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Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

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Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#401

Post by pseudalopex »

stronglikedan wrote: post #104
thenightcrawler wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it public before she got fired?

She wasn't fired. She resigned, because of a her-way-or-the-highway mentality. FTA: In later tweets, Gebru clarified that no one at Google explicitly told her that she was fired. Rather, she said Google would not meet a number of her conditions for returning and accepted her resignation immediately because it felt that her email reflected "behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager."

She didn't offer to resign immediately.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#402

Post by pseudalopex »

cbozeman wrote: post #193
username90 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google didn't fire her for her research, they fired her for being toxic. She was toxic because some of her coworkers didn't accept her research, but most people would have handled the situation without being toxic and if she did she wouldn't have gotten fired.

From what I understand, they didn't fire her, they accepted her resignation? When you append, "Or I will leave" to a request and the company isn't interested in your request, you're resigning. You can dress it up in fancy language, but that's the bottom line. Or did I miss something about this story?

She proposed working on a date. Google terminated her employment immediately and said it was for misconduct.[1]

[1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334364735446331392

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#403

Post by pseudalopex »

baryphonic wrote: post #74
_y5hn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the new series, The Long Story, it's hillarious and sad.

Wow, that's unbelievable! Much of the dialogue in the screenshots is extreme cringe. Do wokes ever interact with actual human beings, not to mention high school kids? And I still don't know how we're supposed to pronounce "Mx" like in the developer's handle. "Mix?" "Mux?" (Would a male be "Demux" in this scheme?) The saddest part are the glowing reviews in Vice Motherboard and The Verge.

Mix or mux.[1] Easy to find. Men are still called Mr.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/mx-gender-neut...

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#404

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

shadowfox wrote: post #171
Majestic121 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethics is a large subject, people can be interested in certain branches and not others. I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices'

> I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices' That is interesting. I wonder if it indicates something about the demographics of HN.

Enough with your racist dog whistles.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#405

Post by _y5hn »

baryphonic wrote: post #74
_y5hn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See the new series, The Long Story, it's hillarious and sad.

Wow, that's unbelievable! Much of the dialogue in the screenshots is extreme cringe. Do wokes ever interact with actual human beings, not to mention high school kids? And I still don't know how we're supposed to pronounce "Mx" like in the developer's handle. "Mix?" "Mux?" (Would a male be "Demux" in this scheme?) The saddest part are the glowing reviews in Vice Motherboard and The Verge.

Not everyone is as prejudiced as to judge something from screenshots alone. You need to see at least one episode. It kicks left and right, and is funny, unless you take yourself too seriously.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#406

Post by _y5hn »

fatbird wrote: post #51
_y5hn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary: The research paper is evidence of knowingly committing later wrongdoings.

As we debate this, Google has been credibibly accused of the most basic and wide-ranging antitrust violations, and whether they actually pay a price for it, assuming the accusations are true, isn't a slam dunk. Knowingly committing ethical violations with AI seems likely pretty low on their list of concerns.

It is, but to the managers in charge of this part of the organization, they probably want to keep their options and not be cornered by bad PR.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#407

Post by tomcam »

uh_uh wrote: post #368
Udik wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just makes you wonder how much toxic behaviour did her managers put up with before deciding that enough is enough, and (more or less) firing a prominent, visible, black, female AI ethicist working in the field of gender equality and racial discrimination. They knew perfectly well how damaging it could have been and yet decided they had enough.

Yeah, I guess calling your managers "a bunch of privileged White men" is probably not going to win many friends: https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824?s... I find her totally out of line and disagree with her politics but I have to give her that in some sense she is quite brave. Most people would never consider tweeting out something like this because they'd be afraid of getting fired immediately…

> in some sense she is quite brave.

IMHO she's an unethical ethicist, rude, and presumptuous at best. She has no idea what kind of depredations may have gone on in the lives of people she calls "privileged". I look like a typical fat white bald businessguy. I have been thrown into jail unjustly, raped, beaten, kicked out of schools and shunned from my social group for things I didn't do and would never do, rejected by multiple girlfriends' families because I was not in the right minority group, and more.

She has no idea what's gone on in their lives. They on the other hand appear to be treating her with as much public kindness as she is dishing out hatred (publicly).

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#408

Post by pseudalopex »

croissants wrote: post #81
TakuYam wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is blackness an identity though? I feels rather racist to diminish substantial cultural differences and experiences just because a group of people may have one common physical characteristic.

I'm far from an expert on this topic, but I believe the reasoning is that (at least in the USA), African-American ancestral links don't necessarily go back far enough to identify an ethnic group because of slavery. In the absence of the ability to say e.g. "I'm from the Yoruba people", the primary group identification just becomes Black. I agree that it seems kind of reductive from the outside, but I'm mostly incline…

Don't forget centuries of mixing and shared history.

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#409

Post by ergocoder »

andrewprock wrote: post #356
ergocoder wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you eat dinner today, I'll commit suicide." - I'll probably skip dinner to save life. "If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, I'll probably tell person that they can quit their job. I'm not gonna skip my dinner for that. I hope this illustrates that, when death is involved, everything else becomes secondary, and we prioritize not death over everything. So, it's a bad analogy to use in Timnit's situati…

Sure, but you left out the actual situation: "If you eat dinner today, I'll quit my job" - then, you fire them and get on with dinner.

If I eat dinner, you will want to quit and I want you to quit. Both want to part way.

We can agree to disagree on being fired or not being fired.

But why would 'being fired' (or not) matter since both sides want to part way?

Re: Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

#410

Post by pseudalopex »

zaroth wrote: post #195
tomdell wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That claim by Jeff Dean has been more or less debunked. The real reason that Google demanded the paper not be published is that it is critical of models underlying the company’s fundamental business - the whole message from Jeff Dean is very misleading and states a bunch of other, unrelated things as the “real reason”.

It would be very helpful to point to sources for the claim that Jeff Dean's explanation is debunked, rather than just claiming it has been. The timing of the submission for review, and the deadline for submission to publication seems like a simple factual statement that should be easily demonstrated as true or false.

Several Google employees said it wasn't the regular process.[1][2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25309488

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25309379

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