13 ms·

Google employees say AI researcher did not resign, despite what exec claims

104 points by bigpumpkin 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago
How did she not resign? She gave them an ultimatum demanding that the identities of peer reviewers be revealed to her and said that she would not work there if her demands were not met. That is a resignation since those conditions cannot be met. Even leaving aside the threat of resignation, such a list of demands worded as they were, simply shows that this person is unprofessional, aggressive, and immature. And that's leaving aside the fact that the paper in question seems very scattered and unimpressive (https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a...). Frankly, reading the MIT Technology Review article makes me question the legitimacy of this entire field of AI Ethics and those who participate in it. As a reminder, this isn't the first problematic incident involving Timnit Gebru either. She previously went on an unhinged Twitter attack against Yann LeCunn, one of the pioneers of deep learning. He won a Turing award for his work on this topic and is one of the foremost experts on it, and understands its various nuances very well. When she was challenged, Timnit's line of attack was leveraging a word soup of progressive identity politics, demanding Yann LeCunn apologize to her, claiming harm was done to the community, etc. This highlighted her aggressive tactics (weaponization of her Twitter following and leveraging cancel culture) and it is clear she must be a very difficult employee to manage or work with. Coming back to the article linked here: whenever there is some incident (a firing, a walkout, a protest) at one of these big tech companies with a large activist employee population, articles get written that purport to present the opinion of the employee base at large. But usually, these articles only represent the loud minority that is willing to speak up and faces no repercussions. The employees that agree with Timnit Gebru leaving the company (supporting the company's stance) don't have psychological safety. Timnit wields the power of a big following of social justice activists on Twitter, and could shame/destroy people who speak up against her. The small number of employees voicing their support for her, even with total psychological safety, is a tiny percentage of Google's employee base. Those numbers paint a false picture that she has broad support when she doesn't. Perspectives from other Google employees are only available on anonymous forums like Blind (https://www.teamblind.com/post/We-stand-with-Jeff-Dean-and-Yann-LeCun-and-many-researchers-bsU03R70 https://www.teamblind.com/post/We-stand-with-Jeff-Dean-and-Y...) and Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/geqzqlq/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...). Lastly, this has all been discussed in depth previously in a few different discussions on HN. The one with the most comments is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25292386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25292386.
stygiansonic 6y ago
Direct link to the original blog post the new article is referencing: https://googlewalkout.medium.com/setting-the-record-straight-isupporttimnit-believeblackwomen-5d7bbfe4ed90 https://googlewalkout.medium.com/setting-the-record-straight...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hartator 6y ago
Didn’t she gave an ultimatum? Do this or I resign? And they are like we can’t do this so we consider you terminated?
- SCUSKU 6y ago
  This tweet [1], seems less like an ultimatum and more of asking for an explanation, which management does not seem willing to provide. [1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334900391302098944 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334900391302098944
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    That's only the conditional part of the ultimatum, not the threat. (the "X" in "Do X, or I'll do Y"). The exact phrasing she used is (probably - IANA employment lawyer) very important. If she said something like "Do X, or I'll have to reconsider if I want to continue working here", that doesn't sound like an ultimatum. But if she said "Do X, or I'm going to quit on December 5th", then that definitely sounds like an ultimatum you're begging the company to take you up on.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    That tweet is the "conditions" part of the ultimatum. The other part was the "consequences" if the conditions are not met (the consequences were that she would resign at a to-be-determined date).
    - throwaway19937 6y ago
      When you threaten to resign the other person may decide they don't want the headache of having you around. She had already sent an email asking other people to stop their work on diversity. It's at best naive to think that Google (or any employer) would give her a few more weeks to lower morale or cause trouble.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  If someone says "if you don't fix this thing I will look for work elsewhere" that doesn't mean that you can say "I accept your resignation." If you want that person gone immediately, you have to fire them.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Why would other employees be knowledgeable in the employment relationship between someone and a company? Unless the employees are in the direct management chain, or HR or something, aren't they just parroting what Timnit is claiming?
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  Sure, but management is also making a claim without direct evidence.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    There is a difference between not having evidence and not providing evidence. My point wasn't even about the truthiness of the claims of either side, but rather that if party A claims X, and then parties B and C just repeat the claims without being able to add anything - that's not news. That's just a person having allies who believe their claims. If Microsoft chimed in and said Timnit actually resigned, no one would write an article on that (besides for how bizarre of a statement that would be by another company), because no one expects Microsoft to be apprised of what happens between Google and its employees.
