She was bullied to resign :(
AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#772This person forced Yann LeCun (one of the top 3 AI/ML researchers today, head of Facebook AI, and an ML researcher since the 80s) to give up on Twitter after she took exception to this tweet of his: https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1274782757907030016 She lives her life attacking people who she disagrees with, and brings in race/gender into any conflict where she's involved. I am surprised Google had hired her, beca…
I'm always hearing tales of how insane Google's social justice warrior culture has become ... but I'm always hearing these stories from White, Asian, or Indian males. I wonder how bad it actually is in reality. The picture insiders paint is that of organizations infested with technically mediocre people who form cliques that provide air cover for each others mediocrity ... with sex and race providing a disincentive f…
Indeed, this is why positive discrimination is still discrimination, and therefore racist.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#773Earlier quoted context omitted.
The joke is a pretty good one, but what's the supposed parallel with the scenario at hand? There is a meaningful interpretation of "buy a dozen" that the wife intended to convey but the programmer fails to notice (because he lacks common-sense knowledge about typical purchase volumes of different items and/or is blinded by the parallelism of "buy a... if , buy a..."). What is the meaningful common-sense interpretatio…
> What is the meaningful common-sense interpretation of "I can't work here anymore" (was that even the literal wording?) that Timnit intended and Google failed to recognise? That something completely UNACCEPTABLE is happening, and needs to be addressed.
Unacceptable to her. Fine, she is entitled to that opinion. She is not entitled to everybody sharing that opinion. If there is no common ground, the involved parties should part ways. Which she expressed. And the other side followed through. Which she now is upset about.
If she really wanted to achieve change within the system she'd have needed to not express it this way. There are people on both sides of the table. One can talk to people and find common ground. But that is rare to work if you start with a threat.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#774Earlier quoted context omitted.
"As a passably straight white man I can afford to pay more than an LGBTQ person of color." How is this true? What if someone is a broke straight white man with three kids and someone else LGBTQ person of color is a young childless heir of fortune? How is the first person possibly privileged in comparison with the second one? Looking from Europe, America seems to be very determined to recast its very obvious class pro…
I mean if you compare a rich person to a poor person yes the rich person is going to come out ahead in most social metrics but we're not speaking of wealth inequality, but social divides outside of it. That said, in the United States, non-white men were systemically marginalized and prevented from participation in society to the same degree. There are numerous examples of this over the last four centuries, but they d…
"Looking from America, it's hard not to be frustrated at Europeans on their high horses talking about class versus racial divide."
That is the Internet - Americans commenting on Europe, Europeans on Islam, Muslims on Israel, Israelis on India, Indians on China etc. The distance may make you wrong, but it also may make you notice more general outlines of the forest you are commenting upon, while the locals see only individual trees.
Theoretically, complex societies should be able to fix multiple problems at once. In practice, it is very easy for one topic to exhaust ALL the oxygen in public debate.
2020 was all about race and other immutable characteristics in America. Among all that, class problems such as enormous healthcare bills that destroy lives every day, are basically forgotten.
Of course that there are many facets of bigotry out there. But: would you rather be a black upper middle class than a white unemployed person without good marketable skills?
These days, I would say that the answer is very different from the KKK days.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#775Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand what you are saying, but I doubt they hired her to be some kind of controller with unlimited enforcing power (as she says: "I understand that the only things that mean anything at Google are levels"). Only highlighting issues without power to enforce anything is not enough to have any tangible results? That's for sure. But she was not the CEO.
This is a very dangerous stance to take. You are advocating for a purely authoritarian mode of management, applied universally without concern for context.
Not saying that it's desirable or that's not horrible, but isn't that the default mode? Or at least that's the world I've lived in, if you are an employee, in the end your opinions don't actually count, you are just a cog. Your position in the hierarchy is what matter.
And that's why at some point you need labor unions (not saying high paid tech workers needs them) and at some other point you start considering stop being an employee.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#776Earlier quoted context omitted.
Set for life? How much do you think a staff scientist is paid?
My guess is that she made a base of around $450K and probably equal that in options and bonuses.
And let's not forget that in most(all?) of the other 1st world countries you are lucky if you make one tenth of that base salary. It's easy to forget. Very easy.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#777Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds to me like Google has a policy that papers must be internally reviewed before they can be "published". She understood publish in the academic sense, while Google views sending the paper out for conference review as publishing. The paper ends up failing internal review, so per policy it must be promptly retracted. This is confusing to the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that…
Me thinks it's a common misconception for strongly opinionated people to believe that companies want to hire them in order for them to "fix things and make the company a better place". In reality, what every company/team/management wants is someone who will give them some constructive criticism on small mistakes here and there that are easy to fix, but ultimately act as a supportive shield for the company against /ot…
That's pretty jaded IMHO. I would think most management wants positive change, not just to be shielded from criticism.
But reasonable people can disagree about what the status quo is, how good or bad that status quo is, what counts as positive change, what timescale positive change needs to happen at, and what costs/tradeoffs they are willing to accept to accomplish positive change.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#778It's hard to make too much sense about what happened. Here's what I made of it, if anyone can point out any important mistakes/inaccuracies/details: 1. She and her co-authors submitted a paper for review 1 day before its (external, for publication?) due date. It's supposed to be submitted to Google 2 weeks prior, so they can review. 2. The authors submitted it externally before the review was returned. 3. Google deci…
It sounds to me like Google has a policy that papers must be internally reviewed before they can be "published". She understood publish in the academic sense, while Google views sending the paper out for conference review as publishing. The paper ends up failing internal review, so per policy it must be promptly retracted. This is confusing to the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that…
I'd even expect that we only know the tip of the iceberg. You don't leave employment that you are otherwise happy with over such a thing.
There were clearly conflicts brewing below the lid. This was just taken as the final straw. On both sides, I'd reasonably expect. She was dissatisfied with a bunch of things that she couldn't makr public, so she boiled over on this one. That's why many people are surprised this is such a big deal.
And then she gave a ultimatum, which was great for both sides. For the employer since they could use it to get rid of her right away and make it look it's because of this (and "technically" they are right). And for her because she can use it for maximum outrage. It was a calculated provocation. Come on, if you really want to be part of a process of change, that's not how to achieve that. She is smart enough to understand this.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#779Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment betrays your inherent bias, and frankly, it is not a good look. Everything you've said here is not only falsifiable, but straight up false. It appears you didn't even try to challenge your own beliefs before spraying them out into the public sphere. You aren't representing yourself in a decent light.
I’m sorry you feel that way. But Timnit is an internet bully with an army of Twitter minions, with the stones to write a ridiculous “How To Apologize” document she tweets at researchers she doesn’t like. I maintain this is an excellent firing if there was such a thing.
For those wondering: https://twitter.com/timnitgebru/status/1276326634195259392
If someone would link this to me, I'll interpret it as extremely dismissing. A declaration of war.
Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google
#780Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you please elaborate?
This is ideological battle boilerplate of the sort that contradicts the mandate of this site and which users were therefore right to flag: This is the fundamental victim mindset of the social media woke: any setback is chalked up to identity based oppression. Reality check: everybody has setbacks, most of them unfair, or at least easily perceived as unfair, and definitely frustrating. Most have the decency to deal wi…
Complaining about life adversities on social media in a hyperbolic race / gender wrapping, 'constantly dehumanized', is a recent widespread phenomenon. The heroine of this story happens to embody this novel behavior, which used to be a whole lot more private and a whole lot less race / gender driven. Not sure where 'ideology' enters the picture, it's a reasonably truthful observation from someone that is old enough to remember life before social media.