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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#421

Post by DoreenMichele »

This is a really hard problem space to solve. I'm very sorry to see this drama happening and I have sympathy for both sides.

I routinely run into the issue that if I try to understand why people did something that went badly/harmed people without looking to blame them per se, I get accused of being "an apologist." But in practice trying to understand why things happen is essential to finding a real solution. Merely asserting that X person's/group's needs matter and they are being harmed isn't really enough to find a viable path forward.

Like I have seen people say that suburbia is "White supremacist design" because in practice it ended up being mostly Whites who got suburban housing when suburbia was born in the US. I have tried to make the distinction that suburbia was born in part because large swaths of greenfield development was quicker, easier and cheaper to create and that this choice wasn't, per se, racist.

I am aware there was real racism happening and there were a lot of bylaws that intentionally excluded People of Color, but I'm sure those bylaws would have existed even if they had been building towers of condos in downtown areas instead. It wasn't specific to the architectural form that was built.

I recently had an exchange with someone that reminded me how important trust and mutual respect is and how the lack of such tends to cause problems to escalate.

I asked this person about a thing they did. I had been having paranoid fears that they did that thing in reaction to me and stuff I was working on and when they replied to my inquiry they had a wholly unrelated reason.

I didn't tell them that I was having paranoid fantasies that maybe this was some kind of negative reaction to me. I framed it neutrally.

Their reply was very reassuring to me. It was reassuring in part because I trust and respect this person. If you don't have that piece, having a long list of negative experiences makes it difficult to believe they aren't intentionally harming you and then lying about their real motives to cover it up and enable additional abuse.

It is, perhaps, a mistake to leave this remark. Like Timnit Gebru, I'm pretty tired and frustrated with a lot of things and feeling rubbed raw and exhausted.

But it seems to me it doesn't get better by throwing in the towel and giving up on saying anything just because the entire world is touchy after a nearly year-long global pandemic.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#422

Post by xibalba »

compiler-guy wrote: post #358
uoaei wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, she didn't say that. She said she may set a date in the future for her resignation. That is non-committal and non-specific. Your characterization is inaccurate.

People will have to find the source document, which to the best of my knowledge is not public (note, not the message to Women and Allies), read it, and then reach their own conclusions. I stand by my characterization. She characterizes it herself thusly: "I said here are the conditions. If you can meet them great I’ll take my name off this paper, if not then I can work on a last date." https://twitter.com/timnitGebru…

I think this is a major source of confusion in this whole conversation. There is clearly a follow up conversation between Timnit and some manager(s) (the name Megan is mentioned) in which this ultimatum was proffered.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#423

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

je42 wrote: post #383
rubatuga wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Yann said about data bias is a fact. He wasn’t dismissing your concerns nor distracting from it. A lot of people tried to extrapolate what Yann meant, but from the way I see it, if more people learn about the cause of this racial bias, the more people will be inclined to use fairer and diverse datasets in their future ML research.

The point is that she has an expectation of Yann to go further than just stating a fact. I assume she thinks that Yann has enough intellectual capacity to improve situation of biased ML but doesnt execute. Further, my guess is that the reason why he doesnt execute is not transparent to her, hence frustrating.

I don't think that's what she meant. You are filling in the blanks that she should have filled herself.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#424

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ggreer wrote: post #386
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #294

>> 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. It ignored too much relevant research — for example, it talked about the environmental impact of large models, but disregarded subsequent research showing much greater efficiencies. Similarly, it raised concerns about bias in lan…

> Well, this is why. Because, as a rule, if you are a researcher in academia you won't be asked to retract your research because it makes someone look bad. If your results go against current dogma, or if they reveal an uncomfortable truth, your paper will be rejected for spurious reasons every time you submit it. A recent example from Glenn Geher[1]: > I have published more than 100 academic pieces in my career to da…

From the article you cited:

>> Each rejection came with a new set of reasons. After some point, it started to seem to us that maybe academics just found this topic and our results too threatening. Maybe this paper simply was not politically correct.

It looks like the only reason to believe the reasons for rejecting the paper were political is that it was rejected by many venues. Note that having different reviewers give different feedback is par for the course.

Personally, I don't think this is serious. Having one's paper rejected, stings, but it happens to everyone and all the time. There's no reason to see hidden motives behind it. The paper not being very good is sufficient explanation.

Not that it doesn't happen for papers to be rejected because they threaten a reviewer's work. But to claim that the entire academic establishment is threatened by a paper and that's why it was rejected? Sounds a bit far-fetched.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#425

Post by iab »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #349
gnusty_gnurc wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Welcome to the real world, companies have policies and once you join them you lose your freedom to do whatever the heck you want. Yea there is something uniquely activist academic about all these complaints you see surfacing nowadays. As though millenials are landing in industry now and they're surprised their employers are companies selling products and not activist organizations. And you're right it's even funnie…

"Millenials" have been entering the industry for more than 15 years now. Don't put an entire generation in the same basket as a few visible people.

