27 ms·

Tensions in Google's ethical AI group increase as it sends demands to CEO

169 points by throwawaysea 6y ago

tsjq 6y ago
'do no evil' is not their motto any more. G would gradually make this team 'redundant' or irrelevant .
- visarga 6y ago
  Firing one person does not mean that when they said they have over 200 people working on responsible AI. They probably cost tens of millions per year.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    It could mean that the others are all doing what management wants them to do without wading into contentious but important areas. Simply having a team hired is wonderful propaganda for Google management because people can make exactly this claim without going into specifics.
oh_sigh 6y ago
Weird they don't say how many employees signed this letter. I guess saying ".02% of Googlers send letter" doesn't have quite the impact as an unstated number of employees. Also interesting how they bring up diversity figures when talking about Timnit leaving, but not that these employees are trying to get Megan Kacholia fired or demoted...yes that's right - a Woman in a field composed mostly of Men(to borrow the article's rhetoric). Not only that, but a Woman with Children of Color.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  "In a message sent to Pichai and others that linked to the letter, Alex Hanna, a senior research scientist on the Ethical AI team, said it was sent on behalf of her team. A source familiar with the team said it includes roughly a dozen members."
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    12/200000 = .006%, so I guess I over-estimated how many people signed.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Why would you expect people outside her team to sign? Would you respect their opinions if they did?
      - esyir 6y ago
        Because it would indicate wider support within the company I assume.
    - GVIrish 6y ago
      That's a strange way of looking at things. The other 199988 employees aren't on her team. If they had circulated their letter widely and then only got 12 signees then we could say only 6 thousandths of a percent supported the letter.
  - spicyramen 6y ago
    In my experience teams with little work have time to do this "activism"
    - thenightcrawler 6y ago
      man, this is her own team, this isn't some abstract very removed issue , this people she worked with advocating for her.
      - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
        Yeah but her own team will probably be the most likely to advocate for her. Go to any university in the US right after a prof is denied tenure. His students will inevitably protest this decision the loudest. Also, what were they supposed to do after she sent an email to a huge listserv at the company telling all her subordinates that they should not participate in the company's D&I initiatives and should essentially quit working there? You can't pay people to tell your own employees to stop working for you...
- kevingadd 6y ago
  Firing someone is not automatically bad if they happen to check particular boxes. It's the other way around: Firing someone because they happen to check particular boxes is an issue. If someone is actively bad at their job or is sabotaging others in the workplace, it's quite reasonable to demand their resignation regardless of their sex, age, or family situation, even if it's unpleasant.
OneGuy123 6y ago
Why is "black" being spelled with a capital "B"?
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It emphasises blackness as an identity, i.e. it is a proper noun, the name of an ethnic group, and not just an adjective describing their skin colour. I can't say I agree that society should be fracturing into more identities instead of fewer, or that people should strongly identify with their race, but that's the trend and that's we're at with the terminology.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It's not particularly new; labels used as names of racial identity groups have been capitalized for a long time; “Black” as a proper noun or proper adjective in that context has been capitalized for a long time (used as a common adjective describing skin color it isn't, and the usages can be hard to differentiate otherwise.)
  - TakuYam 6y ago
    Is blackness an identity though? I feels rather racist to diminish substantial cultural differences and experiences just because a group of people may have one common physical characteristic.
    - croissants 6y ago
      I'm far from an expert on this topic, but I believe the reasoning is that (at least in the USA), African-American ancestral links don't necessarily go back far enough to identify an ethnic group because of slavery. In the absence of the ability to say e.g. "I'm from the Yoruba people", the primary group identification just becomes Black. I agree that it seems kind of reductive from the outside, but I'm mostly inclined to let people decide their own names.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Personally, I am shocked at how unrealistic and immature the demands of these activist employees are: > The demands in the letter include the removal of a Google vice president, Megan Kacholia, from the team's management chain; for transparency surrounding Gebru's departure; and for Google's head of AI, Jeff Dean, and Kacholia to apologize for how Gebru was treated. It also calls for the company to offer Gebru a new, higher-level position, to commit publicly to the integrity of research conducted at Google, and to guarantee it won't harm any workers who advocated for Gebru. I sincerely hope Google’s leaders don’t cave in and instead hold firm on their prior decision. Employee activism is highly toxic and distracting, especially when activists organize like a mob to prop up someone as toxic as Timnit Gebru. Anonymous forums like Reddit ML and Blind are full of stories from victims of her aggression/toxicity and yet the alliance of employee activists and tech journalists continue to make her out to be a victim of injustice.
- sbinthree 6y ago
  This is the kind of thing the General Counsel gets out of bed for. Civil war.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
This is bound to be a sticky wicket with no easy answers, given the detail that this group is tasked with studying how to do "ethics" better and the charge is the company can't meet the stated standard of ethics for how it treats its own people internally and this is what led to the departure of the employee in question whose identity makes it hard to claim the charge is wrong. I don't know if the charge is correct or not. I'm guessing it is, but I'm really just saying appearances look pretty damning here and there isn't likely to be a convenient means to successfully white-wash the story.
- tomcam 6y ago
  > white-wash the story So to speak
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
tomcam 6y ago
I have contempt for a lot of the things that Google does, but I have a sincere question about all of this. Why should they employ anyone who criticizes them that way in public? I would say the same about Peter Norvig or Guido van Rossum. If you ran the company, or the department, or owned your own firm where employees aired your dirty laundry like this, why should you be expected to keep them on?
- thenightcrawler 6y ago
  Was it public before she got fired?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It was, yes. Public statements she made before getting fired include: > A Black woman can't survive around here doing any type of research let alone research thats designed to make those in the majority uncomfortable. And guess who can apparently unilaterally order you to do things without even thinking you're someone they should converse with. (https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824) > [The VPs in her org] are very useful for gaslighting and marginalizing Black women to eternity. They're very useful for blocking any upstream work that needs to be done to change the status quo. (https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331772727615602690 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331772727615602690)
    - ergocoder 6y ago
      While we are at it, she also called out Jeff Dean 6 months ago to have Jeff Dean say "personal attacks are not okay". https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360 https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360 The whole interaction is so cringey and screams toxicity.
      - 6y ago
shoo 6y ago
One thing I've wondered: what is the purpose of Google's ethical AI group? What utility does it provide to the corporation? I suspect the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ (or less kindly, corporate propaganda) - to help mitigate damage to Google's brands and reputation by public concern surrounding artificial intelligence. It is well understood that it can be difficult to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends upon them not understanding it. Conversely, it may be difficult to remain employed and continue drawing that paycheck if you publish research that does not portray your employer in a good light, especially if the underlying reason for your role is public relations. Here's a fun experiment: open up Alphabet's annual report from last year [goog10-k2019], search for the keyword "ethic", and there are two hits, both under item 1A, risk factors. The latter keyword match for "ethic" in the 10-K is regarding supply chain risks, and the potential for unethical behaviour by alphabet's suppliers. But the former keyword match is far more interesting: > Our ongoing investment in new businesses, products, services, and technologies is inherently risky, and could disrupt our current operations and harm our financial condition and operating results. [...] > In addition, new and evolving products and services, including those that use artificial intelligence and machine learning, raise ethical, technological, legal, regulatory, and other challenges, which may negatively affect our brands and demand for our products and services. Because all of these new ventures are inherently risky, no assurance can be given that such strategies and offerings will be successful and will not harm our reputation, financial condition, and operating results. [goog10-k2019] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420000008/goog10-k2019.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420...
