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>Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities

>Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google. https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1334953632719011840 https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1334953632719011840 With regard to the internal review thing, I thought this comment made a good point: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k6467v/n_the_email_that_got_ethical_ai_researcher_timnit/gejra4a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k6467v/n_t... Sure, maybe Google is usually lax with internal reviews. But if you're going to write a paper which says "this area of research Google is engaging in is harmful", and neglect to mention the fact that Google is also doing research trying to address the harms, then from Google's perspective, you are just smearing its corporate brand without making any real progress.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
The weird part is, the paper didn't seem to be saying that. It was mostly about energy usage, and bias in language models. The reviewer described it as "anodyne," which seems apt: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k69eq0/n_the_abstract_of_the_paper_that_led_to_timnit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k69eq0/n_t... I'd totally agree with you. That would indeed be ridiculous. But... It's strange... each time a new argument pops up, I dig into the new detail, and surprise: it seems to have a straightforward, boring answer. "This is a pretty standard paper. Google wouldn't have been hurt reputation-wise by letting it through. And we should probably be thinking more about energy usage and bias. She didn't namedrop all relevant research, but there doesn't seem to be anything here to demand a retraction over." It only gets stranger when you take this into account, too. From the journal reviewer: However, the authors had (and still have) many weeks to update the paper before publication. The email from Google implies (but carefully does not state) that the only solution was the paper's retraction. That was not the case. In some parallel universe, Google could re-hire her, Jeff and her could sit down and hammer out the paper, send the updated version, and there would still be two weeks to make even more edits. Isn't the point of the edit window to address these problems? What really got my attention though, was that she informed everyone months ago that her and her coauthors were writing this paper. She wasn't working on some hit piece of a research paper. It's just ... a standard survey of the current ML scene circa 2021. I read the abstract and go "Yup, we use a shitload of energy. Yup, we should have better tools for filtering training data -- I've wanted this for myself. Where's the bombshell?" For all the fuss people are making, you'd expect the paper to be arguing that we should stop doing AI for the betterment of humanity, or something weird. But it's nothing like that.
- bisectable 6y ago
  The entire course of action you suggest could have happened were not for Timnit going public by her own volition, accusing her employer and coworkers of unethical behavior in the process, and encouraging sympathetic colleagues to apply external political and judicial pressure on Google. What for, so she can publish a review paper disregarding relevant internal feedback? She made a lot of fuss and burnt a lot of bridges. Nobody forced her to do so.
vfclists 6y ago
> Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google. This means the date of her leaving was not set in stone, ie both parties would agree to the date or a date when she would leave. She had a vacation coming up and they would discuss it when she returned from vacation. >According to Ms Gebru, Google replied: "We respect your decision to leave Google... and we are accepting your resignation. >"However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behaviour that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager." She was fired, not on account of the content of her paper, but the way she expressed her feelings to her colleagues, which wasn't an exhortation for them lay down their tools, but because laying down their tools made no different as their work was ignored.
- remote_phone 6y ago
  She was not fired. She offered to resign if her demands were not met. The only difference is that the timeline was not of her choosing. She knew exactly what she was gambling for when she wrote those words. Why would Google want someone around who doesn’t want to work at Google? Better to accept their resignation and let them go immediately. It happens all the time. I once gave 2 weeks notice and my boss said I might as well leave immediately since there was no point in hanging around (I was consulting and on the bench). It happens.
  - vfclists 6y ago
    If they decided the date of the "resignation" without informing her then they fired her. That is pretty obvious. And it wasn't because of her demands concerning the paper, it was on account of the way they interpreted of an email she sent to her colleagues.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

The weird part is, the paper didn't seem to be saying that. It was mostly about energy usage, and bias in language models. The reviewer described it as "anodyne," which seems apt: https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k69eq0/n_the_abstract_of_the_paper_that_led_to_timnit/ https://old.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k69eq0/n_t... I'd totally agree with you. That would indeed be ridiculous. But... It's strange... each time a new argument pops up, I dig into the new detail, and surprise: it seems to have a straightforward, boring answer. "This is a pretty standard paper. Google wouldn't have been hurt reputation-wise by letting it through. And we should probably be thinking more about energy usage and bias. She didn't namedrop all relevant research, but there doesn't seem to be anything here to demand a retraction over." It only gets stranger when you take this into account, too. From the journal reviewer: However, the authors had (and still have) many weeks to update the paper before publication. The email from Google implies (but carefully does not state) that the only solution was the paper's retraction. That was not the case. In some parallel universe, Google could re-hire her, Jeff and her could sit down and hammer out the paper, send the updated version, and there would still be two weeks to make even more edits. Isn't the point of the edit window to address these problems? What really got my attention though, was that she informed everyone months ago that her and her coauthors were writing this paper. She wasn't working on some hit piece of a research paper. It's just ... a standard survey of the current ML scene circa 2021. I read the abstract and go "Yup, we use a shitload of energy. Yup, we should have better tools for filtering training data -- I've wanted this for myself. Where's the bombshell?" For all the fuss people are making, you'd expect the paper to be arguing that we should stop doing AI for the betterment of humanity, or something weird. But it's nothing like that.

bisectable 6y ago
The entire course of action you suggest could have happened were not for Timnit going public by her own volition, accusing her employer and coworkers of unethical behavior in the process, and encouraging sympathetic colleagues to apply external political and judicial pressure on Google. What for, so she can publish a review paper disregarding relevant internal feedback? She made a lot of fuss and burnt a lot of bridges. Nobody forced her to do so.

vfclists 6y ago

> Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google. This means the date of her leaving was not set in stone, ie both parties would agree to the date or a date when she would leave. She had a vacation coming up and they would discuss it when she returned from vacation. >According to Ms Gebru, Google replied: "We respect your decision to leave Google... and we are accepting your resignation. >"However, we believe the end of your employment should happen faster than your email reflects because certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behaviour that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager." She was fired, not on account of the content of her paper, but the way she expressed her feelings to her colleagues, which wasn't an exhortation for them lay down their tools, but because laying down their tools made no different as their work was ignored.

remote_phone 6y ago
She was not fired. She offered to resign if her demands were not met. The only difference is that the timeline was not of her choosing. She knew exactly what she was gambling for when she wrote those words. Why would Google want someone around who doesn’t want to work at Google? Better to accept their resignation and let them go immediately. It happens all the time. I once gave 2 weeks notice and my boss said I might as well leave immediately since there was no point in hanging around (I was consulting and on the bench). It happens.
- vfclists 6y ago
  If they decided the date of the "resignation" without informing her then they fired her. That is pretty obvious. And it wasn't because of her demands concerning the paper, it was on account of the way they interpreted of an email she sent to her colleagues.