- zorpner 6y ago
  In fact, Timnit Gebru's actual manager has issued a specific statement on this. It's on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3469738016467233&id=100002932057665 https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=34697380164672... Full text: Just wanted to say that I was stunned by what just happened to Timnit Gebru, who was in my team until a few days ago (I'm sure you've all read what happened already). I have always been and will remain a strong supporter of her scientific work to make sure that AI becomes a positive force for the minoritized, as well as her generosity and tireless actions to lift the voices of the silenced ones. She taught me a lot and still is. I stand by you, Timnit. I also stand by the rest of my team who, like me, was stunned and is trying to make sense of all this. In particular the Ethical AI team, but also the broader Brain Research team.
  - 6y ago
kd913 6y ago
It disturbs me how much of a news story this is. This should be handled internally and not aired in public across several media sites. Why should I care about the dirty laundry of FAANG and some random individual?
- bioinformatics 6y ago
  How do you think she will get attention to her cause(s)?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- krooj 6y ago
  It reeks of an ulterior motive / agenda, but to what end?
- gerash 6y ago
  Obviously the individual who was let go loves the fame but I see most news website are pretty much looking for some sensational story to run mainly because doing more thorough analysis doesn't pay for itself. That's the problem.
  - prodtorok 6y ago
    I don't think it's as innocent as "loves the fame" ... there is a greater theme in our society regarding the influence of public opinion; and how influencers are abusing that in politics/positions of power. The media of course enables it, which I think is a sign of a growing, large scale, rational fragility across society (demand controls their publication, there is a large demand for this type of information)
    - actuator 6y ago
      FB gets criticized a lot in HN but Twitter isn't. IMO Twitter is absolutely the worst platform for things like these because of the prevalent mob culture. It is very easy to organise people using your influence and they can easily hound out any dissenting opinion. I will have to search for them now but I saw people doxxing some of the current Googler's identities if they agreed with the resignation. This is extremely toxic. Even the old media seems to love Twitter and it escapes FB level of scrutiny.
KittenInABox 6y ago
Can I ask with the upmost politeness what is going on? I genuinely went into this considering that this was someone who is essentially decrying that normal work difficulties are sexism or racism. But I'm now finding that the procedure claimed actually essentially doesn't exist or if it did it was never enforced until now. What is going on? If this was an issue of the researcher unprofessionally airing her frustrations on a listserv with direct reports that's one thing. It's another thing to say being upset at all was an overreaction because the treatment was totally normal and that her frustration was a resignation, when in fact, none of that is true in any good faith interpretation.
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  The reality is that none of us have any idea what's going on. There's a bunch of employee-said/employer-said going on, with leaks to the press and rants on Twitter, but nobody has the whole picture. Plenty of people are willing to make guesses based on the fragments they have combined with their own biases, though. Searching in HN under "Gebru" (the employee's last name) pulls up a bunch of past threads.
  - worker767424 6y ago
    The other bit I'd add is Google will be silent externally for legal reasons, and not to read into that. The internal messaging was likely truthy and omitted things. Timnit Gebru also omitted some important things in her twitter posts.
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Google wasn't silent externally however. Jeff Dean wrote an article on the subject on Google's blog.
- SullyGoober 6y ago
  It depends on who you ask: 1) If you ask me, this is a story about an influential technology company, one whose approach to business has an outsized influence on the entire industry, has unethically fired an employee while making mis-statements to cover it up. 2) Others will say: this is about a ethicist being unfairly treated with different standards because of her gender and race, a microcosm of what it is like to be a minority race and/or female in the tech industry. 3) Still others will say: This is about an employee who disrupted the workplace. She rudely interacted with her colleagues and prominent names outside of the industry (Y. Lecun). She prevented collaboration by making spurious claims of sexism and racism. 4) Another line of thought that is a variant of #1: This is about an employee who did not follow company rules and processes. She was fired as a result. The statements privately and publicly about "resignation" were an attempt to not publicly disparage her Did I miss any others? With a nod to the Rashomon Principle, your interpretation of these events depends on your perspective.
m1117 6y ago
Hard to understand this without the right intel from the management team. A big puzzle piece is missing. Let's see if there're going to be any insiders sharing more info.
sleepytimetea 6y ago