- fatbird 6y ago
  the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ Exactly. The secondary motivation is the possibility of benefiting from some basic research. It's ultimately a credibility play, which makes their handling of the whole affair so mind-bogglingly dumb. There would have been no problem at all for Gebru to have presented her supposedly anti-Google paper; zero practical consequence for Google.
  - loopz 6y ago
watisgoingon 6y ago
> Black woman in a field that's largely White and male. so irritating that it has to be twisted into being about racism. is it really? wouldn't we know that more explicitly? besides what if she identifies as a White man? has anyone asked?
ur-whale 6y ago
When you purposefully hire a whole group activists, be not surprised when they actually do activism.
- tdfx 6y ago
  Yeah, it's hard to have sympathy for Google on this one. It's literally corporate virtue signaling that's blowing up in their faces.
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    > corporate virtue signaling Or, its more common name, PR
- helen___keller 6y ago
  This, basically. Ethics is, at times, incompatible with capitalism, so conflicts like these are essentially inevitable. Would anybody expect it to end well if Google hired Richard Stallman to the Free Software Ethics team? Of course not, he would be appalled by the decisions Google has made in the name of earning money, and every single publication coming from him would be a PR nightmare. In all honesty, the most reasonable way to do corporate ethics is to give funding to external nonprofit organizations whose mission is the actual ethics, and then separately turn that organization's work into actionable KPIs for your engineers - if ethics org says "we need racial parity in facial detection", then you make that a KPI for your team of non-ethicist engineers and hopefully your organization becomes more ethical in the process without an endless deluge of PR nightmares.
mooneater 6y ago
> accepted her resignation immediately In saying "resignation", CNN is presenting the management framing -- as many people have pointed out, she was fired. Bloomberg states both sides of that: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-ai-researchers-lay-out-demands-escalating-internal-fight https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-ai... As does The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158501/timnit-gebru-team-google-public-statement-fired https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158501/timnit-gebru-tea...
- ergocoder 6y ago
  I have no idea why this matters. Timnit gave an ultimatum (i.e. do this or I'll leave). Google agreed to her condition of parting way. This is like I go to my boss and ask for a $1 billion dollars. Otherwise, I'll leave. Then, my boss decides that I should leave since the boss can't give me $1b. Then, I keep telling my friends that "well, I'm actually fired.". huh?
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    I understand it as the issue is whether this was constructive dismissal, a form of firing where the employee is forced to resign. Not sure if constructive dismissal is a thing in the US but it is in the UK.
    - themaninthedark 6y ago
      She did not have to say she was going to resign if her conditions were not met, she choose to do that. The company chose not to meet her conditions.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    She gave a set of conditions and stated that if they couldn't be met, that she would work with Google to schedule a resignation date. Google then cut off her corporate access and terminated her employment immediately, ergo, firing. If someone says, do this or I'll jump, and the other person pushes them, that's not the same thing as the person taking the leap on their own. The result might be the same, but the way the result was reached was different.
jmeister 6y ago
They should hire Pedro Domingos to clean house and rebuild the group. This talk by him on AI ethics has a lot of maturity and insight on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRL4xtmXE4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRL4xtmXE4
- croissants 6y ago
  Please no, Pedro Domingos has spent the past week picking fights on ML Twitter, at this point a random grad student probably scores higher on "maturity".
- nabla9 6y ago
  Pedro Domingos has the same childish mentality as the worst people he attacks. Petro is "Twitter trash".
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - nabla9 6y ago
      Perhaps I should clarify that "Twitter trash" refers to persona he is in Twitter. People are usually much better outside Twitter.
ReDeiPirati 6y ago
> The demands in the letter include the removal of a Google vice president, Megan Kacholia, from the team's management chain; for transparency surrounding Gebru's departure; and for Google's head of AI, Jeff Dean, and Kacholia to apologize for how Gebru was treated. I would like to know which role played Kacholia in this. Just a scapegoat for management or was she directly involved?
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Kacholia sent the email informing Gebru she is no longer employed, effective immediately.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    And the retraction demand came from Jeff Dean and Kacholia.
justforfunhere 6y ago
What kind of day to day work someone in an Ethical AI group would do?
- throway1gjj 6y ago
  >What kind of day to day work someone in an Ethical AI group would do? Write papers on why capitalism is evil and socialism is the answer
- traveler01 6y ago
  Apparently they do nothing like you'd expect from something called "Ethical AI group". It's just a PR stunt gone wrong...
- notsureaboutpg 6y ago
  They write papers to propose the idea of "AI Cards" which are descriptions of AI models, the situations they are useful in, and some stats about their performance when used on subjects who are from minority groups and/or women. A real paper she was listed as an author on.
- bo1024 6y ago
  Most of them are full time researchers publishing papers. For example someone might do a study on facial recognition accuracy on different ethnic groups and how that impacts user experience or other disparate impact of automated systems.
PunchTornado 6y ago
I'm glad she was fired.
pontus 6y ago
My god, people need to calm down. I understand that some may be upset about things their employer does and that's well within their rights. If their employer is knowingly engaging in illegal activity then by all means, be a whistle blower and set ultimatums, but this has gone too far. If you have a problem with the motivations of your employer or how it handles various sensitive issues then start preparing for interviews and leave the company! I find it sort of humorous how there are companies out there that are actually doing some pretty bad stuff that somehow don't have these problems. For example, I don't hear a lot about the walkouts at Exxon or at Raytheon. For fun reading, here are the companies that the Norwegian wealth fund refuses to invest in because of ethical concerns (they recently removed Raytheon from this list when they exited the business of cluster bombs): https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/exclusion-of-companies/ https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/exclu...
- guerrilla 6y ago
  > this has gone too far Hardly. It's all part of the negotations. Leaving is just the resort. There's no reason not to protest before it gets to that point.
- adamsea 6y ago
  > but this has gone too far. Honest question - which part has gone too far? Feel like there are currently a lot of parts.
- js8 6y ago
  > I understand that some may be upset about things their employer does and that's well within their rights. It is within their rights, true. But it's not just a question of law, but also ethics. We accept that, in democratic societies, we can freely criticize our government and still stay the citizens. There are good principal and practical reasons to have it so. However, in private companies, for some reason, we don't accept it.
  - jjcon 6y ago
    I think the primary reason for this is because people (generally speaking) in democratic societies share control of their government (for the people by the people etc). This is not true of company->employee relationships. It is assumed that if you join a company you share their values and if you no longer share their values the barrier to leave and join another is quite low. People have different values and that is fine. Unless your employer is engaging in illegal behaviors, speaking out against their value set is just showing intolerance for other people and their values. Move on, join up and use your time to help lift values you hold, don’t just spend all your time tearing down others. Respect the fact that others can have values different than your own.
motohagiography 6y ago
This issue reminds me a lot of what we do in security and privacy, which are ostensibly engineering disciplines, but are really technology governance functions. Ethical AI is also a governance function, and like hackers in security, there is an invisible yet stark limit to the value activists can provide in actual governance roles. Litigating demands is just not how governance gets done. The irony of Google hiring so many smart people is that they get a cluster people who were institutionalized by academia, and now they have a CEO who has to act like an institutional dean. Hackers hold your products to their standards, and ideally that adds value to your customers. Ethical AI people seem to do the same. The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good. That the company is dealing with factions of what are essentially student activists issuing demands seems like an inflection point where any further growth is going to be a function of market domination and not their ability to align to make things.
- throwaway201606 6y ago
