About Google's approach to research publication – Jeff Dean • Hacker News Board

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

#601

Post by tatersolid » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 4:37 AM UTC

treis wrote: post #298

wpietri wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely. "If we don't fix this I don't think I can continue working here" is not a resignation, it's a negotiating position.

Sure, but sending out an e-mail accusing your colleagues of racism, exhorting them to stop working, and talking about potential lawsuits isn't. There's no way that Google (or any company) would continue to employ her after that.

Just had a corporate counsel seminar on this: Under federal and most state harassment/discrimination laws the company actually can’t fire her for any of those “protected” activities unless the accusations of racism are shown to be untrue and made in bad faith.

I personally do not have enough info to decide who is telling the truth in this case.

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

#602

Post by refulgentis » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 6:27 AM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #557

refulgentis wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at Google too, and it's embarrassing to see you attack your colleagues like this in public - how is Jeff's statement "a lie"? Whether or not you believe the 2 week deadline is a hard and fast rule followed 100% of the time, Jeff never made that claim. 1 day is certainly unreasonable. What makes you think they weren't given the opportunity? We were told specifically they _were_ given an opportunity to revise, a…

> Whether or not you believe the 2 week deadline is a hard and fast rule followed 100% of the time, Jeff never made that claim His words were, and I quote "we require two weeks for this sort of review". That is an absolutely false statement, and Jeff knows it. I see no other characterization than a lie. I take no solace in that fact, priors were that Jeff Dean was an above average executive and ran a more ethical the…

I don't think talking with you 1:1, privately, would be productive: you have a quite different viewpoint on this that reads as lawyerly and standoffish to me - I'm also required to submit expense reports within 30 days, yet here I am, 60 days later. It's unbecoming of you to be writing epitaths for the moral character of colleagues based on a legalistic interpretation of "we require two weeks"

> It is not though. It's the norm.

Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this. A literal intrepretation has you claiming that all Google researchers only allow 24 hours of review of their papers before submitting them for publication. That sounds wrong!

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

#603

Post by joshuamorton » Sun, Dec 06, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

refulgentis wrote: post #602

joshuamorton wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether or not you believe the 2 week deadline is a hard and fast rule followed 100% of the time, Jeff never made that claim His words were, and I quote "we require two weeks for this sort of review". That is an absolutely false statement, and Jeff knows it. I see no other characterization than a lie. I take no solace in that fact, priors were that Jeff Dean was an above average executive and ran a more ethical the…

I don't think talking with you 1:1, privately, would be productive: you have a quite different viewpoint on this that reads as lawyerly and standoffish to me - I'm also required to submit expense reports within 30 days, yet here I am, 60 days later. It's unbecoming of you to be writing epitaths for the moral character of colleagues based on a legalistic interpretation of "we require two weeks" > It is not though. It'…

And if you were fired or retaliated against for having failed to file an expense report on time, when that isn't normally a requirement, I'd be criticising leadership for that too.

Fwiw, I'm not sure what you mean by legalistic. I see Jeff's interpretation as more legalistic: this is the policy, while mine is based on practice: the policy isn't enforced, and here's what people actually do. And like I said, it brings me no joy to see that Jeff is lying to justify this. I have a deep respect for his technical achievements, and prior to this my understanding was that he was an above average executive. Perhaps he still is. But that's not an excuse for me to not levy criticism at him when I see him do something wrong.

In practice, Google doesn't require two weeks for pub approvals. I'd be more than happy to provide the underlying date I'm basing that statement on, but obviously not here. Granted, if you want you can find the data for yourself and if encourage you to do so!

> . A literal intrepretation has you claiming that all Google researchers only allow 24 hours of review of their papers before submitting them for publication.

Given your experiences with Google reimbursement policy, why would you expect adherence to the written publication approval process to be different?

That's why I'd much prefer to have this conversation on corp. I can show you raw data and you can draw your own conclusions no need to listen to me or my interpretation whatsoever.

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

#604

Post by mostafab » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:22 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #234

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…

"Pubapproval hasn't been used to silence uncomfortable minority viewpoints until now." This is sad gaslighting of a reasonable concern the team had. Having to endure some external review for what could otherwise be sensitive material. The inability for the SJW crowd to work reasonably within very reasonable terms, to then resort to aggressive tactics such as 'demand the names and opinions of everyone on the board' an…

Black female scientist Timnit Gebru fired - the end of Google as a top AI research institution?

https://melwy.com/blog/black-female-scientist-timnit-gebru-f...

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

#605

Post by dllthomas » Mon, Dec 07, 2020, 10:59 PM UTC

nebulous1 wrote: post #120

ghaff wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People bluff but you generally have to be prepared to walk if your bluff is called. If I walk into a manager's office and demand 2x salary or I walk and the response is "we believe you are fairly compensated," you're now in a rather uncomfortable situation. Which is of course not to say you can't have a more measured negotiation. But it can be hard to walk back from give me X or I do Y, especially if there isn't a lo…

> People bluff but you generally have to be prepared to walk if your bluff is called. Then you aren't bluffing.

If I find myself in a situation where, if I don't get X, I prefer to leave, then an ultimatum is an obvious course: "give me X or I will leave."

It can be to my benefit in negotiation for the other party to think that I am in such a situation, and so I may still say "give me X or I will leave."

If I do not intend to follow through, I am clearly bluffing.

If I intend to follow through, but absent this gambit I have preferred to stay even in the absence of X, I think we can still call it a bluff in a weaker sense - I am not misleading about my future actions, but I am misleading about the strength of my preferences.

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

#606

Post by gowld » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 3:04 AM UTC

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…

Whichever side's account you read, that side looks correct. This is not surprising.

There's a classic documentary about this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiF7BsC1Ig

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

#607

Post by angry_octet » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:51 AM UTC

gowld wrote: post #606

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…

Whichever side's account you read, that side looks correct. This is not surprising. There's a classic documentary about this phenomenon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UiF7BsC1Ig

That's a very snide comment. I've read her tweets and other Brain tweets (eg, from mmitchell_ai, though she deleted them, which seems wise as they were angry). I don't take any of them at their surface as being truthful. I think we're only seeing the 10% of the iceberg. But I don't find Gebru convincing.