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The problem I find with this has much to do with character. I will not comment on the research (because I do not know the field) but rather comment on why chara
by mikaeluman 6y ago
The problem I find with this has much to do with character. I will not comment on the research (because I do not know the field) but rather comment on why character matters and why motivation is important.
Having read her email and tweets; it is quite clear that she is as much a political activist for a far-left “woke” interpretation of the world that I view as of immediate threat to our way of living, democracy and free speech.
Of course you can still author great papers but you would be naive to expect her to reach any conclusion that goes against her political goals.
In her email she makes this clear. She even posts demands if her paper is not published. In her email she professes to being “dehumanized” for her color and makes it clear that - irrespective of any factors - hiring only 14% women in a year is not acceptable.
She continues to say that they had been “enough talking”. We need action.
This type of urgency to take action (of course only the actions she herself approves of) and stop talking are clear indications of a person who no longer lives by liberal values but has embraced an ideology to which they now belong.
At that point, as an employer of researchers, I would consider her credibility to be severely damaged. If at that point I receive demands from this person “or else”. Then I would of course also accept her resignation.
I think the tech industry will need to continue to stand up to the anti-liberal values of these “woke” people before they cause too much harm.
- akie 6y ago> a far-left “woke” interpretation of the world that I view as of immediate threat to our way of living, democracy and free speech. WTF dude. The core argument as to what you say is a "woke" interpretation of the world is to reshape the world in such a way that inherent privilege (for example being rich, being white, being male) does not completely predetermine anyone's outcomes. So that you can still "make it" even if you don't start out as rich, if you're not white, or male. Basically, if you want to boil it down to slogans, it's "the American Dream for everyone". Or, equal opportunities – not equal outcomes. I'm not sure why that is a immediate threat to democracy, free speech, or your way of living.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mustuhfa 6y agoUmm, I think you need to do more research. Have you seen the toxic behavior she has demonstrated against respected people in the industry? She maybe is smart and pushing for good things, her approach of how she goes about it, especially with people she disagrees with is toxic and she did this to her self.
- curiousgal 6y agoAs a woman of color I see it as self-serving bullshit. I too can cry discrimination whenever someone disagrees with me and pretend to be working to make the world more fair. But the truth is, people in Ethiopia (where she was born) for instance give jackshit about AI and bias in facial recognition systems. If these people were so woke and concerned about underprivileged communities, they would tackle the problem at its root, not pick the easy fruit that is SV tech boys being scared that they would offend someone. TL;DR: For someone relying so heavily on their race and where they came from, she is as privileged as the people she's criticizing.
- totony 6y agoBoth you and the parent invite flamewar. IMO the parent has a good point even if you remove this from what he said.
- whatthesmack 6y agoIt seems like all of the actions to "rectify" the aforementioned issues clearly involve threats to democracy and free speech. For example, the far-left "woke" interpretation has historically made use of and encouraged "cancel culture" to punish people that disagree with that worldview, which deprives them of their right to free speech. This is not imagined -- many people's lives have been destroyed because of this. Free speech is not just the First Amendment in the US... it is a tradition upheld in a plethora of ways, public and private. In addition, not everybody agrees with the theory of inherent privilege, as it's often used to overlook or devalue the hard work of others with whom one disagrees. Many people of all backgrounds are frightened by what they are seeing of the far-left "woke" view.
- Niksko 6y agoFreedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences. The only people that are 'frightened' by equality are those that have historically benefited from the lack of equality.
- randomsearch 6y agoI’ve heard this stock answer many many times before. “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences.” By this token, an authoritarian state has freedom of speech - say what you want, but don’t complain when you’re imprisoned or shot for it. This political slogan does not logically imply that all consequences people choose to deal out are therefore somehow justifiable. Specifically, it does not give people permission to take action to curtail freedom of speech, which is precisely what is happening.
- ThrowawayR2 6y ago> "Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences." It's kind of surprising to see that even the direct example of Ms. Gebru having just experienced "consequences" hasn't jolted people into realizing that that tired old phrase is problematic precisely because it cuts both ways.
- akie 6y agoI'm not sure how anyone can have this view of the world and keep a straight face. However, here > It seems like all of the actions to "rectify" the aforementioned issues clearly involve threats to democracy and free speech. you at least acknowledge that there is a problem. So we just need to put our heads together and try to solve these problems... right? Also, as a child of (at least some) privilege it takes a lot to see and understand the privileges you have. I hope you see yours, and I hope that you would want other people to have the same privileges that you have.