  I wish I had more upvotes to give for this comment. It gave me multiple upsights about how to clean up my approach thinking about the issues here: + framing an analogy using technology governance functions - whose functions and values can be clearly quantified and measured by many independently - with a ethical (moral) functions - whose values and results are much more nebulous + drawing a parallel between hackers - whom many technologists 'understand'- and value activists - whom many technologists don't 'understand + pointing out the now-self-evident axioms that i) activists, like hackers, hold you to 'their' standard, not yours and ii) will fight you 'their' way when you fail to meet those standards + the point about academia and corporate leaders needing to act as deans and dealing with navigating conflict resolution in a new 'tribe' they don't understand. Not forgetting they currently deal with multiple other tribes - investors, media, government etc. I would like to add a couple of small points: + Personal risk to executives is the change in the mix with highest impact. This becomes more important as this risk is transferred up the corporate ladder. So, leaders examining issues, from this 'new' perspective, in a balanced nuanced way while still considering profits, politics, strategy, foresight, ability to manage change ( et al, ad nauseam ) increasingly becomes a key career soft skill. Especially if decisions are delivered in communication styles that are still clearly understood by all relevant other tribes they deal with in situations like this. +. I would like to suggest that some folks are missing PART of the point (not all of it, just an important small nuance) No single party gets to frame this debate. Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Just consider that every side of the debate has their perspective and the other side is "crazy" from this viewpoint. E.g a key tool for academics with leadership is demanding the removal of leaders with a "or we go " chaser - this is normal in that world and it would be crazy not to use the tool as part of a "normal" negotiation. But it is not normal in the corporate world. Point being everyone's normal is some version of some other person's crazy. Well, these folks are from another 'tribe". The way things are done in their world is different'. Corp is the one behaving in a way that "does not make sense" from their perspective. Just considering that the view from someone else's vantage point could be different would go a long way here.
throway1gjj 6y ago
Shame they didn't keep her around. Google deserves to reap the ideology it sows.
bra-ket 6y ago
Drama queens, literally
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Wow, Google's ethical AI group sounds like the most toxic group of individuals I've ever heard of. I'm going to sidestep the debate about whether Gebru was "fired" or she "resigned", because that debate primarily centers on how one defines the words. But clearly she did do this: She sent a letter that made a bunch of (IMO) outrageous demands, outrageous because it essentially attacked other people at the company, and said that if her demands were not met, that she would leave. In this case, the ethical AI group is doing the same thing: demanding a manager not have a role with them, demanding (again IMO) unwarranted apologies from other people, and worse, demanding the rehiring of someone has shown that she has no respect for others in her workplace. A bunch of overpaid toxic babies from my opinion. I don't care who you are, going around demanding "my way or the highway" in a large company just makes you an asshole. If they don't like what happened they should simply resign with integrity and move on.
- woah 6y ago
  Google tried to prevent her from publishing a paper, which is outside of their normal practice, then dissembled about what happened (pretending internal reviewers are anonymous, for example)
  - holidayacct 6y ago
    What was the topic of the paper?
  - uh_uh 6y ago
    Didn't they push back on the publication because the paper was lacking in certain regards? IIRC it failed to take into account relevant recent papers, for example. Which probably could have been fixed if they didn't submit as late as they did.
    - GVIrish 6y ago
      The paper was submitted on time, other papers at Google were submitted for review after they were released. By Jeff Dean's own admission the paper was approved for release. The demand for retraction was initially given while refusing to state what the reason(s) for the demand were. Only after the meeting where they demanded she retract the paper did they belatedly agree to read her the feedback that they stated as the reason. They wouldn't even let her read it first hand. Ultimately it seems like Google could have plainly stated their issues with the paper from the start, and that said issues were not so serious that they merited a demand for retraction. There are a number of things that just don't add up. Even if you take it at face value that Gebru's ultimatum demands were unreasonable, there are several problems with how the situation got to that point in the first place.
jasonhong 6y ago
I find it interesting how, in the other current thread about an antitrust suit against Google (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718) that people there are criticizing Google's lack of ethics, and in this thread people are criticizing a team in Google whose goal is to try to get Google to act more ethically.
- Miraste 6y ago
  A flawed comparison; the ethical issues discussed in that thread and the things the AI group is complaining about are non-overlapping.
- Majestic121 6y ago
  Ethics is a large subject, people can be interested in certain branches and not others. I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices'
  - shadowfox 6y ago
    > I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices' That is interesting. I wonder if it indicates something about the demographics of HN.
    - sidlls 6y ago
      Yep, we’re all rich racist WASPs, you got us. More seriously, it probably does indicate something about the political sentiment of users of HN who comment, which may indirectly indicate something about demographics. A direct link is tenuous.
      - shadowfox 6y ago
        > Yep, we’re all rich racist WASPs. Hmm. That was a strange, but interesting jump indeed. > A direct link is tenuous That could be.
frongpik 6y ago
A big reorg is coming to that ethics group.
- optimalsolver 6y ago
  And the new group will happily sign off on any future Google actions as completely ethical.
  - frongpik 6y ago
    Perhaps the new group won't confuse ethics with activism.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  I think the problem with this group is they don't understand what their function is, and Google can't really explain it to them. Their job is to navigate, any way they can, a path that can be perceived as ethical for Google to exploit AI to further shareholder value without having to also deal with extreme pushback from media, watchdog groups, etc. These people probably think Human Resources exists to help them.
  - thisiszilff 6y ago
    I think the best case scenario for AI ethics is that those researchers work to develop processing & metrics to ensure AI systems are fair. The current model seems overwhelmingly adversarial where AI researches do X and then the ethics researches come in an indicate problems P, Q, R. I'm curious how much internal communication there is between the ethics department and the AI departments. Instead of doing research on how the datasets are biased or something of that sort, it seems more fruitful to help researches develop balanced and fair datasets. AI is going to develop yes or yes. The best case scenario is that AI ethics is a first class concern for those researchers and is factored into their development rather than being a case of "look at this gross, unethical behavior in this model!"
anonygler 6y ago
This is why you don't feed the activist beast, which Google had been doing for years. They're utterly detached from reality and make progressively more insane demands and use wilder and wilder language. "Data violence" is their new slogan. If an algorithm isn't utterly flawless out the gate, that's a "literal act of violence" against [insert group here]. I'm not even making up the "literal" part.
greatwhitenorth 6y ago
This is what you get for "diversity". Enjoy SV companies. You all deserve this and much more.
AntiImperialist 6y ago
Some more information for those who are new to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... In all the linked threads, sort comments by "controversial" for obvious reasons.
zaroth 6y ago
I wonder what is the primary intended role of Google's "Ethical AI" efforts in the first place. You could hire a bunch of leading AI researchers and task them to do R&D to identify the pitfalls of latest-gen AI with a focus on prospective dangers, biases, unintended side-effects. You could ask them to create new methods to quantify the degree / severity of these effects. You could ask them to invent new methodologies to specifically protect against these effects. Separate from all of this, they may or may not be tasked with a governance function to review or score internal models according to their metrics and produce impact reports. Perhaps they work side-by-side with AI developers to ensure their newly developed techniques are applied throughout the processing pipeline, etc. The (non-expert) impression I get from ethical AI research is that it hasn't moved much past the obviousness phase. The revelation that the source material for your training set determines the behavior of your model. That models are not neutral or granted some higher perspective just because they're some sort of magic algorithm because ultimately they are statistical engines driven by their datasets. That models can be misused and misapplied if the end-user treats them so. And that models cost a lot of resources to train, which like anything can be translated into tons of CO2 emissions. A more nuanced analysis would look at the cost/benefit of what the model achieves versus the energy cost or potential bias that would be present in any alternative method. For example, it's a strict win/win situation if GPT-3 takes 10 million tons of CO2 to train, but displaces work that otherwise would have taken 11 million tons of CO2. All models will have bias -- "bias engine" is actually a good way to describe the fundamental nature and purpose of the algorithm! But at least models can have strictly measureable and totally consistent levels of bias that perhaps can even be controlled for as desired, unlike manual human labor which will demonstrate wildly variable and much harder to control levels of bias. See, for example, the controversial use of AI models to set bail. [1] As I side note, I hate the opening paragraph of TFA; > Tension between Google's Ethical AI group and executives at the company rose on Wednesday, as employees sent a list of demands regarding the recent departure of one of the team's leaders — a prominent Black woman in a field that's largely White and male. That level of race baiting in an Op Ed would deem it unpublishable. The effect (if not the intent) of that opening is to essentially shut off the reader's critical thinking skills before they even get going. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/upshot/algorithms-bail-criminal-justice-system.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/upshot/algorithms-bail-cr... [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-supposed-fix-bail-system-they-havent/ https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-supposed-fix-bail-sys...
