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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

#461

Post by acituan »

freeone3000 wrote: post #435
acituan wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not "runaway activism" if you hire ethics researchers who find ethics problems. The fundamental difference between activism and research is that activism sets the agenda ahead of time while research explores the knowledge space and reports findings. One helps us incrementally make better sense of the world, the other wants us to narrow on particular facts while omitting other relevant facts in the name of adva…

You seem to have an exceptionally narrow view of research; notably, that you can't start with a thing you want to prove, which is in fact step 2 of the elementary-school scientific method. You disagree with the conclusions, so like Google, you have retroactively declared the research incompetent. You seem to think this is within their rights, but this renders any future research from them irrevocably tainted -- from…

> notably, that you can't start with a thing you want to prove, which is in fact step 2 of the elementary-school scientific method.

On the contrary, I totally agree with you on this, researcher needs to pick a particular part of the combinatorially explosive knowledge space to explore, in that they get to be opinionated on what hypothesis they want to prove. What they can't do is however to ignore opponent research that conflict with their propositions. This is precisely what Jeff Dean is talking about in his second letter, you need opponent processing to overcome self-deception and bullshitting.

You can't have opponent processing when you omit relevant research, try to steamroll the review process, throw a tantrum when your paper is found lacking, and ask names to further your agenda through social engineering.

It is not onto me to prove if and why I disagree with the conclusions, it is onto the paper to prove that their assumptions and methods were sound to begin with, if they want their conclusions to be taken seriously. And they were not.

> but this renders any future research from them irrevocably tainted -- from now on, it's no more than Google PR.

On the contrary, this move increases trust in Google research and it would have lessened if they were to buckle under activist strong-arming.

If folks think this was a sign of broken research machinery, they are free to ignore all future Google research, at their own risk for competitive disadvantage.

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

#462

Post by hitekker »

nickff wrote: post #224
UncleMeat wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your work is suddenly and unexpected roadblocked at the last second by internal review, the only way to make changes that prevent that from happening in the future is to clearly understand the situations and criticisms that led to the roadblock. This is why understanding who raised these concerns is important. Anonymous feedback blowing up a project at the final moments is sure to frustrate anybody. If what she ha…

As a manager, if someone gives an ultimatum, you basically have to fire them. There's no real option; Ben Horowitz covered it somewhere, but the bottom line is that if you yield, you've given up all control.

Speaking as another manager, it sounds like you just can't handle a hard conversation.

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

#463

Post by 1234fdsazxcv »

angry_octet wrote: post #218

After reading Jeff Dean's response, I can only come to the conclusion that Timnit Gebru acted like a primadonna. It is completely normal to have to obtain prepublication signoff on material before it is submitted to a conference (and manager signoff even before abstract submission). Given the breadth of experience at Google, it seems strange not to avail yourself of this. Demanding to know the identity of reviewers i…

I would agree with this assessment. It seems people think this is like academia -- it's not. There are no guarantees of tenure at a private company, even one with a research culture. If she wants that, then give up the paycheck and go back to academia. Google doesn't owe her anything. (I bet she'll get a decent settlement.)

AI ethics are important and I'm willing to bet that the Google execs want to know about biases and other problems in their products and probably don't care that much what is published. They probably don't want high maintenance researchers that cause them headaches and are obsessed with microaggressions, etc. I expect that this stuff has been a distraction for too long and they are happy to be rid of this and happy for the signal it sends across the company.

I have little sympathy or concern for Ivy educated elite in-fighting. There is probably a huge number of qualified people just dying to have the opportunity to work there, have access to those resources and do research.

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

#464

Post by cbsks »

nickff wrote: post #456
cbsks wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your sentiment, but in my experience ultimatums are a common negotiation tactic and are rarely "true" ultimatums. "X is the lowest price I can sell for, take it or leave it" "How about X-10?" "Done" "I want to read 5 books!" "You can either read one book before bedtime or go to bed now" "How about 2 books?" "Okay, but then straight to bed!"

Well there are a few factors which make this situation different. If the ultimatum had been made in person, I'd think there might be room for negotiation, depending on the relationship between manager and subordinate. Putting the ultimatum in e-mail form really raises the stakes, because there may be other people CC-ed or BCC-ed, and any response could later be weaponized. If the relationship was already troubled, an…

I agree. An ultimatum given in an e-mail is more difficult to treat as a negotiation tactic, and it seems like there is much more to this story than we will ever know.