When I worked at Google, there was always this sinister edge to all corporate events and communications and their culture, in general. It was like that Star Trek episode - everything is paradise unless you commit a transgression. Any transgression, even minor, would result in your termination. In the Star Trek episode, it meant death, at Google, luckily, it just meant an involuntary "resignation".
- worker767424 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure you're also describing Singapore.
- zests 6y ago
  Is there a large corporation that is not an enormous faceless entity resembling 'Big Brother'? All it takes is one person above you in the corporate ladder to not like you and you're done for. They could dislike you for any number of reasons including trivial aspects of your personality or a one off comment that got interpreted wrongly.
- yongjik 6y ago
  Well, I mean, it depends on what you mean by "transgression", but when I worked at Google the following are lists of things that were not considered transgression: * Saying a high profile project is botched, mismanaged, and doomed to fail. (Anyone remember google+?) * Mocking and criticizing the SVP who led the project. * Rejoicing in the departure of the said SVP. * Talking about one of the founders having an affair. (Well, to be fair, the news broke outside first.) * Memes disagreeing with company decisions, including one that literally said "What the fuck are you doing" for firing someone. * And, last but not least, complaining that the quality of microkitchen has gone downhill since $(the year you joined).
- thu2111 6y ago
  No clue what part of Google you worked at but that's the exact opposite of the company I worked at. Non-eng lived in fear of eng employees because the latter were widely seen as unfireable regardless of how bizarre or problematic their behaviour could become.
Jabbles 6y ago
I think "do you have dealbreakers would you be prepared to resign over?" would be a reasonable interview question for a researcher in ethics.
worker767424 6y ago
Saw this on her Twitter feed: > you know these last 2 weeks were supposed to be my vacations and we’re currently on a road trip. Probably best not to send an email threatening to resign, then go on vacation and expect things to be normal.
okareaman 6y ago
There's was an incident a while back where 2 engineers were joking between themselves about a "big dongle" and the woman seated in the row ahead heard it, turn around, took their picture and posted it online. It ruined everyone's life including hers. I thought we learned from this that airing things publicly is fraught with danger. I imagine there is a time and place for it, but very carefully with intention. https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale...
- morelisp 6y ago
  > It ruined everyone's life including hers. Source? Last I heard the two men were hired elsewhere fairly quickly. Their names are also hardly ever associated with the story.
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    And she still has her health and family so it's not like her life was ruined; talk about hyperbole!
    - okareaman 6y ago
      At the time I remember quite clearly that everyone felt wrecked by this incident. I forgot that when you say someone's life is ruined, people translate that to mean ruined permanently. It's not like she got drunk and killed someone with her car.
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        Yeah, I agree that your characterization of the situation is fair. If I went through what they went through, I think I would find it fairly traumatic.
  - worker767424 6y ago
    She's working under another name professionally now, so she's doing okay enough.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
Looking at all this drama, the AI researcher sounds toxic: * Picked a public Twitter fight with Yang LeCun * Her peers are so afraid of critiquing her paper, that they demand anonymity through HR * Tells co-workers to stop working on documents One of the things that has been emphasized in tech for the past several years is not to allow justifying retaining toxic people on account of their talent. In addition, your life experiences don’t justify being toxic. For example, even if a person’s Dad was an abusive alcoholic, that would not justify them being abusive to co-workers.
- lsiebert 6y ago
  People who point out problems are called toxic, not because they are in anyway injuring others, but because attacking them is easier than addressing their criticism.
- svrb 6y ago
  > your life experiences don’t justify being toxic But she isn't a victim because of her life experiences; it's because of her skin color and gender identity.
nikolay 6y ago
Employment is at will on both ends of the contract! Live with it and stop whining! If you don't like your employer and believe they dehumanize you, sue them, or leave them for another more humanizing company! Enough of this BS, please! If she put new conditions on her employment and the employer cannot meet them, then she terminated herself. This is no kindergarten!
quantaum_dot 6y ago
Can we stop this already? I visit HN for real tech news.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
This whole question of resigned or fired seems like such a weird one. It's getting so much debate! I think everybody understands that she gave an ultimatum that included a "or else I will resign." I think everybody understands that Google responded with a "you are out as of now" that took her by surprise. And yet there are a bazillion articles debating what verb best describes that pair of events. I get that there is legal relevance, and let the lawyers argue that one. But the rest of this seems to be a court of public opinion thing, in which case it should have no relevance given that everyone is agreed on the facts. Why do we care so much about the one-word linguistics of it? How about you just don't use a single verb alone, and instead spend the literally two sentences it takes to explain that part?
- chafporte 6y ago
  Did she actually resign ? No. As she didn't resign, was she fired ? Yes. The only issue is Google lying about it.