optimalsolver 6y ago
Funny how commenters here complain about Google's ethics on a daily basis, but as soon as people who don't look like the typical tech geek raise issues with the company, everyone jumps on Google's train.
- dicomdan 6y ago
  It’a not about how they look, it’s about the disrespect they show towards fellow employees that makes working environment toxic for everyone else.
iron0013 6y ago
This entire thread is just “are my opinions unethical? No, no it must be the entire team of professional ethicists who are wrong.” Only without the even momentary modicum of self-reflection that implies.
mellosouls 6y ago
Perhaps it's inevitable that there is crossover between those passionate about ethics and those who are activists, but there is clearly then a danger that there will - ironically - be a bias in recruitment in ethics teams towards activists. If they themselves are then recruiting others "that fit in" there is an even greater risk that activists of a particular stripe will be overrepresented on teams like this, which imbalance (especially with regard to corporate culture) will inevitably lead to these sorts of clashes and overreaches. After this has blown over, Google will do well to look deeply at the potential biases within recruitment in this particular area to ensure diversity of opinion is reflected; and further, that these teams are not siloed (as teams often are) to counter the echo chamber effect that appears possibly to have jumped straight from social media into the working environment here.
igorkraw 6y ago
I find it sad that a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID. Ironically, the self identified "anti-SJW" are cancelling her by complaining about her "toxicity" and "attempts to cancel people" in vague terms. I also find it sad that apparently, freedom of speech and free actions end when it comes to criticizing your employer in public, showing worker solidarity in public and asking for others to show their criticism in words and actions.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  We grow up with the ideal of democracy and treat it as the single most important value we have to protect. Yet we spend the best (awake) third of our life in authocratic environments, where decisions that can deeply affect our lives are taken without our consent. Where speaking up for ourselves or our peers' good gets us fired. I also find it incredibly sad.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    The division is metaphysical / epistemological / narrative / tribal / ideological / religious etc. Way deeper than who is right in this Gebru vs Google debacle or the specifics of this one paper. These debates go nowhere because both sides see the other as toxic and a threat and don't agree on basic terms, the basic view of who is in power, who needs to fear for their jobs for dissent etc. "but here Gebru was fired, so POC and activists have to fear" "but Damore was also fired for dissent" "but he was sexist and created a toxic work environment" "but Gebru uses the race card for minor reasons if she doesn't get it her way" "now you are just racist and consider her an angry black woman" "I don't care about race just individuals" "comfortable from your place of privilege to keep the status quo, isn't it?" "I just want to do my job in peace without drama" "silence is violence when the system is structurally racist!" etc etc.
    - pietrovismara 6y ago
      This is true, but perspective is very important. For me realizing that I'm not actually living in a democracy was what gave me an entirely new perspective on how the world works. It took me almost 30 years to realize this, so I know it's not really obvious given how we've been taught to think. That's why I try to spread this message when it fits with the topic. And I feel so many problems have this issue at their core, including this one.
twcz 6y ago
I can't say I feel for Google, they've had it coming. A completely self-inflicted wound. What worries me is the woke culture creeping over from Google to other companies, and from US to other countries. Demanding vice-presidents be fired, taking over companies like a virus. But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? What will sustain it long-term?
- pron 6y ago
  > But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? Comparing a company to a host and the employees that create its wealth to a virus is illogical even for the most ardent capitalist. Isn't the capitalist idea that everyone, be it the employer or the worker, do their utmost to maximise their market value and use it to the best of their ability to their own advantage? Even the ancien régime realised that they need the people to actually make their food and that the people aren't some sort of parasite on the aristocracy. I don't even know what to call your view.
  - Majestic121 6y ago
    Note that the parent don't compare ALL of the employees to virus, only the one propagating 'woke culture' If you follow the metaphore, the employees are cells of the host, and those cells can be infected by the woke culture virus and start acting against the host while propagating the virus to other cells within the host. You can very certainly disagree with the 'woke culture is a virus' part, but except from that the metaphor stands imho
  - g42gregory 6y ago
    The way I understand his point is that he is comparing the woke culture to the virus, not the workers themselves. I am guessing that there are plenty of Google’s employees who are not a part of the woke movement. He would not be addressing them in his point, I think.
    - pron 6y ago
      I would expect a company as large as Google to have many employees with varied opinions, and given that leftist and social justice leanings are prevalent among the well-educated, I would expect such views to be overrepresented at Google and so that the contribution to Google's wealth comes in large part from people that commenter sees as a virus. In fact, since Google hired the manager in question, they must have done so believing that her perspective will enrich the company; i.e. they sought to exploit it in some profitable way. That, too, doesn't sound to me at all like a virus.
anm89 6y ago
Is there any realistic chance google just disbands the entire team?
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  That will have a ripple effect in other parts of the org with similar political opinion, ultimately destroying the reputation of Google in the eyes of the general population of the same political leanings. My prediction is they will put new processes in place, perhaps put the team organizationally in a different place from under Kacholia, apologize louder and clearer, but probably not take Gebru back. It's quite unpredictable though! The disagreement is too big, there will need to be some more explicit closure to the issue than what we have already seen.
2spicy_thrwaway 6y ago
If this new list of demands includes an “or else we’ll work in a last date” this thing is going to explode so much worse.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dang 6y ago
"Disingenuous" implies that someone is being deceptive, which breaks the HN guideline against assuming good faith: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The rest of your comment would be just fine without that bit.
- Miraste 6y ago
  Fair enough. I can't edit it now, but s/disingenuous/flawed
  - dang 6y ago
    I'll edit it for you and detach this subthread. Thanks! I have this crazy idea to build a pull requests system for HN comments. People could suggest edits that way without cluttering the threads. It's either a terrible idea or a great one.
    - Miraste 6y ago
      For users to PR their own comments, or for anyone to PR any comments? The former sounds overcomplicated, but the latter... I don't know how that would turn out, but it would be fascinating to watch.
      - dang 6y ago
        I mean the latter. Yes, exactly.
quantaum_dot 6y ago
These so-called ethical AI researchers are not really doing much science, not even truly researchers. They are more like politicians, and are playing the game of politics.
- AppleCandy 6y ago
  Better people-skills and emotional intelligence would work wonders here, compared to immediately reaching for the hatchet and communicating through demands and ultimatums. Reflects very poorly on them for their inability, in this case, to start a civil conversation which can be ramped up in so many appropriate ways.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    Read the "Toxoplasma of rage" by Scott Alexander or watch the "This video will make you angry" by CGP Grey. No immediately reaching for maximum impactful tools will leave you behind and those who are not so "shy" to use strong words will advance and get more exposure. It's a memetic race. You get more attention for more outrage. Rewards and incentives shape what we see.
    - winston_smith 6y ago
      Unless we decide to consciously work against that tendency, which it's nice to see people doing in this thread.
      - bonoboTP 6y ago
        HN is a special place with extreme focus on avoiding that fate, extreme alertness in moderation day to day, explicit anti-engagement features like cool off periods, no pictures and emojis etc. People who can stand staying on a mostly colorless pictureless site with no memes, are also self selecting to be a tad more thoughtful than social media people.
- higerordermap 6y ago
  Everytime someone calls out non-technical folk pretending to be doing something while they are only virtue signalling. America will learn hard way that diversity hiring of sociology idiots won't work.

