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AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

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Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#811

Post by raxxorrax »

webkike wrote: post #80
prionassembly wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tone of her replies is regrettable: Yann: “ML systems are biased when data is biased" Timnit: “I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias. Even amidst of world wide protests people don’t hear our voices and try to learn from us, they assume they’re experts in everything. Let us lead her and you fol…

I don’t think that for a person who lives in a world where AI shops routinely sell software that discriminate against minorities, not just in ways that are explained by poorly thought out datasets, saying you’re “so tired” is at all wrong. This is the exact research that Timnit is an expert on, and these are systems that have real world consequences for minorities. It’s easy for people who are not minorities to say y…

How are these AI systems affecting people? Is there an example application?

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#812

Post by raxxorrax »

devdas wrote: post #520
wil421 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH it doesn’t matter if she is right or wrong. Her tone and angry writing is pretty harsh. The Twitter replies read a lot like her Google message thing. She’s got a lot of good things to say but needs to work on the delivery. I think she’s playing the victim and race card a lot more than she should. She’s got all the ammo she needs to make her arguments without the angry victim tone.

Tone policing is a common way to silence people though.

Criticizing tone policing has to be self defeating.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#814

Post by gnusty_gnurc »

username90 wrote: post #806
rbanffy wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Follow all the social justice rituals and shibboleth and you suddenly get the camouflage of an empathetic, good person. If a person is indistinguishable from a good human being, isn't it actually a good human being?

No, plenty of rapists and abusers etc do all the social justice rituals.

It's like they didn't read any I wrote - or just demonstrated how much the woke let down their guard if people shut up and do whatever they say.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#815

Post by cjf4 »

powersnail wrote: post #720
jseliger wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently re-read Noah Smith's essay "Leaders Who Act Like Outsiders Invite Trouble" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-03/leader... . It's not directly on point, but one concept is: "This extraordinary trend of rank-and-file members challenging the leaders of their organizations goes beyond simple populism. There may be no word for this trend in the English language. But there is one in Japanese: ge…

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't individuality a good thing, in general? I'm not applying this to Gebru vs Google, as in this specific case, we don't have enough evidence to know what exactly happened. While I don't like the Twitter mob per se, the idea that a person within an institution cannot publicly criticize the institution is ridiculous. Rank-and-file members should be able to challenge the leaders.…

I agree with your point that companies should provide more room for individualism, but there have to be some kind of boundaries and recognition that you are part of a team.

It seems like more and more that emboldened employees don't think there is any limit to what they should be able to say/do in a company context, which is a huge problem. If you want individualism to that degree, you need to be in business for yourself. If you take a job at a company, you're implicitly conceding some of that individualism.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#816

Post by throwaway74453 »

tdeck wrote: post #731
powersnail wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While there hasn't been enough evidence to fully condemn either side, I disagree that this is just poor communication. Unless Google deliberately changed the enforcement of the policy just to mess with her, she should have known the policy. It doesn't seem to be a complicated process, and 2 weeks is a reasonably short time to wait. On the other side, Google has been in this game long enough, that they must know a pap…

In any large company there are lots of process rules and internal deadlines that are unrealistic for whatever reason and don't get followed in practice, leading to many last-minute exceptions. I don't know about the specific case of research papers, but if would not surprise me at all if "one day before the deadline" were a common submission timeframe at Google. Of course that not ideal and probably sucks for the tea…

Submitting for an internal review a day before the deadline is not a common thing in Google Research at all. I worked there and actually was not able to submit a paper to an external conference because the internal deadline was only 3 days away and it was likely we wouldn't be able to get the internal approval ahead of time. The rules were clear and as far as I understood it, people did follow them. If there was any selective enforcement, it would be in her favor if she expected a single day to be enough.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#817

Post by throwaway74453 »

ehsankia wrote: post #742
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…

> where she had been allowed to go around the process in the past I'm curious, is there anything in the posted information above that points to the fact they were able to go around the 2-week limit in the past? Or is that just a guess?

As a side note, I worked there as a run-of-the-mill engineer and the 2 week deadline was respected as far as I can tell. I once couldn't submit a paper to an external conference exactly because there was not enough time to get the internal review and approval.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#818

Post by hackerfromthefu »

rbanffy wrote: post #583
hintymad wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That LeCunn needed to defend his own character out of such simple discussion shows everything that's wrong with the US' progressive culture.

She was never uncivil and she pointed out a series of issues, from what she believed was imprecise in his argument, to the societal issues that caused her to be viciously attacked by other people for engaging in the discussion. Other people questioned whether data only can be accountable for the biases and were not subjected to the kind of vitriol she was. The fact I am a white cishet male shields me from a lot of mi…

Sorry that's ridiculous - as a observer with no vested interest it was * very * clear she was very uncivil in her tone, repeatedly.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#819

Post by throwaway74453 »

black_puppydog wrote: post #220
southstreet wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"feedback" here seems to refer to feedback on the scientific paper that is being retracted, not personal performance feedback or anything like that. When I red this first, wasn't immediately clear what this was about.

Good point, that also took a bit of disentangling for me. As such, I find it really quite baffling that someone would be unwilling to share that scientific feedback with her, or who raised it.

She has a history of attacking people through social media. If I were reviewing her paper, I would certainly not want to be known to her, especially if I were critical of it. The possibility of retaliation from her is very real and she often uses her considerable twitter following to do exactly that. I believe she thinks she's doing the right thing, but from a disinterested party's perspective she seems like a bully.

Re: AI researcher Timnit Gebru resigns from Google

#820

Post by throwaway74453 »

dash2 wrote: post #521
Ar-Curunir wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is internal legal review, not academic peer review.

I'm not sure we know exactly what kind of review it is. I think it also depends what she signed up for, explicitly or implicitly. What were the expectations around freedom to publish?

It is a review that every paper submitted to a conference or a journal from Google has to go through. In fact I believe one has to do that prior to even submitting the paper to external peer review. That at least was the interpretation every researcher I knew at Google was operating under.
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