- falcolas 6y ago
  'Resigned' indicates an action on her part, and typically considered to be an amicable parting. 'Fired' means an action on Google's part, typically because of a perceived misdeed. By calling it a resignation, Google is making it sound as if it was an amicable choice she made, not their judgement call about her actions. Words matter. Word choices always matter. Especailly single words which come with a lot of built-in context.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    I completely agree words matter. They matter immensely because of what they communicate. That's my point. It seems plainly evident at this point that neither word is aiding communication, because we're arguing about what the words mean, rather than the facts of the situation. A sentence saying she was fired and a sentence saying she resigned both miss too much of the situation to be called clear, honest communication, which matters.
    - 6y ago
ilaksh 6y ago
It seemed like she was totally opposed to the basic concept of Google actually -- uses a huge amount of electricity, uses AI which is based on massive uncurated (biased) datasets, etc. Has a ton of white men working there and basically gives the equivalent of a "are you really a CS genius" bar exam to anyone who applies, so that even some developers with massive open source user-bases can't "qualify". Which makes affirmative action even harder in a field that is already very diversity-challenged. So to me it's amazing that she worked there for more than a week.
ffggvv 6y ago
google is learning the same lesson that the frog learned from the scorpion. get in bed with woke activists and what do you expect?
- worker767424 6y ago
  Bad PR for a while, maybe 20 employees quit in solidarity, then go you go back to printing money.
wombatpm 6y ago
Google is not a Academia. There is no tenure or intellectual freedom protections. Poke the bear often enough or make a nuisance of yourself you will be shown the door. The only ones who get to stay around and be a thorn in the side of management are board members who control a chunk of voting stock. Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Seems like there should be a corollary for companies and difficult employees. Like public complaints that jump the chain of command from replaceable employees usually result in employee being replaced.
uh_uh 6y ago
Even if she didn't resign (which is questionable, because she did send an ultimatum), is it wrong for Google to fire a person who writes stuff like this? > I’m always amazed at how people can continue to do thing after thing like this and then turn around and ask me for some sort of extra DEI work or input. This happened to me last year. I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which Kat Herller and I hired feminist lawyers who threatened to sue Google (which is when they backed off--before that Google lawyers were prepared to throw us under the bus and our leaders were following as instructed) and the next day I get some random “impact award.” Pure gaslighting. This excerpt is from the email that according to her triggered the firing. This person threatened her employer with a lawsuit in the past and now people are outraged that she got "abrubtly fired". Arguably, the way Google treated her was even too lenient: many companies would have fired her at the time her original threat was made.
- smartician 6y ago
  For some reason there is a subculture within Google where employees act antagonistic towards their employer and go all Pikachu-faced when they're then terminated. Then they speak out and claim they were retaliated against, whereas people who worked for conventional companies would think, "well, what did you expect?" It is part of Google's culture to not blindly agree with leadership on every issue and you're encouraged to voice differing opinions, but I guess some take this too far in the other direction and assume that every kind of negative feedback is appreciated and "protected".
bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago
Lol. Yes, fair headline, she resigned. It's right there in the piece: > “Dr. Gebru did not resign [...] Dr. Gebru has stated this plainly, and others have meticulously documented it,” the Walkout group wrote in Monday’s blog post.[1] Translation: "She didn't resign — she said she didn't resign. She told us so." The logocentrism of the midwit elite. That "meticulous documentation" that was mentioned: > Expressed intent to resign - provided date + immediate termination = legally fired in the state of California.[2] These people are grindingly stupid. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/google-employees-dispute-jeff-dean-claim-timnit-gebru-did-not-resign.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/google-employees-dispute-jef... [2]: https://twitter.com/rajiinio/status/1335410735929765891 https://twitter.com/rajiinio/status/1335410735929765891
superlate 6y ago
This illustrates how unethical Google is. Google AI Ethics was just Google's attempt to obtain self-regulation of AI, but now, Jeff Dean completely destroyed their dream. At this point, governmental regulation is inevitable.
thu2111 6y ago
Where is Sundar Pichai in all of this? Why is it up to Jeff Dean to publicly represent the company? Pichai appears to be in hiding, as per usual. It's astounding how weak he is, especially compared to the very strong decision making that typified life under Larry/Sergey/Eric. It's obvious that people like Gebru terrorise their colleagues by claiming anyone who doesn't join their racist jihad against white men are terrible and need to be fired. When Pichai canned Damore he set Google up for a never ending strem of events like this one: he basically told the extremist activist wing of the workforce that they were in charge, not him. Very few tech CEOs in America are more deserving of being replaced than Pichai but given the voting structure of Google stock it's hard to see how that can happen.