169 points by throwawaysea 6y ago

tsjq 6y ago

'do no evil' is not their motto any more. G would gradually make this team 'redundant' or irrelevant .

visarga 6y ago
Firing one person does not mean that when they said they have over 200 people working on responsible AI. They probably cost tens of millions per year.
- tehjoker 6y ago
  It could mean that the others are all doing what management wants them to do without wading into contentious but important areas. Simply having a team hired is wonderful propaganda for Google management because people can make exactly this claim without going into specifics.

oh_sigh 6y ago

Weird they don't say how many employees signed this letter. I guess saying ".02% of Googlers send letter" doesn't have quite the impact as an unstated number of employees. Also interesting how they bring up diversity figures when talking about Timnit leaving, but not that these employees are trying to get Megan Kacholia fired or demoted...yes that's right - a Woman in a field composed mostly of Men(to borrow the article's rhetoric). Not only that, but a Woman with Children of Color.

pseudalopex 6y ago
"In a message sent to Pichai and others that linked to the letter, Alex Hanna, a senior research scientist on the Ethical AI team, said it was sent on behalf of her team. A source familiar with the team said it includes roughly a dozen members."
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  12/200000 = .006%, so I guess I over-estimated how many people signed.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Why would you expect people outside her team to sign? Would you respect their opinions if they did?
    - esyir 6y ago
      Because it would indicate wider support within the company I assume.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    That's a strange way of looking at things. The other 199988 employees aren't on her team. If they had circulated their letter widely and then only got 12 signees then we could say only 6 thousandths of a percent supported the letter.
- spicyramen 6y ago
  In my experience teams with little work have time to do this "activism"
  - thenightcrawler 6y ago
    man, this is her own team, this isn't some abstract very removed issue , this people she worked with advocating for her.
    - notsureaboutpg 6y ago
      Yeah but her own team will probably be the most likely to advocate for her. Go to any university in the US right after a prof is denied tenure. His students will inevitably protest this decision the loudest. Also, what were they supposed to do after she sent an email to a huge listserv at the company telling all her subordinates that they should not participate in the company's D&I initiatives and should essentially quit working there? You can't pay people to tell your own employees to stop working for you...
kevingadd 6y ago
Firing someone is not automatically bad if they happen to check particular boxes. It's the other way around: Firing someone because they happen to check particular boxes is an issue. If someone is actively bad at their job or is sabotaging others in the workplace, it's quite reasonable to demand their resignation regardless of their sex, age, or family situation, even if it's unpleasant.

OneGuy123 6y ago

Why is "black" being spelled with a capital "B"?

doubleunplussed 6y ago
This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It emphasises blackness as an identity, i.e. it is a proper noun, the name of an ethnic group, and not just an adjective describing their skin colour. I can't say I agree that society should be fracturing into more identities instead of fewer, or that people should strongly identify with their race, but that's the trend and that's we're at with the terminology.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > This is now in the official style guides of several major media outlets. It's not particularly new; labels used as names of racial identity groups have been capitalized for a long time; “Black” as a proper noun or proper adjective in that context has been capitalized for a long time (used as a common adjective describing skin color it isn't, and the usages can be hard to differentiate otherwise.)
- TakuYam 6y ago
  Is blackness an identity though? I feels rather racist to diminish substantial cultural differences and experiences just because a group of people may have one common physical characteristic.
  - croissants 6y ago
    I'm far from an expert on this topic, but I believe the reasoning is that (at least in the USA), African-American ancestral links don't necessarily go back far enough to identify an ethnic group because of slavery. In the absence of the ability to say e.g. "I'm from the Yoruba people", the primary group identification just becomes Black. I agree that it seems kind of reductive from the outside, but I'm mostly inclined to let people decide their own names.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Personally, I am shocked at how unrealistic and immature the demands of these activist employees are: > The demands in the letter include the removal of a Google vice president, Megan Kacholia, from the team's management chain; for transparency surrounding Gebru's departure; and for Google's head of AI, Jeff Dean, and Kacholia to apologize for how Gebru was treated. It also calls for the company to offer Gebru a new, higher-level position, to commit publicly to the integrity of research conducted at Google, and to guarantee it won't harm any workers who advocated for Gebru. I sincerely hope Google’s leaders don’t cave in and instead hold firm on their prior decision. Employee activism is highly toxic and distracting, especially when activists organize like a mob to prop up someone as toxic as Timnit Gebru. Anonymous forums like Reddit ML and Blind are full of stories from victims of her aggression/toxicity and yet the alliance of employee activists and tech journalists continue to make her out to be a victim of injustice.

sbinthree 6y ago
This is the kind of thing the General Counsel gets out of bed for. Civil war.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

This is bound to be a sticky wicket with no easy answers, given the detail that this group is tasked with studying how to do "ethics" better and the charge is the company can't meet the stated standard of ethics for how it treats its own people internally and this is what led to the departure of the employee in question whose identity makes it hard to claim the charge is wrong. I don't know if the charge is correct or not. I'm guessing it is, but I'm really just saying appearances look pretty damning here and there isn't likely to be a convenient means to successfully white-wash the story.

tomcam 6y ago
> white-wash the story So to speak
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

tomcam 6y ago

I have contempt for a lot of the things that Google does, but I have a sincere question about all of this. Why should they employ anyone who criticizes them that way in public? I would say the same about Peter Norvig or Guido van Rossum. If you ran the company, or the department, or owned your own firm where employees aired your dirty laundry like this, why should you be expected to keep them on?

thenightcrawler 6y ago
Was it public before she got fired?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It was, yes. Public statements she made before getting fired include: > A Black woman can't survive around here doing any type of research let alone research thats designed to make those in the majority uncomfortable. And guess who can apparently unilaterally order you to do things without even thinking you're someone they should converse with. (https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331757629996109824) > [The VPs in her org] are very useful for gaslighting and marginalizing Black women to eternity. They're very useful for blocking any upstream work that needs to be done to change the status quo. (https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331772727615602690 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1331772727615602690)
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    While we are at it, she also called out Jeff Dean 6 months ago to have Jeff Dean say "personal attacks are not okay". https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360 https://twitter.com/JeffDean/status/1278571537776271360 The whole interaction is so cringey and screams toxicity.
    - 6y ago

shoo 6y ago

One thing I've wondered: what is the purpose of Google's ethical AI group? What utility does it provide to the corporation? I suspect the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ (or less kindly, corporate propaganda) - to help mitigate damage to Google's brands and reputation by public concern surrounding artificial intelligence. It is well understood that it can be difficult to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends upon them not understanding it. Conversely, it may be difficult to remain employed and continue drawing that paycheck if you publish research that does not portray your employer in a good light, especially if the underlying reason for your role is public relations. Here's a fun experiment: open up Alphabet's annual report from last year [goog10-k2019], search for the keyword "ethic", and there are two hits, both under item 1A, risk factors. The latter keyword match for "ethic" in the 10-K is regarding supply chain risks, and the potential for unethical behaviour by alphabet's suppliers. But the former keyword match is far more interesting: > Our ongoing investment in new businesses, products, services, and technologies is inherently risky, and could disrupt our current operations and harm our financial condition and operating results. [...] > In addition, new and evolving products and services, including those that use artificial intelligence and machine learning, raise ethical, technological, legal, regulatory, and other challenges, which may negatively affect our brands and demand for our products and services. Because all of these new ventures are inherently risky, no assurance can be given that such strategies and offerings will be successful and will not harm our reputation, financial condition, and operating results. [goog10-k2019] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420000008/goog10-k2019.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204420...

fatbird 6y ago
the primary motivation for funding ethical AI work is _public relations_ Exactly. The secondary motivation is the possibility of benefiting from some basic research. It's ultimately a credibility play, which makes their handling of the whole affair so mind-bogglingly dumb. There would have been no problem at all for Gebru to have presented her supposedly anti-Google paper; zero practical consequence for Google.
- loopz 6y ago

watisgoingon 6y ago

> Black woman in a field that's largely White and male. so irritating that it has to be twisted into being about racism. is it really? wouldn't we know that more explicitly? besides what if she identifies as a White man? has anyone asked?

