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I've worked with many women at FANG companies and I wouldn't describe any of them as even somewhat motherly (though I have noticed "firm"). I think Dr. Gebru w

I've worked with many women at FANG companies and I wouldn't describe any of them as even somewhat motherly (though I have noticed "firm"). I think Dr. Gebru was fired because she cast Google in a bad light with some rather dubious arguments in a paper she wanted to publish and when she was asked to not publish her research she she sent an unprofessional email to a wide audience. I don't know why this person was fired, but looking over the email/document she posted on her twitter it looks like she is asserting that her employers are racists and sexist on little evidence. Why would you, or she, expect to be permitted to slander the company this way and still keep her job? Although I don't know if she published this document before or after her termination, so it may, or may not have been a factor.

andyxor 6y ago
Gebru wasn't fired because she "cast Google in a bad light", she gave an ultimatum to her boss threatening to resign if they don't disclose names of all reviewers who criticized her work AND blasted group emails calling for sabotage https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQqz7ScqxhSIxeYGrWjK0/preview?pru=AAABdlOOKBs*gTzLnuI53B2IS2BISVcgAQ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQ... https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/?sort=top https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Her research does cast Google in a bad light. She writes about how language models (like Google's BERT which influences somewhere between 10% and 100% of searches) are environmentally unfriendly and encode hegemonic language making them subtly racist and sexist. Her solutions are to use smaller language models and more curated data sets, which are probably not palatable for Google. Dr. Gebru was told the paper shouldn't be published with Google's name and some of the feedback on it that she received had to do with the paper not mentioning how Google was combating or leading on the problems with language models that she called out. In other words, if her paper had made Google look good, they probably would've been okay with her publishing it. Given that her paper made Google look bad, they wanted her to change it or not publish it. When she got that feedback she sent her intemperate email (in which she included her ultimatum to resign) and was terminated shortly after. I think it's debatable, given that she did offer an ultimatum, whether she was fired or resigned - but I know she prefers the former and I think that's at least a coherent way to describe what happened (Google accepted one side of her ultimatum by firing her).
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Firing someone who gave notice is still firing in California.[1] And Gebru didn't even give notice. She proposed discussing a resignation date. [1] https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm
  - kapp_in_life 6y ago
    >In other words, if her paper had made Google look good A more charitable assumption might be that they wanted her paper to address feedback from the reviewers in lieu of being published as is. The feedback that she was presenting a biased interpretation by leaving unmentioned the existing work being done to combat bias in the models.

andyxor 6y ago

Gebru wasn't fired because she "cast Google in a bad light", she gave an ultimatum to her boss threatening to resign if they don't disclose names of all reviewers who criticized her work AND blasted group emails calling for sabotage https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQqz7ScqxhSIxeYGrWjK0/preview?pru=AAABdlOOKBs*gTzLnuI53B2IS2BISVcgAQ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2kYWDXwhzYnq8ebVtuk9CqQ... https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_timnit_gebru_and_google_megathread/?sort=top https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t...

ALittleLight 6y ago
Her research does cast Google in a bad light. She writes about how language models (like Google's BERT which influences somewhere between 10% and 100% of searches) are environmentally unfriendly and encode hegemonic language making them subtly racist and sexist. Her solutions are to use smaller language models and more curated data sets, which are probably not palatable for Google. Dr. Gebru was told the paper shouldn't be published with Google's name and some of the feedback on it that she received had to do with the paper not mentioning how Google was combating or leading on the problems with language models that she called out. In other words, if her paper had made Google look good, they probably would've been okay with her publishing it. Given that her paper made Google look bad, they wanted her to change it or not publish it. When she got that feedback she sent her intemperate email (in which she included her ultimatum to resign) and was terminated shortly after. I think it's debatable, given that she did offer an ultimatum, whether she was fired or resigned - but I know she prefers the former and I think that's at least a coherent way to describe what happened (Google accepted one side of her ultimatum by firing her).
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Firing someone who gave notice is still firing in California.[1] And Gebru didn't even give notice. She proposed discussing a resignation date. [1] https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm https://www.edd.ca.gov/uibdg/Voluntary_Quit_VQ_135.htm
- kapp_in_life 6y ago
  >In other words, if her paper had made Google look good A more charitable assumption might be that they wanted her paper to address feedback from the reviewers in lieu of being published as is. The feedback that she was presenting a biased interpretation by leaving unmentioned the existing work being done to combat bias in the models.