104 points by bigpumpkin 6y ago

How did she not resign? She gave them an ultimatum demanding that the identities of peer reviewers be revealed to her and said that she would not work there if her demands were not met. That is a resignation since those conditions cannot be met. Even leaving aside the threat of resignation, such a list of demands worded as they were, simply shows that this person is unprofessional, aggressive, and immature. And that's leaving aside the fact that the paper in question seems very scattered and unimpressive (https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a...). Frankly, reading the MIT Technology Review article makes me question the legitimacy of this entire field of AI Ethics and those who participate in it. As a reminder, this isn't the first problematic incident involving Timnit Gebru either. She previously went on an unhinged Twitter attack against Yann LeCunn, one of the pioneers of deep learning. He won a Turing award for his work on this topic and is one of the foremost experts on it, and understands its various nuances very well. When she was challenged, Timnit's line of attack was leveraging a word soup of progressive identity politics, demanding Yann LeCunn apologize to her, claiming harm was done to the community, etc. This highlighted her aggressive tactics (weaponization of her Twitter following and leveraging cancel culture) and it is clear she must be a very difficult employee to manage or work with. Coming back to the article linked here: whenever there is some incident (a firing, a walkout, a protest) at one of these big tech companies with a large activist employee population, articles get written that purport to present the opinion of the employee base at large. But usually, these articles only represent the loud minority that is willing to speak up and faces no repercussions. The employees that agree with Timnit Gebru leaving the company (supporting the company's stance) don't have psychological safety. Timnit wields the power of a big following of social justice activists on Twitter, and could shame/destroy people who speak up against her. The small number of employees voicing their support for her, even with total psychological safety, is a tiny percentage of Google's employee base. Those numbers paint a false picture that she has broad support when she doesn't. Perspectives from other Google employees are only available on anonymous forums like Blind (https://www.teamblind.com/post/We-stand-with-Jeff-Dean-and-Yann-LeCun-and-many-researchers-bsU03R70 https://www.teamblind.com/post/We-stand-with-Jeff-Dean-and-Y...) and Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/geqzqlq/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...). Lastly, this has all been discussed in depth previously in a few different discussions on HN. The one with the most comments is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25292386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25292386.

stygiansonic 6y ago

Direct link to the original blog post the new article is referencing: https://googlewalkout.medium.com/setting-the-record-straight-isupporttimnit-believeblackwomen-5d7bbfe4ed90 https://googlewalkout.medium.com/setting-the-record-straight...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hartator 6y ago

Didn’t she gave an ultimatum? Do this or I resign? And they are like we can’t do this so we consider you terminated?

SCUSKU 6y ago
This tweet [1], seems less like an ultimatum and more of asking for an explanation, which management does not seem willing to provide. [1] https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334900391302098944 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1334900391302098944
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  That's only the conditional part of the ultimatum, not the threat. (the "X" in "Do X, or I'll do Y"). The exact phrasing she used is (probably - IANA employment lawyer) very important. If she said something like "Do X, or I'll have to reconsider if I want to continue working here", that doesn't sound like an ultimatum. But if she said "Do X, or I'm going to quit on December 5th", then that definitely sounds like an ultimatum you're begging the company to take you up on.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  That tweet is the "conditions" part of the ultimatum. The other part was the "consequences" if the conditions are not met (the consequences were that she would resign at a to-be-determined date).
  - throwaway19937 6y ago
    When you threaten to resign the other person may decide they don't want the headache of having you around. She had already sent an email asking other people to stop their work on diversity. It's at best naive to think that Google (or any employer) would give her a few more weeks to lower morale or cause trouble.
shkkmo 6y ago
If someone says "if you don't fix this thing I will look for work elsewhere" that doesn't mean that you can say "I accept your resignation." If you want that person gone immediately, you have to fire them.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Why would other employees be knowledgeable in the employment relationship between someone and a company? Unless the employees are in the direct management chain, or HR or something, aren't they just parroting what Timnit is claiming?