ur-whale 6y ago

When you purposefully hire a whole group activists, be not surprised when they actually do activism.

tdfx 6y ago
Yeah, it's hard to have sympathy for Google on this one. It's literally corporate virtue signaling that's blowing up in their faces.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  > corporate virtue signaling Or, its more common name, PR
helen___keller 6y ago
This, basically. Ethics is, at times, incompatible with capitalism, so conflicts like these are essentially inevitable. Would anybody expect it to end well if Google hired Richard Stallman to the Free Software Ethics team? Of course not, he would be appalled by the decisions Google has made in the name of earning money, and every single publication coming from him would be a PR nightmare. In all honesty, the most reasonable way to do corporate ethics is to give funding to external nonprofit organizations whose mission is the actual ethics, and then separately turn that organization's work into actionable KPIs for your engineers - if ethics org says "we need racial parity in facial detection", then you make that a KPI for your team of non-ethicist engineers and hopefully your organization becomes more ethical in the process without an endless deluge of PR nightmares.

mooneater 6y ago

> accepted her resignation immediately In saying "resignation", CNN is presenting the management framing -- as many people have pointed out, she was fired. Bloomberg states both sides of that: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-ai-researchers-lay-out-demands-escalating-internal-fight https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-16/google-ai... As does The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158501/timnit-gebru-team-google-public-statement-fired https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/7/22158501/timnit-gebru-tea...

ergocoder 6y ago
I have no idea why this matters. Timnit gave an ultimatum (i.e. do this or I'll leave). Google agreed to her condition of parting way. This is like I go to my boss and ask for a $1 billion dollars. Otherwise, I'll leave. Then, my boss decides that I should leave since the boss can't give me $1b. Then, I keep telling my friends that "well, I'm actually fired.". huh?
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  I understand it as the issue is whether this was constructive dismissal, a form of firing where the employee is forced to resign. Not sure if constructive dismissal is a thing in the US but it is in the UK.
  - themaninthedark 6y ago
    She did not have to say she was going to resign if her conditions were not met, she choose to do that. The company chose not to meet her conditions.
- GVIrish 6y ago
  She gave a set of conditions and stated that if they couldn't be met, that she would work with Google to schedule a resignation date. Google then cut off her corporate access and terminated her employment immediately, ergo, firing. If someone says, do this or I'll jump, and the other person pushes them, that's not the same thing as the person taking the leap on their own. The result might be the same, but the way the result was reached was different.

jmeister 6y ago

They should hire Pedro Domingos to clean house and rebuild the group. This talk by him on AI ethics has a lot of maturity and insight on the topic: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRL4xtmXE4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yIRL4xtmXE4

croissants 6y ago
Please no, Pedro Domingos has spent the past week picking fights on ML Twitter, at this point a random grad student probably scores higher on "maturity".
nabla9 6y ago
Pedro Domingos has the same childish mentality as the worst people he attacks. Petro is "Twitter trash".
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack and name-calling on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - nabla9 6y ago
    Perhaps I should clarify that "Twitter trash" refers to persona he is in Twitter. People are usually much better outside Twitter.

ReDeiPirati 6y ago

> The demands in the letter include the removal of a Google vice president, Megan Kacholia, from the team's management chain; for transparency surrounding Gebru's departure; and for Google's head of AI, Jeff Dean, and Kacholia to apologize for how Gebru was treated. I would like to know which role played Kacholia in this. Just a scapegoat for management or was she directly involved?

bonoboTP 6y ago
Kacholia sent the email informing Gebru she is no longer employed, effective immediately.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  And the retraction demand came from Jeff Dean and Kacholia.

justforfunhere 6y ago

What kind of day to day work someone in an Ethical AI group would do?

throway1gjj 6y ago
>What kind of day to day work someone in an Ethical AI group would do? Write papers on why capitalism is evil and socialism is the answer
traveler01 6y ago
Apparently they do nothing like you'd expect from something called "Ethical AI group". It's just a PR stunt gone wrong...
notsureaboutpg 6y ago
They write papers to propose the idea of "AI Cards" which are descriptions of AI models, the situations they are useful in, and some stats about their performance when used on subjects who are from minority groups and/or women. A real paper she was listed as an author on.
bo1024 6y ago
Most of them are full time researchers publishing papers. For example someone might do a study on facial recognition accuracy on different ethnic groups and how that impacts user experience or other disparate impact of automated systems.

PunchTornado 6y ago

I'm glad she was fired.

pontus 6y ago

My god, people need to calm down. I understand that some may be upset about things their employer does and that's well within their rights. If their employer is knowingly engaging in illegal activity then by all means, be a whistle blower and set ultimatums, but this has gone too far. If you have a problem with the motivations of your employer or how it handles various sensitive issues then start preparing for interviews and leave the company! I find it sort of humorous how there are companies out there that are actually doing some pretty bad stuff that somehow don't have these problems. For example, I don't hear a lot about the walkouts at Exxon or at Raytheon. For fun reading, here are the companies that the Norwegian wealth fund refuses to invest in because of ethical concerns (they recently removed Raytheon from this list when they exited the business of cluster bombs): https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/exclusion-of-companies/ https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/responsible-investment/exclu...

guerrilla 6y ago
> this has gone too far Hardly. It's all part of the negotations. Leaving is just the resort. There's no reason not to protest before it gets to that point.
adamsea 6y ago
> but this has gone too far. Honest question - which part has gone too far? Feel like there are currently a lot of parts.
js8 6y ago
> I understand that some may be upset about things their employer does and that's well within their rights. It is within their rights, true. But it's not just a question of law, but also ethics. We accept that, in democratic societies, we can freely criticize our government and still stay the citizens. There are good principal and practical reasons to have it so. However, in private companies, for some reason, we don't accept it.
- jjcon 6y ago
  I think the primary reason for this is because people (generally speaking) in democratic societies share control of their government (for the people by the people etc). This is not true of company->employee relationships. It is assumed that if you join a company you share their values and if you no longer share their values the barrier to leave and join another is quite low. People have different values and that is fine. Unless your employer is engaging in illegal behaviors, speaking out against their value set is just showing intolerance for other people and their values. Move on, join up and use your time to help lift values you hold, don’t just spend all your time tearing down others. Respect the fact that others can have values different than your own.

motohagiography 6y ago

This issue reminds me a lot of what we do in security and privacy, which are ostensibly engineering disciplines, but are really technology governance functions. Ethical AI is also a governance function, and like hackers in security, there is an invisible yet stark limit to the value activists can provide in actual governance roles. Litigating demands is just not how governance gets done. The irony of Google hiring so many smart people is that they get a cluster people who were institutionalized by academia, and now they have a CEO who has to act like an institutional dean. Hackers hold your products to their standards, and ideally that adds value to your customers. Ethical AI people seem to do the same. The problem with both is that if you fail their purity tests, they will also sabotage your company because they're indexed on a greater good. That the company is dealing with factions of what are essentially student activists issuing demands seems like an inflection point where any further growth is going to be a function of market domination and not their ability to align to make things.