- CuriouslyC 6y agoI think when people pull an episode of a TV show featuring an Asian man wearing make-up to play a dark elf due to fear of reprisal from race crusaders, we're in a bad place.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoIn the 90s and early 2000s it was quite common for TV shows that offended Christians in some way to be censored or cancelled by their network. This was due to letter writing campaigns by a small minority of Christians. Is it fair of me to call Christianity a threat to democracy?
- CuriouslyC 6y agoIt isn't the Christianity so much as the ignorance, but yeah.
- selimthegrim 6y agoGoogle has deleted an entire track from a Zappa album (Sheikh Yerbouti) listing for reasons known only to itself. Aren’t we already there?
- mikaeluman 6y agoIf you are not sure why, then please read about what has happened before when far-left revolutions occurred based on these concepts of supposed “privilege”. For example in Lenin’s Soviet Union. People were judged by their class membership rather than their individual behavior. This ideology of group-membership based society is harmful to everything I consider liberal and free. Don’t judge people by their appearance, judge them by their character.
- dillondoyle 6y agoI think you are taking 'stop talking' to mean censor all debate. That's clearly not the primary meaning in the context. But maybe you think that we still need to debate whether or not we need to hire more women? And even if you argue that we do NOT need to take action now to bring more gender equality into tech - who is stopping you from making that argument? Judging by all the comments on the HN threads it seems there are plenty of voices expressing opinions. I assume that this chorus is mostly men - 86% perhaps?
- layoutIfNeeded 6y agoI’ve developed a severe case of “wokeness” fatigue. At this point if I see the - social - media trying to drum up outrage for some “woke” cause, I just roll my eyes and scroll away.
- getlawgdon 6y ago"woke" has obviously become much more of a triggering dog-whistle for the reactionary, privileged right than a shibboleth for the left. your comments are not insightful to the issue but ironically they convey your character.
- CuriouslyC 6y agoThe stupidity of cancel culture and college kids screaming "shame" at history professors for an entire lecture because he didn't spend enough time pontificating on white privilege throughout the ages have made a mockery of civil rights activism. How do they expect to change people's minds when they're constantly making enemies?
- ThrowawayR2 6y agoWhat I see is that a lot of mainstream liberals are waking up to how problematic and alienating that progressives are (even to the point of drawing criticism from former-President Obama https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-cancel-culture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/obama-woke-ca...) and are pushing back against their poor behavior. If you're a liberal who is tired of "wokeness" (I am and a minority to boot), let people like the parent know that you're not on their side, both through your words and through your voting.
- jka 6y agoIt's generally difficult and requires a strong spine to stand up for causes that you believe are important, particularly when doing so involves personal costs in terms of opportunity. Suffragettes battled hard to allow women to vote, for example. While reading your comment I wondered whether you would have considered their movement to be "woke" at the time. For their part, Google likely truly does try hard to behave ethically because it tends to be good for their image and business. But it may also be true that there are dangers and risks involved in AI research that Timnit (as an expert in the field) believes have the capacity to perpetuate inequality on a long timescale. You state that a sense of urgency around that indicates an ideology. I'd suggest that almost everyone who participates actively in the kind of liberal democracy you defend requires some kind of ideology to guide their decision-making. The most trustworthy people may adjust and refine their ideology when faced with contradicting facts and evidence, and to do so they may need to understand and reason about those counter-arguments. There seems to be an underlying sense in some of these threads that the financial and technological setbacks that the tech industry might suffer as a result of adopting more ethical policies and listening to employee concerns wouldn't be worth the cost. There is less discussion and optimism, for some reason, about what the benefits of a happier and more transparently equitable work environment would be. Speaking of ideologies, I think this hints at a sense of company loyalty and perhaps national loyalty, with a possible fear that criticisms may be a form of subversion, accidental or malign. Those loyalties and suspicions may help the participating groups succeed, or could equally lead to their failure if the surrounding environment changes. That is, perhaps, the market at work.
- wwarner 6y agoNo. She was accused of doing shoddy research and was fired for that reason, not her point of view, therefore evaluating the research is the only relevant issue. I welcome this second opinion on the paper and in fact this article changed my opinion. I really am blown away by the energy cost of building these models, and would love to hear that the numbers in the paper are just way way off. I realize that very few models like this are built, but as Gebru points out, that also introduces bias and the problem of verifying the integrity of the process. I don't have to agree that NLP is racist, or that capitalism is racist to find value in this paper. And it certainly is true that what many take to be inevitable in technology is in fact a choice, so attacking and questioning fundamental assumptions is a very important part of moving into the future.