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The only evidence of toxicity was an email she sent after being forced to retract a paper that she wouldn't have to retract under proper academic circumstances,

The only evidence of toxicity was an email she sent after being forced to retract a paper that she wouldn't have to retract under proper academic circumstances, based on feedback they weren't even going to provide to her. That's not toxic, that's anger. One angry incident, justified or not, does not make the case for firing a "toxic" employee.

xenihn 6y ago
>The only evidence of toxicity was an email she sent after being forced to retract a paper that she wouldn't have to retract under proper academic circumstances, based on feedback they weren't even going to provide to her. What about the paper trail she left on Twitter?
- fatbird 6y ago
  That happened after she was fired. You can't cite that behaviour as a reason for firing her. Violates causality.
  - xenihn 6y ago
    Her spat with the Facebook guy was before that.
    - fatbird 6y ago
      That was a public argument on her core area of research. Google literally hired her to do that work. Being professionally assertive isn't toxic.
      - xenihn 6y ago
        Do you think Facebook would agree with you? Great news for her if so.
      - thu2111 6y ago
        "I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias" That's not being professionally assertive.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    I went back and looked at Timnit's twitter history. She has a history of calling out her bosses and saying outrageous things, from well before this incident. People have linked, for example, a tweet where she called out Jeff Dean based on things he said in an internal meeting, and he had to do a bunch of apologizing and backtracking. I can't see how an employee can remain viable after doing that.
Aunche 6y ago
She also doxxed an HRBP despite having no evidence she was involved during Gebru's firing. I do think she comes off as more passionate than "toxic." a lot of otherwise good people say regrettable things. My issue is that activists will take her accusations of racism at face value, but will dismiss anything outright ridiculous as irrelevant. You can't have it both ways.
room500 6y ago
I disagree. There were several incidents where she appears toxic (and we only know about the ones made public). 1. Absolutely refusing to update her paper with feedback from a colleague - the whole purpose of the internal review 2. Demanding that Google reveal who gave her critical feedback - presumably to attack them in some way 3. Sending an e-mail to her superiors/colleagues, making ultimatums and threatening to leave if her demands were not met 4. Sending a message to a group at Google, telling them to abandon any attempts to help Google with diversity initiatives and instead start attacking their co-workers 5. Publicly blaming Google and saying that she was "fired" for an e-mail. She was relying on information assymetry, knowing that Google would be hesitant to respond fully to all allegations
- xenihn 6y ago
  Classic Cluster B behavior.
- thu2111 6y ago
  You forgot publicly calling both of the best known researchers in the AI revolution racist: Yann LeCunn and Jeff Dean (her manager's manager). And suing her own employer for not being feminist enough, or something.

xenihn 6y ago

>The only evidence of toxicity was an email she sent after being forced to retract a paper that she wouldn't have to retract under proper academic circumstances, based on feedback they weren't even going to provide to her. What about the paper trail she left on Twitter?

fatbird 6y ago
That happened after she was fired. You can't cite that behaviour as a reason for firing her. Violates causality.
- xenihn 6y ago
  Her spat with the Facebook guy was before that.
  - fatbird 6y ago
    That was a public argument on her core area of research. Google literally hired her to do that work. Being professionally assertive isn't toxic.
    - xenihn 6y ago
      Do you think Facebook would agree with you? Great news for her if so.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      "I’m sick of this framing. Tired of it. Many people have tried to explain, many scholars. Listen to us. You can’t just reduce harms caused by ML to dataset bias" That's not being professionally assertive.
- dekhn 6y ago
  I went back and looked at Timnit's twitter history. She has a history of calling out her bosses and saying outrageous things, from well before this incident. People have linked, for example, a tweet where she called out Jeff Dean based on things he said in an internal meeting, and he had to do a bunch of apologizing and backtracking. I can't see how an employee can remain viable after doing that.

Aunche 6y ago

She also doxxed an HRBP despite having no evidence she was involved during Gebru's firing. I do think she comes off as more passionate than "toxic." a lot of otherwise good people say regrettable things. My issue is that activists will take her accusations of racism at face value, but will dismiss anything outright ridiculous as irrelevant. You can't have it both ways.

room500 6y ago

I disagree. There were several incidents where she appears toxic (and we only know about the ones made public). 1. Absolutely refusing to update her paper with feedback from a colleague - the whole purpose of the internal review 2. Demanding that Google reveal who gave her critical feedback - presumably to attack them in some way 3. Sending an e-mail to her superiors/colleagues, making ultimatums and threatening to leave if her demands were not met 4. Sending a message to a group at Google, telling them to abandon any attempts to help Google with diversity initiatives and instead start attacking their co-workers 5. Publicly blaming Google and saying that she was "fired" for an e-mail. She was relying on information assymetry, knowing that Google would be hesitant to respond fully to all allegations

xenihn 6y ago
Classic Cluster B behavior.
thu2111 6y ago
You forgot publicly calling both of the best known researchers in the AI revolution racist: Yann LeCunn and Jeff Dean (her manager's manager). And suing her own employer for not being feminist enough, or something.