throwaway201606 6y ago
I wish I had more upvotes to give for this comment. It gave me multiple upsights about how to clean up my approach thinking about the issues here: + framing an analogy using technology governance functions - whose functions and values can be clearly quantified and measured by many independently - with a ethical (moral) functions - whose values and results are much more nebulous + drawing a parallel between hackers - whom many technologists 'understand'- and value activists - whom many technologists don't 'understand + pointing out the now-self-evident axioms that i) activists, like hackers, hold you to 'their' standard, not yours and ii) will fight you 'their' way when you fail to meet those standards + the point about academia and corporate leaders needing to act as deans and dealing with navigating conflict resolution in a new 'tribe' they don't understand. Not forgetting they currently deal with multiple other tribes - investors, media, government etc. I would like to add a couple of small points: + Personal risk to executives is the change in the mix with highest impact. This becomes more important as this risk is transferred up the corporate ladder. So, leaders examining issues, from this 'new' perspective, in a balanced nuanced way while still considering profits, politics, strategy, foresight, ability to manage change ( et al, ad nauseam ) increasingly becomes a key career soft skill. Especially if decisions are delivered in communication styles that are still clearly understood by all relevant other tribes they deal with in situations like this. +. I would like to suggest that some folks are missing PART of the point (not all of it, just an important small nuance) No single party gets to frame this debate. Ethics is now inside the corp. fence so it has to be heard. Just consider that every side of the debate has their perspective and the other side is "crazy" from this viewpoint. E.g a key tool for academics with leadership is demanding the removal of leaders with a "or we go " chaser - this is normal in that world and it would be crazy not to use the tool as part of a "normal" negotiation. But it is not normal in the corporate world. Point being everyone's normal is some version of some other person's crazy. Well, these folks are from another 'tribe". The way things are done in their world is different'. Corp is the one behaving in a way that "does not make sense" from their perspective. Just considering that the view from someone else's vantage point could be different would go a long way here.

throway1gjj 6y ago

Shame they didn't keep her around. Google deserves to reap the ideology it sows.

bra-ket 6y ago

Drama queens, literally

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Wow, Google's ethical AI group sounds like the most toxic group of individuals I've ever heard of. I'm going to sidestep the debate about whether Gebru was "fired" or she "resigned", because that debate primarily centers on how one defines the words. But clearly she did do this: She sent a letter that made a bunch of (IMO) outrageous demands, outrageous because it essentially attacked other people at the company, and said that if her demands were not met, that she would leave. In this case, the ethical AI group is doing the same thing: demanding a manager not have a role with them, demanding (again IMO) unwarranted apologies from other people, and worse, demanding the rehiring of someone has shown that she has no respect for others in her workplace. A bunch of overpaid toxic babies from my opinion. I don't care who you are, going around demanding "my way or the highway" in a large company just makes you an asshole. If they don't like what happened they should simply resign with integrity and move on.

woah 6y ago
Google tried to prevent her from publishing a paper, which is outside of their normal practice, then dissembled about what happened (pretending internal reviewers are anonymous, for example)
- holidayacct 6y ago
  What was the topic of the paper?
- uh_uh 6y ago
  Didn't they push back on the publication because the paper was lacking in certain regards? IIRC it failed to take into account relevant recent papers, for example. Which probably could have been fixed if they didn't submit as late as they did.
  - GVIrish 6y ago
    The paper was submitted on time, other papers at Google were submitted for review after they were released. By Jeff Dean's own admission the paper was approved for release. The demand for retraction was initially given while refusing to state what the reason(s) for the demand were. Only after the meeting where they demanded she retract the paper did they belatedly agree to read her the feedback that they stated as the reason. They wouldn't even let her read it first hand. Ultimately it seems like Google could have plainly stated their issues with the paper from the start, and that said issues were not so serious that they merited a demand for retraction. There are a number of things that just don't add up. Even if you take it at face value that Gebru's ultimatum demands were unreasonable, there are several problems with how the situation got to that point in the first place.

jasonhong 6y ago

I find it interesting how, in the other current thread about an antitrust suit against Google (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25448718) that people there are criticizing Google's lack of ethics, and in this thread people are criticizing a team in Google whose goal is to try to get Google to act more ethically.

Miraste 6y ago
A flawed comparison; the ethical issues discussed in that thread and the things the AI group is complaining about are non-overlapping.
Majestic121 6y ago
Ethics is a large subject, people can be interested in certain branches and not others. I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices'
- shadowfox 6y ago
  > I guess the 'bias and inequality in AI' is less striking a cord for the HN crowd than 'fair business practices' That is interesting. I wonder if it indicates something about the demographics of HN.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    Yep, we’re all rich racist WASPs, you got us. More seriously, it probably does indicate something about the political sentiment of users of HN who comment, which may indirectly indicate something about demographics. A direct link is tenuous.
    - shadowfox 6y ago
      > Yep, we’re all rich racist WASPs. Hmm. That was a strange, but interesting jump indeed. > A direct link is tenuous That could be.

frongpik 6y ago

A big reorg is coming to that ethics group.

optimalsolver 6y ago
And the new group will happily sign off on any future Google actions as completely ethical.
- frongpik 6y ago
  Perhaps the new group won't confuse ethics with activism.
cbozeman 6y ago
I think the problem with this group is they don't understand what their function is, and Google can't really explain it to them. Their job is to navigate, any way they can, a path that can be perceived as ethical for Google to exploit AI to further shareholder value without having to also deal with extreme pushback from media, watchdog groups, etc. These people probably think Human Resources exists to help them.
- thisiszilff 6y ago
  I think the best case scenario for AI ethics is that those researchers work to develop processing & metrics to ensure AI systems are fair. The current model seems overwhelmingly adversarial where AI researches do X and then the ethics researches come in an indicate problems P, Q, R. I'm curious how much internal communication there is between the ethics department and the AI departments. Instead of doing research on how the datasets are biased or something of that sort, it seems more fruitful to help researches develop balanced and fair datasets. AI is going to develop yes or yes. The best case scenario is that AI ethics is a first class concern for those researchers and is factored into their development rather than being a case of "look at this gross, unethical behavior in this model!"

anonygler 6y ago

This is why you don't feed the activist beast, which Google had been doing for years. They're utterly detached from reality and make progressively more insane demands and use wilder and wilder language. "Data violence" is their new slogan. If an algorithm isn't utterly flawless out the gate, that's a "literal act of violence" against [insert group here]. I'm not even making up the "literal" part.

greatwhitenorth 6y ago

This is what you get for "diversity". Enjoy SV companies. You all deserve this and much more.

AntiImperialist 6y ago

Some more information for those who are new to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... In all the linked threads, sort comments by "controversial" for obvious reasons.

zaroth 6y ago

I wonder what is the primary intended role of Google's "Ethical AI" efforts in the first place. You could hire a bunch of leading AI researchers and task them to do R&D to identify the pitfalls of latest-gen AI with a focus on prospective dangers, biases, unintended side-effects. You could ask them to create new methods to quantify the degree / severity of these effects. You could ask them to invent new methodologies to specifically protect against these effects. Separate from all of this, they may or may not be tasked with a governance function to review or score internal models according to their metrics and produce impact reports. Perhaps they work side-by-side with AI developers to ensure their newly developed techniques are applied throughout the processing pipeline, etc. The (non-expert) impression I get from ethical AI research is that it hasn't moved much past the obviousness phase. The revelation that the source material for your training set determines the behavior of your model. That models are not neutral or granted some higher perspective just because they're some sort of magic algorithm because ultimately they are statistical engines driven by their datasets. That models can be misused and misapplied if the end-user treats them so. And that models cost a lot of resources to train, which like anything can be translated into tons of CO2 emissions. A more nuanced analysis would look at the cost/benefit of what the model achieves versus the energy cost or potential bias that would be present in any alternative method. For example, it's a strict win/win situation if GPT-3 takes 10 million tons of CO2 to train, but displaces work that otherwise would have taken 11 million tons of CO2. All models will have bias -- "bias engine" is actually a good way to describe the fundamental nature and purpose of the algorithm! But at least models can have strictly measureable and totally consistent levels of bias that perhaps can even be controlled for as desired, unlike manual human labor which will demonstrate wildly variable and much harder to control levels of bias. See, for example, the controversial use of AI models to set bail. [1] As I side note, I hate the opening paragraph of TFA; > Tension between Google's Ethical AI group and executives at the company rose on Wednesday, as employees sent a list of demands regarding the recent departure of one of the team's leaders — a prominent Black woman in a field that's largely White and male. That level of race baiting in an Op Ed would deem it unpublishable. The effect (if not the intent) of that opening is to essentially shut off the reader's critical thinking skills before they even get going. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/upshot/algorithms-bail-criminal-justice-system.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/upshot/algorithms-bail-cr... [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-supposed-fix-bail-system-they-havent/ https://www.wired.com/story/algorithms-supposed-fix-bail-sys...

