I've also not seen anyone deny it. In fact, it seems everyone is confirming it unoffical…

That is totally not the same thing as telling your fellow employees to stop working. I like to think I’m a pretty reasonable fellow, but it’s hard to see that point of view. I felt similarly to you yesterday. Now I’m not so sure. It sounds like she was criticizing company process and was frustrated not being able to have any impact on what she perceived were real problems to the integrity of the process. I can empath…

How is saying "stop writing your documents because it doesn’t make a difference" "totally not the same thing as telling your fellow employees to stop working"? Assuming your fellow employees are writing those documents for their job, isn't telling them to stop doing that exactly the same thing?

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

#374

Post by angry_octet »

joshuamorton wrote: post #308
angry_octet wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't the impression I had from reading the principal's statements, to wit: > 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. It seems like someone short-circuited the review process and submitted without review to meet a deadl…

Jeff's statement is a lie. I work at Google, and the publication approval process doesn't normally take to weeks. Any Google employee can verify this, and others have, both in this thread and on twitter. There's some documentation that asks for 2 weeks, but it's not followed, and inconsistent application of policy is absolutely a concern in a case like this. A summary of the events, as best as I can tell, is the norm…

But this supposes that there is some deep and nefarious need for Google to kill a paper written by some AI Ethics people. From looking at their recent pubs I can't think of anything remotely significant about any one paper they could write. Hopefully we'll get a full leak at some point.

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

#375

Post by xapata »

skissane wrote: post #73
Imnimo wrote: post #21

This reads to me like Google felt that the paper painted some of their other technologies in a poor light, and wanted to insert language that made them look better. The way he describes their objections, they strike me as the sort of thing that is routinely addressed in the camera-ready version of papers by adding a few lines to the related work section. Not the sort of thing that a conference reviewer or an internal…

> they strike me as the sort of thing that is routinely addressed in the camera-ready version of papers by adding a few lines to the related work section What I don't understand is why in the discussion nobody proposed amending the paper rather than withdrawing it. If Dean's issue was it didn't cite papers X,Y and Z, rather than demand a withdrawal, why didn't he just demand "I want you to amend the paper to add cite…

Jeff's document says she submitted without asking for approval, so the request was to withdraw that unapproved submission. It is reasonable to interpret that as permission to revise and resubmit. She seems to have had her heart set on this particular conference and submission deadline.

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

#376

Post by nickff »

saagarjha wrote: post #348
nickff wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with accepting anti-social behavior is that you encourage it. This individual or another will use the same strategy against you in the future, and it will create antagonism and toxicity. No, an ultimatum is a choice between two options; she offered Google a choice, and they selected. Expecting them to try to carve out a 'third way' is just unrealistic. I agree that you can frame this many ways; she could…

> No, an ultimatum is a choice between two options; she offered Google a choice, and they selected. Expecting them to try to carve out a 'third way' is just unrealistic. But you're claiming that for a company there shouldn't be a choice, it should just lead to termination.

Well, the company is in slightly different position from the manager. They can abrogate the manager's authority, but that would permanently undermine that individual. On the other hand, they can also choose to accept the subordinate's resignation. They could try to transfer the subordinate somewhere else, but that's also risky, and wouldn't really address the ultimatum in this case.

Accepting a resignation achieves three separate objectives:

-resolves the ultimatum

-discourages future ultimatums

-preserves the status quo ante

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

#377

Post by ska »

nickff wrote: post #335
cmsj wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand some of the reasons why some managers think that way, but you can't have such simplistic rules. An ultimatum like this is an opportunity for a responsible manager to talk and rethink, but it seems like Google jumped at the opportunity to double-down on their mistake and then send out cowardly emails claiming the employee had actually resigned. If I were to apply a simplistic rule here, I would actually i…

The problem with accepting anti-social behavior is that you encourage it. This individual or another will use the same strategy against you in the future, and it will create antagonism and toxicity. No, an ultimatum is a choice between two options; she offered Google a choice, and they selected. Expecting them to try to carve out a 'third way' is just unrealistic. I agree that you can frame this many ways; she could…

> The problem with accepting anti-social behavior is that you encourage it.

Not saying it's wrong or right, but couldn't she make the exactly symmetric argument?

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

#378

Post by abeppu »

xapata wrote: post #370
abeppu wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's simply unprofessional to critque your company for something while not mentioning the work they're doing to combat that. It would seem deeply problematic for an AI ethics researcher to have the expectation that when they critique their own employer, they should mention all their work to ameliorate bias or ethics problems, but to not have a similar expectation when they're critiquing other companies. Is the poin…

That's not the assertion here. A good researcher should be aware of the current state of the field, and thus mention current efforts to solve a problem when discussing that problem. Regardless of who's doing the work.

I agree with you that a researcher should be aware of current work relevant to the problem under discussion. Jeff's quoted email states that part of the issue was that Timnit's paper "ignored too much relevant research", without specifically saying whether the unmentioned relevant research was done by Google.

But the parent comment to which I responded, and which I quoted, specifically said the problem was to criticize google while working for google, and seemed to approve that this should be judged unacceptable.

> I get the impression that she wrote a hit piece on Google and published with Google's name. For me, it's correct they demand a retraction.

The "regardless of who's doing the work" part is key, and not all participants in this conversation are on the same page about it.

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

#379

Post by dmix »

genericone wrote: post #153
mstg wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering her previous attacks to anyone who disagrees with her and her previous public feuds, I'd say people may be afraid of being stamped as a racist/sexist because they had to reject her paper. She was a disruptive employee who threatened her employer and the employer didn't accept it. Why is Google obliged to keep her employed?

That's an angle I had not considered. She has a reputation for retaliation using -isms and those reviewers were able to successfully ask their employer for protections against a historically confrontational coworker. Google as a company takes the hit, as it is in their great interest to prevent their less-vocal employees from getting raked into a public fight.

Google still hired people like that. They only have themselves to blame at that point. What did they expect?

This is hardly the first time it's happened at Google and won't be the last.

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

#380

Post by BeetleB »

spekcular wrote: post #349
BeetleB wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People bluff in negotiations all the time. A normal response would have been, “I can’t do that. Are you still committed to leaving?” Instead Google went all scorched earth and it’s still unclear why. It also indicates that they don’t particularly value her in progress work in the lab since normally you want the 2 weeks or whatever to squeeze some wrap up work out of folks. I strongly encourage people to read some b…

Do you have a suggested reference for learning about negotiation?

Books I liked:

- Bargaining For Advantage (https://www.amazon.com/Bargaining-Advantage-Negotiation-Stra...)

- Negotiation Genius (https://www.amazon.com/Negotiation-Genius-Obstacles-Brillian...)

- Getting To Yes (https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-Wit...)

- The Coursera course from the University of Michigan (and not the Yale one).

- Getting Past No (https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Past-Negotiating-Difficult-Si...)

- Difficult Conversations/Crucial Conversations/Nonviolent Communications

The last bullet (arguably the last two bullets) are about conversation skills, but that is an essential part of negotiations.

I won't claim to be good at this stuff. It takes a lot of effort and practice to change habits you've formed your whole life. But still, I've improved somewhat. What I do think I've become much better at is identifying why someone's efforts succeeded (or in this case, failed).

I would also recommend Influence by Cialdini. It is not a negotiation book at all, but will make much of the material in those books more meaningful if you've read this book.

Books/courses I discourage:

- Never Split The Difference

- The Lynda course (there may be more than one now, but the one I took years ago was bad).

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