alisonkisk 6y ago
Sure, but management is also making a claim without direct evidence.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  There is a difference between not having evidence and not providing evidence. My point wasn't even about the truthiness of the claims of either side, but rather that if party A claims X, and then parties B and C just repeat the claims without being able to add anything - that's not news. That's just a person having allies who believe their claims. If Microsoft chimed in and said Timnit actually resigned, no one would write an article on that (besides for how bizarre of a statement that would be by another company), because no one expects Microsoft to be apprised of what happens between Google and its employees.
zorpner 6y ago
In fact, Timnit Gebru's actual manager has issued a specific statement on this. It's on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3469738016467233&id=100002932057665 https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=34697380164672... Full text: Just wanted to say that I was stunned by what just happened to Timnit Gebru, who was in my team until a few days ago (I'm sure you've all read what happened already). I have always been and will remain a strong supporter of her scientific work to make sure that AI becomes a positive force for the minoritized, as well as her generosity and tireless actions to lift the voices of the silenced ones. She taught me a lot and still is. I stand by you, Timnit. I also stand by the rest of my team who, like me, was stunned and is trying to make sense of all this. In particular the Ethical AI team, but also the broader Brain Research team.
- 6y ago

kd913 6y ago

It disturbs me how much of a news story this is. This should be handled internally and not aired in public across several media sites. Why should I care about the dirty laundry of FAANG and some random individual?

bioinformatics 6y ago
How do you think she will get attention to her cause(s)?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
krooj 6y ago
It reeks of an ulterior motive / agenda, but to what end?
gerash 6y ago
Obviously the individual who was let go loves the fame but I see most news website are pretty much looking for some sensational story to run mainly because doing more thorough analysis doesn't pay for itself. That's the problem.
- prodtorok 6y ago
  I don't think it's as innocent as "loves the fame" ... there is a greater theme in our society regarding the influence of public opinion; and how influencers are abusing that in politics/positions of power. The media of course enables it, which I think is a sign of a growing, large scale, rational fragility across society (demand controls their publication, there is a large demand for this type of information)
  - actuator 6y ago
    FB gets criticized a lot in HN but Twitter isn't. IMO Twitter is absolutely the worst platform for things like these because of the prevalent mob culture. It is very easy to organise people using your influence and they can easily hound out any dissenting opinion. I will have to search for them now but I saw people doxxing some of the current Googler's identities if they agreed with the resignation. This is extremely toxic. Even the old media seems to love Twitter and it escapes FB level of scrutiny.

KittenInABox 6y ago

Can I ask with the upmost politeness what is going on? I genuinely went into this considering that this was someone who is essentially decrying that normal work difficulties are sexism or racism. But I'm now finding that the procedure claimed actually essentially doesn't exist or if it did it was never enforced until now. What is going on? If this was an issue of the researcher unprofessionally airing her frustrations on a listserv with direct reports that's one thing. It's another thing to say being upset at all was an overreaction because the treatment was totally normal and that her frustration was a resignation, when in fact, none of that is true in any good faith interpretation.

brandmeyer 6y ago
The reality is that none of us have any idea what's going on. There's a bunch of employee-said/employer-said going on, with leaks to the press and rants on Twitter, but nobody has the whole picture. Plenty of people are willing to make guesses based on the fragments they have combined with their own biases, though. Searching in HN under "Gebru" (the employee's last name) pulls up a bunch of past threads.
- worker767424 6y ago
  The other bit I'd add is Google will be silent externally for legal reasons, and not to read into that. The internal messaging was likely truthy and omitted things. Timnit Gebru also omitted some important things in her twitter posts.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Google wasn't silent externally however. Jeff Dean wrote an article on the subject on Google's blog.
SullyGoober 6y ago
It depends on who you ask: 1) If you ask me, this is a story about an influential technology company, one whose approach to business has an outsized influence on the entire industry, has unethically fired an employee while making mis-statements to cover it up. 2) Others will say: this is about a ethicist being unfairly treated with different standards because of her gender and race, a microcosm of what it is like to be a minority race and/or female in the tech industry. 3) Still others will say: This is about an employee who disrupted the workplace. She rudely interacted with her colleagues and prominent names outside of the industry (Y. Lecun). She prevented collaboration by making spurious claims of sexism and racism. 4) Another line of thought that is a variant of #1: This is about an employee who did not follow company rules and processes. She was fired as a result. The statements privately and publicly about "resignation" were an attempt to not publicly disparage her Did I miss any others? With a nod to the Rashomon Principle, your interpretation of these events depends on your perspective.

m1117 6y ago

Hard to understand this without the right intel from the management team. A big puzzle piece is missing. Let's see if there're going to be any insiders sharing more info.

sleepytimetea 6y ago

When I worked at Google, there was always this sinister edge to all corporate events and communications and their culture, in general. It was like that Star Trek episode - everything is paradise unless you commit a transgression. Any transgression, even minor, would result in your termination. In the Star Trek episode, it meant death, at Google, luckily, it just meant an involuntary "resignation".