optimalsolver 6y ago

Funny how commenters here complain about Google's ethics on a daily basis, but as soon as people who don't look like the typical tech geek raise issues with the company, everyone jumps on Google's train.

dicomdan 6y ago
It’a not about how they look, it’s about the disrespect they show towards fellow employees that makes working environment toxic for everyone else.

iron0013 6y ago

This entire thread is just “are my opinions unethical? No, no it must be the entire team of professional ethicists who are wrong.” Only without the even momentary modicum of self-reflection that implies.

mellosouls 6y ago

Perhaps it's inevitable that there is crossover between those passionate about ethics and those who are activists, but there is clearly then a danger that there will - ironically - be a bias in recruitment in ethics teams towards activists. If they themselves are then recruiting others "that fit in" there is an even greater risk that activists of a particular stripe will be overrepresented on teams like this, which imbalance (especially with regard to corporate culture) will inevitably lead to these sorts of clashes and overreaches. After this has blown over, Google will do well to look deeply at the potential biases within recruitment in this particular area to ensure diversity of opinion is reflected; and further, that these teams are not siloed (as teams often are) to counter the echo chamber effect that appears possibly to have jumped straight from social media into the working environment here.

igorkraw 6y ago

I find it sad that a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID. Ironically, the self identified "anti-SJW" are cancelling her by complaining about her "toxicity" and "attempts to cancel people" in vague terms. I also find it sad that apparently, freedom of speech and free actions end when it comes to criticizing your employer in public, showing worker solidarity in public and asking for others to show their criticism in words and actions.

pietrovismara 6y ago
We grow up with the ideal of democracy and treat it as the single most important value we have to protect. Yet we spend the best (awake) third of our life in authocratic environments, where decisions that can deeply affect our lives are taken without our consent. Where speaking up for ourselves or our peers' good gets us fired. I also find it incredibly sad.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  The division is metaphysical / epistemological / narrative / tribal / ideological / religious etc. Way deeper than who is right in this Gebru vs Google debacle or the specifics of this one paper. These debates go nowhere because both sides see the other as toxic and a threat and don't agree on basic terms, the basic view of who is in power, who needs to fear for their jobs for dissent etc. "but here Gebru was fired, so POC and activists have to fear" "but Damore was also fired for dissent" "but he was sexist and created a toxic work environment" "but Gebru uses the race card for minor reasons if she doesn't get it her way" "now you are just racist and consider her an angry black woman" "I don't care about race just individuals" "comfortable from your place of privilege to keep the status quo, isn't it?" "I just want to do my job in peace without drama" "silence is violence when the system is structurally racist!" etc etc.
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
    This is true, but perspective is very important. For me realizing that I'm not actually living in a democracy was what gave me an entirely new perspective on how the world works. It took me almost 30 years to realize this, so I know it's not really obvious given how we've been taught to think. That's why I try to spread this message when it fits with the topic. And I feel so many problems have this issue at their core, including this one.

twcz 6y ago

I can't say I feel for Google, they've had it coming. A completely self-inflicted wound. What worries me is the woke culture creeping over from Google to other companies, and from US to other countries. Demanding vice-presidents be fired, taking over companies like a virus. But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? What will sustain it long-term?

pron 6y ago
> But how can the virus stay alive while killing its hosts so vehemently? Comparing a company to a host and the employees that create its wealth to a virus is illogical even for the most ardent capitalist. Isn't the capitalist idea that everyone, be it the employer or the worker, do their utmost to maximise their market value and use it to the best of their ability to their own advantage? Even the ancien régime realised that they need the people to actually make their food and that the people aren't some sort of parasite on the aristocracy. I don't even know what to call your view.
- Majestic121 6y ago
  Note that the parent don't compare ALL of the employees to virus, only the one propagating 'woke culture' If you follow the metaphore, the employees are cells of the host, and those cells can be infected by the woke culture virus and start acting against the host while propagating the virus to other cells within the host. You can very certainly disagree with the 'woke culture is a virus' part, but except from that the metaphor stands imho
- g42gregory 6y ago
  The way I understand his point is that he is comparing the woke culture to the virus, not the workers themselves. I am guessing that there are plenty of Google’s employees who are not a part of the woke movement. He would not be addressing them in his point, I think.
  - pron 6y ago
    I would expect a company as large as Google to have many employees with varied opinions, and given that leftist and social justice leanings are prevalent among the well-educated, I would expect such views to be overrepresented at Google and so that the contribution to Google's wealth comes in large part from people that commenter sees as a virus. In fact, since Google hired the manager in question, they must have done so believing that her perspective will enrich the company; i.e. they sought to exploit it in some profitable way. That, too, doesn't sound to me at all like a virus.

anm89 6y ago

Is there any realistic chance google just disbands the entire team?

bonoboTP 6y ago
That will have a ripple effect in other parts of the org with similar political opinion, ultimately destroying the reputation of Google in the eyes of the general population of the same political leanings. My prediction is they will put new processes in place, perhaps put the team organizationally in a different place from under Kacholia, apologize louder and clearer, but probably not take Gebru back. It's quite unpredictable though! The disagreement is too big, there will need to be some more explicit closure to the issue than what we have already seen.

2spicy_thrwaway 6y ago

If this new list of demands includes an “or else we’ll work in a last date” this thing is going to explode so much worse.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dang 6y ago

"Disingenuous" implies that someone is being deceptive, which breaks the HN guideline against assuming good faith: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. The rest of your comment would be just fine without that bit.

Miraste 6y ago
Fair enough. I can't edit it now, but s/disingenuous/flawed
- dang 6y ago
  I'll edit it for you and detach this subthread. Thanks! I have this crazy idea to build a pull requests system for HN comments. People could suggest edits that way without cluttering the threads. It's either a terrible idea or a great one.
  - Miraste 6y ago
    For users to PR their own comments, or for anyone to PR any comments? The former sounds overcomplicated, but the latter... I don't know how that would turn out, but it would be fascinating to watch.
    - dang 6y ago
      I mean the latter. Yes, exactly.

quantaum_dot 6y ago

These so-called ethical AI researchers are not really doing much science, not even truly researchers. They are more like politicians, and are playing the game of politics.

AppleCandy 6y ago
Better people-skills and emotional intelligence would work wonders here, compared to immediately reaching for the hatchet and communicating through demands and ultimatums. Reflects very poorly on them for their inability, in this case, to start a civil conversation which can be ramped up in so many appropriate ways.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  Read the "Toxoplasma of rage" by Scott Alexander or watch the "This video will make you angry" by CGP Grey. No immediately reaching for maximum impactful tools will leave you behind and those who are not so "shy" to use strong words will advance and get more exposure. It's a memetic race. You get more attention for more outrage. Rewards and incentives shape what we see.
  - winston_smith 6y ago
    Unless we decide to consciously work against that tendency, which it's nice to see people doing in this thread.
    - bonoboTP 6y ago
      HN is a special place with extreme focus on avoiding that fate, extreme alertness in moderation day to day, explicit anti-engagement features like cool off periods, no pictures and emojis etc. People who can stand staying on a mostly colorless pictureless site with no memes, are also self selecting to be a tad more thoughtful than social media people.
higerordermap 6y ago
Everytime someone calls out non-technical folk pretending to be doing something while they are only virtue signalling. America will learn hard way that diversity hiring of sociology idiots won't work.