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Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

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Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#601

Post by Aeolos »

leetcrew wrote: post #356
pwinnski wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is literally the job of an AI ethicist to highlight ethical issues, so if they're publicly criticizing you, then you're likely doing something unethical. If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the la…

I might be speaking from ignorance here, but I highly doubt their job description said anything about making accusations via tweet. > If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the lack of change is within…

And how exactly is your suggestion going to play out in the long term?

All the critical employees resign, until they are all eventually replaced yes-men who just care about the money or are too afraid to speak out.

And if a company is doing something unethical, then why is it inherently _bad_ to damage that company until it changes direction? Acting in unethical ways has to hurt the bottomline, otherwise what incentive is there for a company to change?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#602

Post by simonh »

pseudalopex wrote: post #552
JamesBarney wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And any lawyer would also tell Google not to blatantly lie about easily verifiable facts around the firing.

It would be misleading to call forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer exfiltration. But it wouldn't be lying.

It wouldn't be either misleading or lying, if her or her lawyer want personal copies of the emails they can apply to a court. They have no right to unilaterally decide to take personal copies of internal communications.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#604

Post by Aeolos »

MattGaiser wrote: post #180
buildbot wrote: post #131

It’s a really common refrain here that if you are employee critical of your employer you should expect to get fired… Well perhaps, but you’d think that specifically someone in AI ethics needs to be empowered to speak up against both internal external issues. Or did google just want an research ethics hit team against other companies technologies? Makes me wonder if project zero is really trying as hard as possible wi…

Speak up internally, sure. Externally?

Yes, of course!

If google is acting unethically then I, as a user of google, want to know so I can hold them accountable.

Otherwise having an “ethics committee” is just feel-good marketing signaling at the same level of privacy terms stating how google, the ad behemoth, “cares about our privacy”.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#605

Post by anm89 »

cwhiz wrote: post #309
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how you think someone who is a professional ethicist is supposed to do their job without being allowed to comment on ethics. It's not a cog-in-a-machine profession. Having critical opinions is what the job is about. It's literally stupid for a corporation to employ an ethicist and then somehow be outraged and appalled when they have their ethics questioned and challenged.

She’s not a broad professional ethicist at Google. She’s part of an ethical AI team. It’s one thing to write a critical research paper on Google AI. It’s quite another to spend months publicly trashing your employer on social media. You would think someone who is working in ethics would understand the difference. Share your critical opinions internally, or at minimum share them in a professional manner. Act like a pr…

Wanted to write this exact same reply before I saw yours.

She was not a general ethicist at google. Her job was not to comment on the ethical issues of employment. Her ethics role was AI specific and none of this has anything to do with AI

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#606

Post by Aeolos »

johncena33 wrote: post #407
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or speak out publicly. Always an option.

> Or speak out publicly. Always an option. Or speak out publicly. Always an option without making any drama and being professional. [FTFY] It scares me that so many people in this thread can't (or unwilling to) differentiate between creating drama and being proferssional.

Who decides what is “drama” and what is “professional”?

You? Google?

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#607

Post by bleah1000 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #545
JamesBarney wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Lying about why an employee fired in an easily verified way is a huge unforced error. We can probably assume Google is not that incompetent. 2. She hasn't denied the accusations.

Exfiltration could just mean forwarding emails to herself or her lawyer. Any lawyer would tell her not to comment on the accusations. Especially before she was fired.

Except you can't do that. The problem is Google has no idea that this is where the documents/e-mails went. All they can see is that a large number of documents and e-mails were sent outside of Google. I can't imagine Google would say, well it's okay if you take the law into your own hands. Any lawyer should be able to send a note telling Google to preserve the files for potential litigation. And given that she seems to have people sympathetic to her cause, it's unlikely that Google would be able to make all documents and e-mails she thinks are supportive of her case disappear.

Now, I can see if she wanted to take a few key e-mails out because any lawsuit needs some evidence or it might be quashed in summary judgement. So maybe that's what she thought she was doing, but it sounds like she grabbed a lot more than that. I would also really be wary of this because people can get death threats when e-mail that they thought was company internal are leaked out. I wouldn't be surprised that a bunch of e-mails will make it into a lawsuit with the people's names on them. Anyone knows that lawsuits can easily take an e-mail out of context to make it say something that is changed by the context around it. Even worse, company internal e-mails probably have a tremendous amount of internal company information.

There is no way that any company will just shrug and go, well if you sent it to yourself and your lawyer, then that it's okay that you might have sent out company secrets.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#608

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #262
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeking to normalize community accountability practices that are pretty core to many indigenous cultures, including my Irish ancestors. So, yeah...I'll pay for that in every organization I get involved with from here on out. Just cause it's not normalized doesn't mean it isn't useful. The reason to do it is for the sake of actual accountability, as strictly internal accountability is nonsense. This is the busines…

But how can community accountability practices work in an organization like Google, which hires from many different communities? It seems like it inevitably produces loud, angry, unresolvable conflict whenever your community and my community don't agree on a decision.

I think the difference lies between harm and disagreement. How can it work? I don't know or have all the answers, as I've never even seen community accountability in action at a small local scale.

This highlights to me the importance of learning how to do this stuff.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#609

Post by tolbish »

calylex wrote: post #530

This sounds like a poem she wrote https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_mitchell_how_we_can_build... How does one get to lead such a high caliber team at Google AI with background in Linguistics of all things? What are some of accomplishments this person has achieved, beyond being from one or many oppressed victim group(s) that Google needed to hire to fend off lack of diversity claims?

You might think you're making fun of Linguistics, but your quip merely demonstrates your gap in knowledge. Linguistics and AI are heavily related.

Re: Margaret Mitchell fired from Google

#610

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

hn8788 wrote: post #247
crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm seeking to normalize community accountability practices that are pretty core to many indigenous cultures, including my Irish ancestors. So, yeah...I'll pay for that in every organization I get involved with from here on out. Just cause it's not normalized doesn't mean it isn't useful. The reason to do it is for the sake of actual accountability, as strictly internal accountability is nonsense. This is the busines…

"community accountability practices" just sounds like mob justice. It seems like an especially bad idea in the current environment where people who are more than happy to join in an outrage mob after only hearing one side of the story, and sometimes aren't even affected by whatever they're targeting. A "community" shouldn't be anyone who happens to agree with you on twitter.

I think what you're speaking to is the result of a lack of normalized practices actually oriented toward accountability and healing, rather than shaming, canceling, mobbing, etc.

I'm not even saying I know how to do it. I think the current environment is an indicator of a greater need for true accountability and not the theater of "justice."

I'd also say outrage mobs are the direct result of people confusing themselves with who is angering themselves. Many adults I know still insist it is other people who make them angry, instead of it being themselves who use the stimulus of others' actions to anger themselves. We need better EQ/CQ education and what you're highlighting points directly to it.

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