Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean

docs.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

501–510 of 607 posts

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

#501

Post by diffserv »

angry_octet wrote: post #417
mattdeboard wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think, given the top comment on this post, your comment is far too credulous about Google's incentives being aligned with scientific rigor alone.

To be sure, Google has other objectives. But the people in this area are essentially academics, and I'd expect them to have a similar process given their backgrounds. The papers from Google are routinely of high calibre. The non-research motive is arguably to control the narrative about using ML (I admit I still choke at calling it AI) and big data techniques. I fail to see how this is advanced by having a very publi…

This. And one of the main reasons that the paper from Google are routinely of high caliber is due to the internal review processes and your peers.

Publishing a piece of work for the sake of publishing by ignoring the processes that are put in place is outright irresponsible and that's the end of it.

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

#502

Post by KittenInABox »

xapata wrote: post #375
skissane wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It's just weird that I'm pretty sure that the reasons for the request to withdraw was for reasons of the scholarly quality of the work, not for corporate reasons like protecting corporate information, which from what I understand is the job of the reviewers of the conferences and not Google. Especially because other people who work in her department have gone on record saying that withdrawal requests purely due to paper quality never happen and internal review is purely for corporate secrecy reasons.

None of this is adding up to the process issue Dean is claiming.

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

#503

Post by splaytreemap »

aylmao wrote: post #181
vecter wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't make ultimatums unless you're ready to accept the consequences of those ultimatums.

> ...if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. To be fair it doesn't sound like her ultimatum was "I'll leave immediately"— that was forced on her by Google, and is an important detail.

Not really. If your girlfriend told you she was planning on breaking up with you after her birthday, would you stay with her until she did it or would you end it immediately?

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

#504

Post by free_rms »

dvtrn wrote: post #445
free_rms wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you're doing the thing. The tactic that you agree is bothersome. Edit: I agree that one could incorporate some CRT into their worldview without becoming insufferable, in fact I think lots of normal people have without calling it that. That said, there are a lot of true believers out there, that's who I was talking about.

okay, well since the comment I initially replied to has been edited entirely post hoc to represent an entirely different tenor than what you originally replied with, I guess I need to edit mine as well: No, I'm not doing that right now, I am trying to understand your framing of CRT and where your issues lie with it. It would seem those issues lie with how certain people argue CRT, not CRT itself. Thank you for clarif…

I guess my beef is, how come everything is game for criticism EXCEPT the critical theorists? Why can't we analyze their power incentives as well?

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

#505

Post by jariel »

jolux wrote: post #499
jariel wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"According to nearly everyone else's, this process was unusual in that it even involved reviewing for content and not just IP" This is ethics for Google's AI+Search which is currently undergoing global scrutiny, particularly by Congress and specific politicians who are considering anti-trust measures against Google - and who believe that 'their political party is being treated unfairly'. It's existential concern for…

> This is not a public university, you don't get perfectly tenured academic freedom, if Google wants to put a reasonable subnote in there - and take 2 weeks to do it, it's perfectly fine. They may be allowed to, but they're fools if they think world-class academics are going to work for them under draconian publishing standards that are not even consistently specified. I'm sure Gebru could get a tenured position at a…

"but they're fools if they think world-class academics are going to work for them under draconian publishing standards"

?

I suggest it might be 'foolish' to imply that 'a 2 week quick review with minor additions' are anything remotely 'draconian'.

Just the opposite -- this is a siren call to great researchers who want to be highly paid and work on great and novel things, full well knowing Google has a very light review process, won't interfere or suppress.

This makes Google sound like a great place to do research, probably better than most public institutions.

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

#506

Post by throwaway1959 »

guantanamo_bob wrote: post #371
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.

I suspect that they were looking for a way to separate themselves from her. I was very upset when I read her attack on Yann LeCun. At least in my eyes, she was hurting Google brand. I read her tweets and she seems to see racism in every turn. In my opinion, that was a behavior of a political activist, not an AI researcher.

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

#507

Post by monocasa »

btilly wrote: post #405
x0x0 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dean previously said this [1] > 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 accept a…

And I'm sure that her lawsuit will allege bias, and will include a demand for exactly that information so that she can prove racial discrimination against her. Which means that Google is likely to have to produce all of the documents that they didn't want to produce.

They almost certainly get to produce them under seal in that case though.

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

#508

Post by throwaway1959 »

mstg wrote: post #175
genericone wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Exactly. That would be very unfair to those employees. How she treated Yann LeCun and how she now publicly bashes Jeff Dean it is no doubt that those employees would also be named and shamed publicly. She threatened to resign and her resignation was accepted. Don't talk the talk if you can't walk the walk :)

My opinion of Jeff Dean has risen significantly after this. At least, he had guts to correct the mistake they made in her hiring.

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

#510

Post by KittenInABox »

dmix wrote: post #259
sillysaurusx wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even Jeff Dean had to include: > I also feel badly that hundreds of you received an email just this week from Timnit telling you to stop work on critical DEI programs. Please don’t.

Honestly, if a black woman was saying that DEI isn't working at a company, I believe her more than I believe management. Even with a reputation for blowing up at people.
Post reply on HN