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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

#61

Post by zaksoup »

that_guy_iain wrote: post #47
bnj wrote: post #5

While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely. Even if Google is acting presenting the chain of events faithfully, their final move to jump on an opport…

> While I’m a spectator to this unfolding story and am reacting to a pretty cursory overview of what happened, this has the distinct feeling that Google thought they were moving in for a checkmate by, in their words, “accepting a resignation”, only to have it — very predictably? - blow up in their faces completely. I wouldn't say this has blown up in their face. But to be honest, I've not seen that much drama about i…

If somebody used HR as the mechanism to communicate feedback on the scientific rigor of research I was leading I would also find that concerning and objectionable. Human Resources is not peer review.

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

#62

Post by root_axis »

throawaydmg wrote: post #24

> 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 It always amazes how blatantly authoritarian these "woke" types are. I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of…

Woke politics is a red-herring. Google is typically cool with woke politics, as "anti-sjw" types are usually quick to point out. If you take it out of the culture-war context its a lot easier to see what this story is all about.

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

#63

Post by harrylove »

throawaydmg wrote: post #24

> 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 It always amazes how blatantly authoritarian these "woke" types are. I would not be surprised if the sole reason she wanted the identities of…

I wonder if stories like these should be off-limits for accounts that were created specifically to spread FUD. Several accounts just like this one appeared simultaneously in one of the other submissions as well. They added nothing to the discussion other than to make ad hominem attacks on Gebru. We’re seeing the same thing here.

edit: typo

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

#64

Post by acoard »

theobeers wrote: post #33
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…

And the examples of issues flagged in review that Jeff keeps highlighting—like Timnit’s alleged failure to mention recent work to reduce the environmental impact of large models—are themselves a bit worrisome. Jeff gives the impression that they demanded retraction (!) because they wanted Timnit and her coauthors to soften their critique. The more I read about this, the worse it looks.

Yeah, put more simply, they pushed out someone in their Ethical AI department because they did not soften critiques against AI enough. They couch these in terms of rigour, but the substance of the problem has to do with her criticisms against AI.

Ultimately it makes the whole Ethical AI department look more like a rubber stamp for Google.

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

#66

Post by dekhn »

typon wrote: post #17
hartator wrote: post #9

It sadden me that they make Jeff Dean work on these kind of issues. His map/reduce invention brought to the world a lot more than managing his coworker egos.

Jeff Dean did not invent map/reduce

Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat developed the system called MapReduce at Google and published a paper about it. They didn't invent the map or reduce functions, nor is the MapReduce system they published really about map or reduce functions.

The correct name is really MapShuffleReduce and the most important step is the shuffle, because it's a distributed sort. Of course, they didn't invent distributed sort, but combining these three concepts together in a distributed fashion and running it as a production system is really what was important.

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

#67

Post by that_guy_iain »

theobeers wrote: post #33
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…

And the examples of issues flagged in review that Jeff keeps highlighting—like Timnit’s alleged failure to mention recent work to reduce the environmental impact of large models—are themselves a bit worrisome. Jeff gives the impression that they demanded retraction (!) because they wanted Timnit and her coauthors to soften their critique. The more I read about this, the worse it looks.

> Jeff gives the impression that they demanded retraction (!) because they wanted Timnit and her coauthors to soften their critique. The more I read about this, the worse it looks.

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. It's simply unprofessional to critque your company for something while not mentioning the work they're doing to combat that.

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

#68

Post by oivey »

I would be absolutely furious if a manager blocked my work from being published. Even a manager who has worked as a researcher, in my experience, significantly lacks the expertise to be making such judgments. A research manager’s job is to be familiar with work across an entire portfolio, so they will be necessarily less knowledgeable than individual senior researchers. Presumably Google generally also feels this way seeing as this appears to be the first case where prepublication approval was denied for content. I would never work somewhere where management had such a lack of respect for my own judgment as a researcher.

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

#70

Post by deanCommie »

coffeemug wrote: post #53

TL;DR: Jeff and Co got sick of Timnit's woke bullshit, pushed back, she threw around some ultimatums, they called her bluff and pushed her out. Personally I'm glad that Google is finally cleaning house. More of this plz.

Don't you have some more subordinates to sexually harass?
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