AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#791

Post by kazamaloo » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:24 AM UTC

mehrdada wrote: post #752

rishav_sharan wrote: post #733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's miscommunication in anyway. Timnit had submitted dozens of papers before and unless the process requirements are completely new, she would be well aware of them. This seems more of a case of selective enforcement, where she had been allowed to go around the process in the past (or felt that she has enough leverage to be able to do so now) and then not being allowed to do so this time. This feels li…

> This seems more of a case of selective enforcement, where she had been allowed to go around the process in the past (or felt that she has enough leverage to be able to do so now) and then not being allowed to do so this time. Jeff's email explicitly says the paper was "approved" then submitted, albeit perhaps in one day. The two-week thing might be a policy but would be immaterial if it ended up approved anyway wit…

She sends for approval 1 day before the conference deadline, proceeds to submit the paper with conditional approval, and waits for the actual approvals. It is common practice with one side effect: if reviewers don't like certain parts of the paper, they can ask you to withdraw it (since you don't have an option to update the paper at this stage). If the paper was submitted for approval before submitting to the conference though, then they would have some room for back-and-forth engagement with updates on the paper.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#792

Post by kazamaloo » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:28 AM UTC

tfehring wrote: post #690

davorak wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the subtle part might be "It was approved then", I read that somewhere too and it was not clear whether it was approved by google despite it not following the normal 2 week process or if it was talking about some other form of approval.

From Dean's email: > Unfortunately, this particular paper was only shared with a day’s notice before its deadline — we require two weeks for this sort of review — and then instead of awaiting reviewer feedback, it was approved for submission and submitted. Not sure what to make of that - maybe that Gebru submitted the paper and then immediately clicked the "approve" button herself?

it is sort of a placeholder approval. The actual reviews may be done by a legal team, HR/PR, other researchers in the field etc.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#793

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:42 AM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #324

contemporary343 wrote: post #292

It looks like the paper was critical of large language models: https://www.fastcompany.com/90582375/timnit-gebru-google-fir... The original article has been updated with Jeff Dean's response, while a member of Gebru's team (who still works at Google Brain) states that Dean's email is misleading and inaccurate: https://twitter.com/alexhanna/status/1334579764573691904 As I understand it: The paper had already been subm…

This. Failure to cite relevant research is a reason to reject a paper from a conference but that's not the job of an internal review. Research independence is fundamental and why professors are given tenure. Sure companies are companies and don't play by those rules, but you can't claim to be making a fair academic criticism if you're not adhering to academic norms. If the paper was bad it should have been rejected b…

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#794

Post by ethical-ai » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:44 AM UTC

sjs382 wrote: post #397

It'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…

What I really cannot understand is how someone who works on ethics can think that revealing names of anonymous reviewer is OK?

Why would they need those names anyway? I'm also unable to think of any reason they might need the identities of the reviewers.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#795

Post by kazamaloo » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 9:51 AM UTC

contemporary343 wrote: post #118

high_derivative wrote: post #90

These things seem to play out like clockwork. Progressive companies hire social justice warriors into vague ethics or policy roles, let them hire their activist friends, shower them with fast track careers and promotions. It's good optics, the progressives like it because it makes them feel better about working at big techs. Said hires have thus far, as far as I can tell, not produced anything of substantial value to…

Her research work is well-known and has had an impact, whether you like it or not: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Timnit+gebru Edit: And to be clear, her most cited paper (> 1000 citations) had an impact on what some companies did: https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21284683/ibm-no-longer-gen... What is disturbing here, from a researcher's point of view (even within a company!), is the lack of transparency on wh…

It is not exactly a wholesale reject. She submits the paper to the conference first and asks for approvals later, which might be common if you are rushing for a deadline. This has the side effect of approvers forcing you to retract the paper (because the conference deadline has passed and you can't make modifications on it).

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#796

Post by _Wintermute » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 10:22 AM UTC

ehsankia wrote: post #743

jsmith45 wrote: post #486

Earlier 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…

> the academic who expects to get access to the raw review responses so that the paper can be fixed. Asking for the review notes is one thing, it seems like the main demand Jeff refused was giving the names of every reviewer. Why would the names of the reviewers be relevant to the academic, unless they specifically wanted to use the reviewers identity in order to undermine the notes?

Blind peer review should be pretty obvious to anyone from an academic background anyway. Asking for reviewers names from a publisher would be an outrageous request.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#797

Post by blub » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 10:51 AM UTC

hardwaregeek wrote: post #727

hpoe wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I direct you to watch Daryl Davis's ted talk or really anything he speaks about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORp3q1Oaezw For context he is a black man that has gotten over a hundred leaders of the KKK, including former convicts to leave the Klan. Not by arguing with them, not be reasoning, not by showing them the effects of their behaviour, but instead by sitting down, talking with them and becoming their fri…

Daryl Davis is certainly a wonderful inspiration in his patience, compassion and effectiveness in reaching racists. However I'm not sure about using him as a model for how activists should behave. What that's essentially requiring is that activists should patiently reach out until the people oppressing them learn enough to stop oppressing them. In some cases this is possible. The Klu Klux Klan is comprised of broken…

If one uses twitter and mobbing to do it, one will never reach them.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#798

Post by mehrdada » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 11:01 AM UTC

kazamaloo wrote: post #791

mehrdada wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems more of a case of selective enforcement, where she had been allowed to go around the process in the past (or felt that she has enough leverage to be able to do so now) and then not being allowed to do so this time. Jeff's email explicitly says the paper was "approved" then submitted, albeit perhaps in one day. The two-week thing might be a policy but would be immaterial if it ended up approved anyway wit…

She sends for approval 1 day before the conference deadline, proceeds to submit the paper with conditional approval, and waits for the actual approvals. It is common practice with one side effect: if reviewers don't like certain parts of the paper, they can ask you to withdraw it (since you don't have an option to update the paper at this stage). If the paper was submitted for approval before submitting to the confer…

Nowhere in the account of the story from the other party anything is specified as "conditional" nor whoever issued the initial approval is mentioned at all. More weirdly, in her account of the story, the "back-and-forth" came from, tada... HR department, which is super weird.

Look, I am not necessarily picking her side in the more general story, but it is apparent this paper submission story in isolation is super weird. It seems feasible that she was in the queue for getting the axe having engaged in prior fights with the company (some mention of threat of lawsuit, etc). I also acknowledge the account of story from her side was quite cherry-picked and actively strategic, if not deceitful, and it does not even seem that Jeff was a direct player in this saga. Looks the highest level person in the loop was Megan, not Jeff, and Jeff is simply dragged into the mix for the opportunity to throw a punch at his reputation. That, however, does not minimize the weirdness of putting the whole thing on this two-week paper submission policy.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#799

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 11:07 AM UTC

inglor_cz wrote: post #774

qppo wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 in…

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#800

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 11:19 AM UTC

wan23 wrote: post #410

inglor_cz wrote: post #327

Earlier 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…

In America, class isn't just about how much money you have. It's also about what accent you speak with, where you went to school, and very obviously what you look like. Many people who aren't necessarily familiar with how this works have an idea that money is all that matters, and that e.g. a black woman has the same opportunity as anyone else to attend the right schools and speak with the right accent and then get a…

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