They way this was handled doesn't make any of the involved parties look good.

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

#465

Post by ninjin »

treis wrote: post #291
UncleMeat wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The draft is rolling around the web already.

link?

A second hand account from a VentureBeat journalist is the best I could find [1]. As a researcher with more than a decade of experience in Natural Language Processing, what is described by the journalist in regards to the paper content seems to be non-controversial and nothing out of the ordinary from this kind of work. If anyone could find an actual leak I would be more than excited to have a look at it using my own eyes rather than filtered through someone else’s.

[1]: https://venturebeat.com/2020/12/03/ai-ethics-pioneers-exit-f...

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

#466

Post by dodobirdlord »

tfehring wrote: post #305
btown wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be even more clear - they pushed out someone in their Ethical AI department because she wanted to have human conversations to determine the basis for being asked to soften critiques. It's one thing for reviewers, even anonymous reviewers, to reject a paper on its merits; it's another, in Timnit's own words [0], to be told "'it has been decided'" through "a privileged and confidential document to HR" despite cle…

Also from Gebru's memo ([0] in the parent comment): > And you are told after a while, that your manager can read you a privileged and confidential document Emphasis mine. Showing your employee that you don't even trust her with a written copy of the rejection of her paper is not a great way to engender a good working relationship. Note that this pretty clearly seems to have happened before Gebru sent the email that D…

It sounds like there wasn’t a great working relationship. It seems management was concerned (reasonably, based on her track record) about the prospect of her responding with hostility directed at the coworkers who expressed concerns about the quality of the work if she managed to discover their identities. Refusing to let a person have a written copy of anonymous feedback is a rational thing to do if you’re concerned that the person will closely analyze the feedback in an attempt to de-anonymize the reviewers.

The fact that she issued an ultimatum for the identities of the reviewers suggests that management was correct to have safeguarded them in the first place.

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

#467

Post by potatowedges »

tempest_ wrote: post #363
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…

Ah the old I don't want to do my job and accept that there "was nothing I could do" which is middle management bullshit. It is fine if you think that, but accept that you are the weak one here. If you want to err on the side of keeping your job it's fine, but don't pretend you didn't make a trade off. You do not have to accept anti social behavior but a good manager would have handled this and it would never have rea…

Judging from Timnit's Twitter account it would have blown up anyways no matter what. Have you seen her previous tweets? She seems to enjoy the drama.

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

#469

Post by dodobirdlord »

joshuamorton wrote: post #397
xiphias2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the person who submitted feedback in privileged and confidential way made a great choice. I expect more people taking this route in the future actually, people are scared in the current political athmosphere. Look at what Jeff Dean is getting, even though he didn’t do anything bad. A manager in ethics shouldn’t ask Google to break the law by not providing confidientality that was requested.

> A manager in ethics shouldn’t ask Google to break the law by not providing confidientality that was requested. It is not implied anywhere that the reviewers requested confidentiality. It is certainly not implied that Google would be violating the law to rescind that confidentiality (and, to be clear: they almost certainly would not be).

I think it’s fairly strongly implied, particularly due to the fact that nobody would let her have possession of the written feedback. It sounds to me like there was concern that if she was provided with the written feedback she would be able to de-blind the reviewers via close analysis of the writing itself. Why else would management refuse to share the written feedback, considering that (a) they were willing to share the content, just not the specific writing itself and (b) the feedback doesn’t seem to have been in and of itself particularly noteworthy?

My take is that the reviewers wanted to be able to express some mundane criticisms about the quality of the work without having to expose their identity to a person with a public reputation of unusual hostility.

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

#470

Post by xiphias2 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #397
xiphias2 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the person who submitted feedback in privileged and confidential way made a great choice. I expect more people taking this route in the future actually, people are scared in the current political athmosphere. Look at what Jeff Dean is getting, even though he didn’t do anything bad. A manager in ethics shouldn’t ask Google to break the law by not providing confidientality that was requested.

> A manager in ethics shouldn’t ask Google to break the law by not providing confidientality that was requested. It is not implied anywhere that the reviewers requested confidentiality. It is certainly not implied that Google would be violating the law to rescind that confidentiality (and, to be clear: they almost certainly would not be).

You are right, it's not in the article. It was published by Timnit:

https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

But you are not right about privileged and confidential : it limits what Google can do legally.

,,Privileged and confidential communication is the interaction between two parties having a legally protected, private relationship.''

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