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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 se

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.
    - bonoboTP 6y ago
      Do you want to give your plumber an equal seat at the table when deciding how to organize the bathroom? Or to the painters of your walls regarding the color? As an employee you get money for using your skills in the way they ask you, like you ask the waiter to bring you the food you picked, not something he rather wants to bring you. As an employee you are not part of a self-governed community. In a democratic state its the opposite. People pay taxes into a common pool and then (ideally) have a seat at the table to decide how to use it. See how the money goes in opposite direction? You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee!
      - pietrovismara 6y ago
        >Do you want to give your plumber an equal seat at the table when deciding how to organize the bathroom? Or to the painters of your walls regarding the color? That's not the point. I want to give the plumber the choice to decide in matters that regard him in the company he is part of. Like what fees to ask to customers, how to distribute and eventually reinvest the profit, etc. If the plumber is an independent contractor he already has these possibilities. > You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee! The membership fee you pay to your employer is the surplus value you generate.
  - igorkraw 6y ago
    For the record, I found it a pity damore was fired, and I think he and timnit should be allies in this. A German feminist actually analysed his memo and while she disagreed with the evo-psych bits, she actually pointed out that his argument that diversity without changing work conditions by e.g. making part time the norm is hypocritical was actually a pretty valid critique. In fact, I think you can argue both Timnit and Damore got fired for the same reasons: - they pointed out that Google's efforts are hypocritical ethicswashing which gets discarded as soon as it actually affects the status quo - they created bad PR - they had no workers council or unions to back then up
- themaninthedark 6y ago
  We charish the idea of democracy as a from of government that allows a large group of people with widely divergent views to come together and live under the same roof. Generally a business or corporation is not aiming for the same thing, either profit or market share. An autocratic or authoritarian governance is great for getting results but not so good for consensus. For most people in the country, they can change jobs to find a company that they like working for, it is much harder to change countries.
kaiju0 6y ago
They don't end, she was free to make her statements. Google was free to exit her for doing so.
- igorkraw 6y ago
  I think that will be up for the the national labor board or whoever judges the legality of this. In any case now people, including her co-worker are free in condemning Google for that. Let's hope either Google can address the grievances and prove/convince people they are in the right, or if they can't that it will have consequences beyond a Twitter shit storm.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
OK, so my top comment on this post calling out the ethical AI group and Gebru as toxic got flagged, and I'm still a bit salty about that, but I'll respond constructively to this statement: > a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID I didn't feel the need to add a ton of details because it all seemed quite clear. I mean, in this case, all the information I got about what the ethical AI team demanded comes from the posted article. My previous comments about this were all taken from Gebru's public tweets and information in the primary posts. I didn't feel a need to rehash what she actually DID because it was all posted, multiple times, in public forums, and my assumption (perhaps incorrect) was that other people were similarly up-to-date on the controversy.
- igorkraw 6y ago
  Even if you don't want to rehash it, I feel like making concrete statement of which of her actions you feel were toxic is more constructive than vilifying her personally. Contrapoints made a good video on cancelling that highlights the difference between critique and cancelling, and there's a big difference between saying "she publicly accused Yann lecun of using his platform to direct his fanboys at her" and "after what she did to lecun, it's obvious she's a toxic person". In the latter you - leave open to the imagination of the reader what she did (which might be more negative to them than how they'd react to her actual auctions) - attack her person, not her actions, which is a big difference even pg wrote about iirc - make it impossible for the reader to rationally engage with your point, since all you share are emotions
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    In my post that was flagged, which was more directed to the demands from the ethical AI group mentioned in the article, I wrote: > 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. When it comes to Gebru, it was specifically these demands that Jeff Dean mentioned (and which appear to be uncontested) that I find toxic: > Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. And, to the contrary, I find it dishonest how much of the "accepted" media narrative I've read in this case is that Google is "trying to silence marginalized voices", which I think is not supported by any reasonable reading of the evidence.