Millennials - the most amorphous generation

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#426

Post by bitbang »

chrisbroadfoot wrote: post #293
tinyhouse wrote: post #95

Good for Google. I don't know anything about her, but her debate with Lecun on Twitter was enough for me to know she is toxic. I don't care how good of a researcher she is. The fact they fired her given the current climate shows they actually have balls. I had no idea... I read her email. You know what's crazy about it? she is talking about Google silencing marginalized voices. She keeps referring to herself as a mar…

What about that thread shows she's toxic?

She is defining herself and her existence using critical theory, and so her perception of experiences is filtered through that world view. That will always create a "toxic" environment, not to mention just make a person miserable to be around.

Critical theory is useful for the purpose of study and quantification of different social bias, norms, tends, values, or whatever other social aspect you want to slice up. The problem is when people use those divisions to identify themselves. It forces people to identify with a certain group, when in reality the divisions are often not nearly as clear cut as they are defined. But over time people are pressured socially into moving closer to how their group is defined, and what may have once been a false dichotomy becomes a self fulfilling prophesy of sorts; where the social interactions are entirely defined by "my tribe" vs "their tribe". My tribe is all good, theirs is all bad, therefor we are justified in treating everybody in their tribe as less than human. Even is cases where there is very real injustice and evil taking place, allowing oneself to be defined by these groups does nothing to resolve the problem. It only serves to shore up divisions and conflict between groups, making it worse.

It is unfortunate that the admonition to "love your neighbour as yourself" is no longer held with high regard.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#427

Post by prionassembly »

je42 wrote: post #383
rubatuga wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Yann said about data bias is a fact. He wasn’t dismissing your concerns nor distracting from it. A lot of people tried to extrapolate what Yann meant, but from the way I see it, if more people learn about the cause of this racial bias, the more people will be inclined to use fairer and diverse datasets in their future ML research.

The point is that she has an expectation of Yann to go further than just stating a fact. I assume she thinks that Yann has enough intellectual capacity to improve situation of biased ML but doesnt execute. Further, my guess is that the reason why he doesnt execute is not transparent to her, hence frustrating.

One of Jenny Holzer’s truisms is: you owe the world, not the other way around.

Isn’t Gebru an “AI researcher”, after all?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#428

Post by mkolodny »

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #115
black_puppydog wrote: post #2

I think this is actually the better link to be discussing, rather than the twitter threads shared before. The most relevant parts (in terms of back story) should be this: > A week before you go out on vacation, you see a meeting pop up at 4:30pm PST on your calendar (this popped up at around 2pm). No one would tell you what the meeting was about in advance. Then in that meeting your manager’s manager tells you “it ha…

It’s more relevant, but probably doesn’t tell the whole story considering she very heavily hints that she gave them a list of demands or she would resign, and Google just accepted her resignation.

"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 don't know the full list of demands, but Jeff Dean shared one demand that people may find unreasonable. Other demands may have been much more reasonable, but those weren't shared.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#429

Post by anonvenger »

chrisbroadfoot wrote: post #267
anonvenger wrote: post #160

The character revealing bit is this: > Have you ever heard of someone getting “feedback” on a paper through a privileged and confidential document to HR? Does that sound like a standard procedure to you or does it just happen to people like me who are constantly dehumanized? She was told by her bosses boss to retract a paper. Whatever is it that paper, and whatever the reasons or the delivery method are, there is not…

> spilling 'special sauce' information to the public. You never heard of it, and that's a good thing. okay, cool. That's not what's going on here. We're talking about AI ethics, and the goal is that our (society's) use of AI meets a high bar for ethics and equity.

In light of Jeff Dean's email, which you can find in the updated original post, it appears that Timnit Gebru threw a public tantrum when one of the many papers she collaborated on was deemed unsuitable for Google Brain technical standards. That's the point: adults handle minor setbacks like adults, instead of rushing to social media to vent in public about their 'constant dehumanization'.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#430

Post by iab »

dash2 wrote: post #344
mola wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a research institute, it's a division in a for profit global corporation. I'm frankly disgusted that people who call themselves researchers of the humanities go work in this sort of obvious PR stunt of an "institute".

If you're hired by a private company to do academic work, it may often be reasonable to expect academic norms to apply. I'm not sure why you're disgusted by the idea that people might take jobs at Google, who do quite serious work around AI.

I don’t think it is disgusting to expect that, but it most certainly is naive. There are a set of norms, but they are industrial-research norms, not academic norms and they overlap but are not the same
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