worker767424 6y ago
I'm pretty sure you're also describing Singapore.
zests 6y ago
Is there a large corporation that is not an enormous faceless entity resembling 'Big Brother'? All it takes is one person above you in the corporate ladder to not like you and you're done for. They could dislike you for any number of reasons including trivial aspects of your personality or a one off comment that got interpreted wrongly.
yongjik 6y ago
Well, I mean, it depends on what you mean by "transgression", but when I worked at Google the following are lists of things that were not considered transgression: * Saying a high profile project is botched, mismanaged, and doomed to fail. (Anyone remember google+?) * Mocking and criticizing the SVP who led the project. * Rejoicing in the departure of the said SVP. * Talking about one of the founders having an affair. (Well, to be fair, the news broke outside first.) * Memes disagreeing with company decisions, including one that literally said "What the fuck are you doing" for firing someone. * And, last but not least, complaining that the quality of microkitchen has gone downhill since $(the year you joined).
thu2111 6y ago
No clue what part of Google you worked at but that's the exact opposite of the company I worked at. Non-eng lived in fear of eng employees because the latter were widely seen as unfireable regardless of how bizarre or problematic their behaviour could become.

Jabbles 6y ago

I think "do you have dealbreakers would you be prepared to resign over?" would be a reasonable interview question for a researcher in ethics.

worker767424 6y ago

Saw this on her Twitter feed: > you know these last 2 weeks were supposed to be my vacations and we’re currently on a road trip. Probably best not to send an email threatening to resign, then go on vacation and expect things to be normal.

okareaman 6y ago

There's was an incident a while back where 2 engineers were joking between themselves about a "big dongle" and the woman seated in the row ahead heard it, turn around, took their picture and posted it online. It ruined everyone's life including hers. I thought we learned from this that airing things publicly is fraught with danger. I imagine there is a time and place for it, but very carefully with intention. https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale...

morelisp 6y ago
> It ruined everyone's life including hers. Source? Last I heard the two men were hired elsewhere fairly quickly. Their names are also hardly ever associated with the story.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  And she still has her health and family so it's not like her life was ruined; talk about hyperbole!
  - okareaman 6y ago
    At the time I remember quite clearly that everyone felt wrecked by this incident. I forgot that when you say someone's life is ruined, people translate that to mean ruined permanently. It's not like she got drunk and killed someone with her car.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Yeah, I agree that your characterization of the situation is fair. If I went through what they went through, I think I would find it fairly traumatic.
- worker767424 6y ago
  She's working under another name professionally now, so she's doing okay enough.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

Looking at all this drama, the AI researcher sounds toxic: * Picked a public Twitter fight with Yang LeCun * Her peers are so afraid of critiquing her paper, that they demand anonymity through HR * Tells co-workers to stop working on documents One of the things that has been emphasized in tech for the past several years is not to allow justifying retaining toxic people on account of their talent. In addition, your life experiences don’t justify being toxic. For example, even if a person’s Dad was an abusive alcoholic, that would not justify them being abusive to co-workers.

lsiebert 6y ago
People who point out problems are called toxic, not because they are in anyway injuring others, but because attacking them is easier than addressing their criticism.
svrb 6y ago
> your life experiences don’t justify being toxic But she isn't a victim because of her life experiences; it's because of her skin color and gender identity.

nikolay 6y ago

Employment is at will on both ends of the contract! Live with it and stop whining! If you don't like your employer and believe they dehumanize you, sue them, or leave them for another more humanizing company! Enough of this BS, please! If she put new conditions on her employment and the employer cannot meet them, then she terminated herself. This is no kindergarten!

quantaum_dot 6y ago

Can we stop this already? I visit HN for real tech news.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

This whole question of resigned or fired seems like such a weird one. It's getting so much debate! I think everybody understands that she gave an ultimatum that included a "or else I will resign." I think everybody understands that Google responded with a "you are out as of now" that took her by surprise. And yet there are a bazillion articles debating what verb best describes that pair of events. I get that there is legal relevance, and let the lawyers argue that one. But the rest of this seems to be a court of public opinion thing, in which case it should have no relevance given that everyone is agreed on the facts. Why do we care so much about the one-word linguistics of it? How about you just don't use a single verb alone, and instead spend the literally two sentences it takes to explain that part?

