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What if Google is doing something unethical?

by Zarath 6y ago

izacus 6y ago
Well, it'd be great to hear this from a respectable and ethical person and not someone who'll lie for their own gain, right?
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Because Google has a stellar ethical track record and would never lie for their own gain, right? I think they’ve exhausted the benefit of the doubt.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    The benefit of what doubt? No matter how much you distrust Google, we can’t really presume they’re guilty of hypothetical accusations that haven’t actually been made.
    - jakelazaroff 6y ago
      I’m just saying that we should take their version of the story with a massive grain of salt.
      - izacus 6y ago
        Then again the activists have proven to be pretty dishonest themselves. Timnit lied about who fired her, hid the fact that she gave an ultimatum and has now dedicated time to publicly smear and attack everyone at Google, including listing people who should be fired (by name!) on Twitter. Not to mention the abusive behaviour she showed towards the FB head of AI on Twitter who stopped posting as a result. She never apologised, although she demands apology from Google coworkers. The other activist was fired when she deployed political messaging code in production while hiding the whole process from her team and manager. Do those strike as a people that will honestly present their story and would be good to work with? Ones that happily lie and fudge the truth to drive their agendas? Because in my experience people who act like this, no matter what skin color they have, are corrosive and abusive to work with.
  - babesh 6y ago
    It’s not like most people don’t do that either. Ha!
  - izacus 6y ago
    I'm not sure how one excuses the other really (especially since the other is a corporation of 100k+ people). This tit-for-tat behaviour really spirals into destructive retaliations which are bad for everyone. See US news for example.
dragonwriter 6y ago
Google is doing something unethical, even if Google wasn’t doing something unethical before they decided to name and blame an employee on a personnel matter before completing an internal investigation to establish the facts. There’s a good reason why even under direct questioning with the most serious internal indications but an ongoing internal investigation, companies simply decline comment on personnel matters. Of course, if they weren’t trying to poison the well about an imminent revelation of some greater unethical behavior on their part, they probably wouldn’t have engaged in the obvious unethical behavior. So...
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Timnit Gebru publicly tweeted about this second activist losing email access. By calling Google out in such a public manner, I feel like Google is forced to respond publicly, to set the record and prevent the early viral spread of these activists’ one sided take/misinformation. Otherwise what happens is journalists like Kara Swisher source entire stories from these activists, plaster it across their platforms, and Google then faces another manufactured outrage PR issue. Edit: another comment here also claims that Google’s statement was made because Axios reached out to them regarding this story after Timnit Gebru’s tweet. So there you have it.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Yes, Google’s ethical responsibility in a current employer/employee relationship with Mitchell is different than Gebru’s ethical obligation to her former employer with whom she is already in a public, contentious battle. And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell.
    - mikejb 6y ago
      > And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell. What about Mitchell's violation towards Google?

What if Google is doing something unethical?

by Zarath 6y ago

What if Google is doing something unethical?

Well, it'd be great to hear this from a respectable and ethical person and not someone who'll lie for their own gain, right?

jakelazaroff 6y ago
Because Google has a stellar ethical track record and would never lie for their own gain, right? I think they’ve exhausted the benefit of the doubt.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  The benefit of what doubt? No matter how much you distrust Google, we can’t really presume they’re guilty of hypothetical accusations that haven’t actually been made.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    I’m just saying that we should take their version of the story with a massive grain of salt.
    - izacus 6y ago
      Then again the activists have proven to be pretty dishonest themselves. Timnit lied about who fired her, hid the fact that she gave an ultimatum and has now dedicated time to publicly smear and attack everyone at Google, including listing people who should be fired (by name!) on Twitter. Not to mention the abusive behaviour she showed towards the FB head of AI on Twitter who stopped posting as a result. She never apologised, although she demands apology from Google coworkers. The other activist was fired when she deployed political messaging code in production while hiding the whole process from her team and manager. Do those strike as a people that will honestly present their story and would be good to work with? Ones that happily lie and fudge the truth to drive their agendas? Because in my experience people who act like this, no matter what skin color they have, are corrosive and abusive to work with.
- babesh 6y ago
  It’s not like most people don’t do that either. Ha!
- izacus 6y ago
  I'm not sure how one excuses the other really (especially since the other is a corporation of 100k+ people). This tit-for-tat behaviour really spirals into destructive retaliations which are bad for everyone. See US news for example.

dragonwriter 6y ago

Google is doing something unethical, even if Google wasn’t doing something unethical before they decided to name and blame an employee on a personnel matter before completing an internal investigation to establish the facts. There’s a good reason why even under direct questioning with the most serious internal indications but an ongoing internal investigation, companies simply decline comment on personnel matters. Of course, if they weren’t trying to poison the well about an imminent revelation of some greater unethical behavior on their part, they probably wouldn’t have engaged in the obvious unethical behavior. So...

throwawaysea 6y ago
Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Timnit Gebru publicly tweeted about this second activist losing email access. By calling Google out in such a public manner, I feel like Google is forced to respond publicly, to set the record and prevent the early viral spread of these activists’ one sided take/misinformation. Otherwise what happens is journalists like Kara Swisher source entire stories from these activists, plaster it across their platforms, and Google then faces another manufactured outrage PR issue. Edit: another comment here also claims that Google’s statement was made because Axios reached out to them regarding this story after Timnit Gebru’s tweet. So there you have it.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Isn’t that a one sided expectation though? Yes, Google’s ethical responsibility in a current employer/employee relationship with Mitchell is different than Gebru’s ethical obligation to her former employer with whom she is already in a public, contentious battle. And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell.
  - mikejb 6y ago
    > And even if the ethical obligations were identical, Gebru’s violation toward Google wouldn’t excuse Google’s toward Mitchell. What about Mitchell's violation towards Google?