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So basically Gebru was fired for turning Googles fake ethics group into a real ethics group?

cbozeman 6y ago
Well, its like HR. The Ethics group is there to shield the company, not the customer. Apparently she didn't understand that.
googlethrow3134 6y ago
She wasn’t fired for trying to publish the paper. She threatened to resign if her demands were met, so Google pre-empted it by accepting her resignation. The narrative around her being “fired” is completely false and is a lie that needs to be stopped in its track.
- baron_harkonnen 6y ago
  So do you honestly believe that if Gebru were to interview at another company and they performed a background check asking why her last position was terminated if she put "voluntary" it would come back with no problems? Do you likewise honestly think that if she applied for unemployment services in the US should we be denied because of willful termination from her last job? Everyone I know who has been fired, when it's reported to the company, the phrasing is always "Person X and the company have come to a mutual agreement", but in my experience it's never really mutual. I've known many coworkers that threaten to quit over issues, but it still depends on them making that choice formally. Otherwise they are fired.
thu2111 6y ago
Her paper didn't make any reasonable points about real ethics, it was mostly wafer thin pseudo-intellectual moralising of the form "but what about the trees!" without any attempt at rigorous cost/benefit analysis. At its core ethics is about balances and tradeoffs: something creates some problems for one person, but creates some benefits for another person, is it moral? Is it right? As a consequence her paper made a lot of points that came across as absurd like railing against models due to the electricity cost of training them, even though those costs are small relative to completely ordinary things everyone takes for granted, like driving to work and back.
- free_rms 6y ago
  It's fascinating how nobody can say how this paper was such an ethical stab in the heart for Google, it's all about process. The paper's out there! You can read it!

Well, its like HR. The Ethics group is there to shield the company, not the customer. Apparently she didn't understand that.

googlethrow3134 6y ago

She wasn’t fired for trying to publish the paper. She threatened to resign if her demands were met, so Google pre-empted it by accepting her resignation. The narrative around her being “fired” is completely false and is a lie that needs to be stopped in its track.

baron_harkonnen 6y ago
So do you honestly believe that if Gebru were to interview at another company and they performed a background check asking why her last position was terminated if she put "voluntary" it would come back with no problems? Do you likewise honestly think that if she applied for unemployment services in the US should we be denied because of willful termination from her last job? Everyone I know who has been fired, when it's reported to the company, the phrasing is always "Person X and the company have come to a mutual agreement", but in my experience it's never really mutual. I've known many coworkers that threaten to quit over issues, but it still depends on them making that choice formally. Otherwise they are fired.

thu2111 6y ago

Her paper didn't make any reasonable points about real ethics, it was mostly wafer thin pseudo-intellectual moralising of the form "but what about the trees!" without any attempt at rigorous cost/benefit analysis. At its core ethics is about balances and tradeoffs: something creates some problems for one person, but creates some benefits for another person, is it moral? Is it right? As a consequence her paper made a lot of points that came across as absurd like railing against models due to the electricity cost of training them, even though those costs are small relative to completely ordinary things everyone takes for granted, like driving to work and back.

free_rms 6y ago
It's fascinating how nobody can say how this paper was such an ethical stab in the heart for Google, it's all about process. The paper's out there! You can read it!