chafporte 6y ago
Did she actually resign ? No. As she didn't resign, was she fired ? Yes. The only issue is Google lying about it.
falcolas 6y ago
'Resigned' indicates an action on her part, and typically considered to be an amicable parting. 'Fired' means an action on Google's part, typically because of a perceived misdeed. By calling it a resignation, Google is making it sound as if it was an amicable choice she made, not their judgement call about her actions. Words matter. Word choices always matter. Especailly single words which come with a lot of built-in context.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  I completely agree words matter. They matter immensely because of what they communicate. That's my point. It seems plainly evident at this point that neither word is aiding communication, because we're arguing about what the words mean, rather than the facts of the situation. A sentence saying she was fired and a sentence saying she resigned both miss too much of the situation to be called clear, honest communication, which matters.
  - 6y ago

ilaksh 6y ago

It seemed like she was totally opposed to the basic concept of Google actually -- uses a huge amount of electricity, uses AI which is based on massive uncurated (biased) datasets, etc. Has a ton of white men working there and basically gives the equivalent of a "are you really a CS genius" bar exam to anyone who applies, so that even some developers with massive open source user-bases can't "qualify". Which makes affirmative action even harder in a field that is already very diversity-challenged. So to me it's amazing that she worked there for more than a week.

ffggvv 6y ago

google is learning the same lesson that the frog learned from the scorpion. get in bed with woke activists and what do you expect?

worker767424 6y ago
Bad PR for a while, maybe 20 employees quit in solidarity, then go you go back to printing money.

wombatpm 6y ago

Google is not a Academia. There is no tenure or intellectual freedom protections. Poke the bear often enough or make a nuisance of yourself you will be shown the door. The only ones who get to stay around and be a thorn in the side of management are board members who control a chunk of voting stock. Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Seems like there should be a corollary for companies and difficult employees. Like public complaints that jump the chain of command from replaceable employees usually result in employee being replaced.

uh_uh 6y ago

Even if she didn't resign (which is questionable, because she did send an ultimatum), is it wrong for Google to fire a person who writes stuff like this? > I’m always amazed at how people can continue to do thing after thing like this and then turn around and ask me for some sort of extra DEI work or input. This happened to me last year. I was in the middle of a potential lawsuit for which Kat Herller and I hired feminist lawyers who threatened to sue Google (which is when they backed off--before that Google lawyers were prepared to throw us under the bus and our leaders were following as instructed) and the next day I get some random “impact award.” Pure gaslighting. This excerpt is from the email that according to her triggered the firing. This person threatened her employer with a lawsuit in the past and now people are outraged that she got "abrubtly fired". Arguably, the way Google treated her was even too lenient: many companies would have fired her at the time her original threat was made.

smartician 6y ago
For some reason there is a subculture within Google where employees act antagonistic towards their employer and go all Pikachu-faced when they're then terminated. Then they speak out and claim they were retaliated against, whereas people who worked for conventional companies would think, "well, what did you expect?" It is part of Google's culture to not blindly agree with leadership on every issue and you're encouraged to voice differing opinions, but I guess some take this too far in the other direction and assume that every kind of negative feedback is appreciated and "protected".

bJGVygG7MQVF8c 6y ago

Lol. Yes, fair headline, she resigned. It's right there in the piece: > “Dr. Gebru did not resign [...] Dr. Gebru has stated this plainly, and others have meticulously documented it,” the Walkout group wrote in Monday’s blog post.[1] Translation: "She didn't resign — she said she didn't resign. She told us so." The logocentrism of the midwit elite. That "meticulous documentation" that was mentioned: > Expressed intent to resign - provided date + immediate termination = legally fired in the state of California.[2] These people are grindingly stupid. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/google-employees-dispute-jeff-dean-claim-timnit-gebru-did-not-resign.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/07/google-employees-dispute-jef... [2]: https://twitter.com/rajiinio/status/1335410735929765891 https://twitter.com/rajiinio/status/1335410735929765891

superlate 6y ago

This illustrates how unethical Google is. Google AI Ethics was just Google's attempt to obtain self-regulation of AI, but now, Jeff Dean completely destroyed their dream. At this point, governmental regulation is inevitable.

thu2111 6y ago

Where is Sundar Pichai in all of this? Why is it up to Jeff Dean to publicly represent the company? Pichai appears to be in hiding, as per usual. It's astounding how weak he is, especially compared to the very strong decision making that typified life under Larry/Sergey/Eric. It's obvious that people like Gebru terrorise their colleagues by claiming anyone who doesn't join their racist jihad against white men are terrible and need to be fired. When Pichai canned Damore he set Google up for a never ending strem of events like this one: he basically told the extremist activist wing of the workforce that they were in charge, not him. Very few tech CEOs in America are more deserving of being replaced than Pichai but given the voting structure of Google stock it's hard to see how that can happen.