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.
  - bonoboTP 6y ago
    Do you want to give your plumber an equal seat at the table when deciding how to organize the bathroom? Or to the painters of your walls regarding the color? As an employee you get money for using your skills in the way they ask you, like you ask the waiter to bring you the food you picked, not something he rather wants to bring you. As an employee you are not part of a self-governed community. In a democratic state its the opposite. People pay taxes into a common pool and then (ideally) have a seat at the table to decide how to use it. See how the money goes in opposite direction? You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee!
    - pietrovismara 6y ago
      >Do you want to give your plumber an equal seat at the table when deciding how to organize the bathroom? Or to the painters of your walls regarding the color? That's not the point. I want to give the plumber the choice to decide in matters that regard him in the company he is part of. Like what fees to ask to customers, how to distribute and eventually reinvest the profit, etc. If the plumber is an independent contractor he already has these possibilities. > You get no salary for being in a democracy, you pay a membership fee! The membership fee you pay to your employer is the surplus value you generate.
- igorkraw 6y ago
  For the record, I found it a pity damore was fired, and I think he and timnit should be allies in this. A German feminist actually analysed his memo and while she disagreed with the evo-psych bits, she actually pointed out that his argument that diversity without changing work conditions by e.g. making part time the norm is hypocritical was actually a pretty valid critique. In fact, I think you can argue both Timnit and Damore got fired for the same reasons: - they pointed out that Google's efforts are hypocritical ethicswashing which gets discarded as soon as it actually affects the status quo - they created bad PR - they had no workers council or unions to back then up
themaninthedark 6y ago
We charish the idea of democracy as a from of government that allows a large group of people with widely divergent views to come together and live under the same roof. Generally a business or corporation is not aiming for the same thing, either profit or market share. An autocratic or authoritarian governance is great for getting results but not so good for consensus. For most people in the country, they can change jobs to find a company that they like working for, it is much harder to change countries.

kaiju0 6y ago

They don't end, she was free to make her statements. Google was free to exit her for doing so.

igorkraw 6y ago
I think that will be up for the the national labor board or whoever judges the legality of this. In any case now people, including her co-worker are free in condemning Google for that. Let's hope either Google can address the grievances and prove/convince people they are in the right, or if they can't that it will have consequences beyond a Twitter shit storm.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

OK, so my top comment on this post calling out the ethical AI group and Gebru as toxic got flagged, and I'm still a bit salty about that, but I'll respond constructively to this statement: > a good chunk of HN seems to just go with the "she's a toxic person" narrative without ever relaying what she actually DID I didn't feel the need to add a ton of details because it all seemed quite clear. I mean, in this case, all the information I got about what the ethical AI team demanded comes from the posted article. My previous comments about this were all taken from Gebru's public tweets and information in the primary posts. I didn't feel a need to rehash what she actually DID because it was all posted, multiple times, in public forums, and my assumption (perhaps incorrect) was that other people were similarly up-to-date on the controversy.

igorkraw 6y ago
Even if you don't want to rehash it, I feel like making concrete statement of which of her actions you feel were toxic is more constructive than vilifying her personally. Contrapoints made a good video on cancelling that highlights the difference between critique and cancelling, and there's a big difference between saying "she publicly accused Yann lecun of using his platform to direct his fanboys at her" and "after what she did to lecun, it's obvious she's a toxic person". In the latter you - leave open to the imagination of the reader what she did (which might be more negative to them than how they'd react to her actual auctions) - attack her person, not her actions, which is a big difference even pg wrote about iirc - make it impossible for the reader to rationally engage with your point, since all you share are emotions
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  In my post that was flagged, which was more directed to the demands from the ethical AI group mentioned in the article, I wrote: > 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. When it comes to Gebru, it was specifically these demands that Jeff Dean mentioned (and which appear to be uncontested) that I find toxic: > Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. Timnit wrote that if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. And, to the contrary, I find it dishonest how much of the "accepted" media narrative I've read in this case is that Google is "trying to silence marginalized voices", which I think is not supported by any reasonable reading of the evidence.