4 ms·

What do you mean by pretty serious? I looked at three, two are about better documenting ML models/data, and one is about inferring the political leanings of an

What do you mean by pretty serious? I looked at three, two are about better documenting ML models/data, and one is about inferring the political leanings of an area by what type of cars are parked in it. None seem particularly groundbreaking to me...

threeseed 6y ago
Her work on identifying bias in facial recognition has won quite a number of awards. Ground-breaking might be a strong word but it does move the industry forward.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Do you have a link to that paper? I'd like to read it, though I wasn't thrilled by the way she handled (or didn't) Yann LeCun.
  - threeseed 6y ago
    You can see some of the recognition on her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru
- bzb6 6y ago
  Awards given by leftist organisations such as VentureBeat to leftist activists are not really worth much.
  - cepth 6y ago
    The paper referenced ("Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification") has been cited 1000+ times per her Google Scholar page (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lemnAcwAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lemnAcwAAAAJ). For a 2-year old paper, this is easily a top 1% most cited paper. Take for example a retrospective look at 2017 NeurIPS papers done in 2019 (https://archive.is/wip/77YrB https://archive.is/wip/77YrB). You can disagree with how she and/or Google has handled this whole situation, but please do not denigrate work that has been cited (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=14954608238029559254 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=14954...) by papers accepted at the most competitive/prestigious ML conferences. EDIT: I also do not see how in good faith you can say that VentureBeat, a company who makes the bulk of its revenue from running conferences catering to C-suite execs who can shell out thousands of dollars for a ticket, is "leftist".
    - bzb6 6y ago
      Are you really making the argument that people with money can’t be leftists? Do you know liberals are on average richer? https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/economic-divide-in-the-us-is-becoming-as-stark-as-its-politics.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/economic-divide-in-the-us-is... Most executives of tech and news companies would bend over backwards just to show how leftist they are in 2020. (I’m only replying to the part of your comment that answers mine)
      - cepth 6y ago
        In the United States, liberal and leftist are distinct terms. Even someone like Ben Shapiro recognizes a difference between liberals and leftists (https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/966081078166421504 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/966081078166421504). Silicon Valley types would hardly be described as leftists. Numerous studies have been done on the attitudes of Silicon Valley founders and execs (https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politics-charts https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politic...). The distinctions are dramatic. We see that on average, tech founders are less likely to support vs. even Democrats generally (not just progressives): * Banning the Keystone XL pipeline (60% vs 78%) * The individual healthcare mandate (59% vs 70%) * Labor unions being good (29% vs 73%) This is to say, the average Silicon Valley type, particularly the C-suite exec or founder, tends not to be on the left wing of the Democratic party. During the 2020 Democratic primary, even the Silicon Valley billionaires who are openly Democratic-leaning donated to candidates who were not to the left of the field (i.e. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders) (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/2020-democratic-presidential-candidates-donations-from-tech-execs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/2020-democratic-presidential...): * Eric Schmidt -> Cory Booker and Joe Biden * Reed Hastings -> Pete Buttigieg * Marc Benioff -> Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Jay Inslee * Reid Hoffman -> Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar * Jack Dorsey -> Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard * Ben Silbermann -> Pete Buttigieg I'm engaging with you in good faith, and because I was intrigued that in a previous comment you mentioned that you live in Spain (though who's to say you're not a US ex-pat). But calling US tech companies "leftist" is a stretch at best.
        6y ago
foota 6y ago
Honestly? I don't have much experience with ML and in particular issues of bias in ML (though I have a general understanding of a lot of the former), so I don't really feel qualified to evaluate her more recent work, but her older stuff definitely appeared like what I'd expect from a machine learning practitioner, so I don't think attacking her as someone that only understands social sciences (which I perceived the parent as doing) to be fair.

threeseed 6y ago

Her work on identifying bias in facial recognition has won quite a number of awards. Ground-breaking might be a strong word but it does move the industry forward.

StavrosK 6y ago
Do you have a link to that paper? I'd like to read it, though I wasn't thrilled by the way she handled (or didn't) Yann LeCun.
- threeseed 6y ago
  You can see some of the recognition on her Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru
bzb6 6y ago
Awards given by leftist organisations such as VentureBeat to leftist activists are not really worth much.
- cepth 6y ago
  The paper referenced ("Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification") has been cited 1000+ times per her Google Scholar page (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lemnAcwAAAAJ https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lemnAcwAAAAJ). For a 2-year old paper, this is easily a top 1% most cited paper. Take for example a retrospective look at 2017 NeurIPS papers done in 2019 (https://archive.is/wip/77YrB https://archive.is/wip/77YrB). You can disagree with how she and/or Google has handled this whole situation, but please do not denigrate work that has been cited (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=14954608238029559254 https://scholar.google.com/scholar?oi=bibs&hl=en&cites=14954...) by papers accepted at the most competitive/prestigious ML conferences. EDIT: I also do not see how in good faith you can say that VentureBeat, a company who makes the bulk of its revenue from running conferences catering to C-suite execs who can shell out thousands of dollars for a ticket, is "leftist".
  - bzb6 6y ago
    Are you really making the argument that people with money can’t be leftists? Do you know liberals are on average richer? https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/economic-divide-in-the-us-is-becoming-as-stark-as-its-politics.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/economic-divide-in-the-us-is... Most executives of tech and news companies would bend over backwards just to show how leftist they are in 2020. (I’m only replying to the part of your comment that answers mine)
    - cepth 6y ago
      In the United States, liberal and leftist are distinct terms. Even someone like Ben Shapiro recognizes a difference between liberals and leftists (https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/966081078166421504 https://twitter.com/benshapiro/status/966081078166421504). Silicon Valley types would hardly be described as leftists. Numerous studies have been done on the attitudes of Silicon Valley founders and execs (https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politics-charts https://www.vox.com/2015/9/29/9411117/silicon-valley-politic...). The distinctions are dramatic. We see that on average, tech founders are less likely to support vs. even Democrats generally (not just progressives): * Banning the Keystone XL pipeline (60% vs 78%) * The individual healthcare mandate (59% vs 70%) * Labor unions being good (29% vs 73%) This is to say, the average Silicon Valley type, particularly the C-suite exec or founder, tends not to be on the left wing of the Democratic party. During the 2020 Democratic primary, even the Silicon Valley billionaires who are openly Democratic-leaning donated to candidates who were not to the left of the field (i.e. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders) (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/2020-democratic-presidential-candidates-donations-from-tech-execs.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/13/2020-democratic-presidential...): * Eric Schmidt -> Cory Booker and Joe Biden * Reed Hastings -> Pete Buttigieg * Marc Benioff -> Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Jay Inslee * Reid Hoffman -> Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar * Jack Dorsey -> Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard * Ben Silbermann -> Pete Buttigieg I'm engaging with you in good faith, and because I was intrigued that in a previous comment you mentioned that you live in Spain (though who's to say you're not a US ex-pat). But calling US tech companies "leftist" is a stretch at best.
      - 6y ago

foota 6y ago

Honestly? I don't have much experience with ML and in particular issues of bias in ML (though I have a general understanding of a lot of the former), so I don't really feel qualified to evaluate her more recent work, but her older stuff definitely appeared like what I'd expect from a machine learning practitioner, so I don't think attacking her as someone that only understands social sciences (which I perceived the parent as doing) to be fair.