3 ms·
MSR has a very free research culture. People there are technically fireable by normal means, but Microsoft chooses not to terminate employment for "outside-of-w
by freeone3000 6y ago
MSR has a very free research culture. People there are technically fireable by normal means, but Microsoft chooses not to terminate employment for "outside-of-work" engagements, or for the subject of their research. Some very critical papers of Microsoft's AI approach were published under the MSR header. Not all of the findings were put into place, and Aether has the unenviable job of balancing ethical behavior with potential profits. But their ethicists are leaving because they're shouting themselves hoarse into the void, not because they're being asked to change their results.
- rmk 6y agoYou are talking about the Google ethicists who are leaving, right? Also, can you clarify what you mean by 'shouting themselves into the void'? Are they being denied venues to publish their research, thereby rendering their shouting inaudible, or did you mean something else?
- Wolfenstein98k 6y agoI believe they meant that they were allowed to publish critical research, just that it was not acted on. In other words MSFT allowed them to publish freely, it just (allegedly) ignored the implications of the research.
- ggm 6y agoI have a lot more respect for MS and MSR than I used to. I grew up, and I learned more about both. Nowhere is perfect but, in a different context of the US attempts to define extraterritorial control on data held by European hosted services, MS was the company which stood up to the department of state. Google and the others folded.
- johncena33 6y agoI am not sure I necessarily buy your comparison. Do you have any records where the employees have done something similar, e.g., giving ultimatums to manager, sending inflammatory emails to a large group of employees, leaking internal documents to outsiders, in MSR, but didn't get fired?