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They also seem to have sidelined Samy Bengio (Yoshua's brother) who was the skip-level manager of the team and, as far as I can tell, backed both of them and co

They also seem to have sidelined Samy Bengio (Yoshua's brother) who was the skip-level manager of the team and, as far as I can tell, backed both of them and continued to: https://twitter.com/L_badikho/status/1362892301979312128 https://twitter.com/L_badikho/status/1362892301979312128 As can be seen above, current team members state that Google is running a smear campaign against both of them. We should emphatically not take Google's words at face value here either. All of this increases my respect for Microsoft Research immensely. They've been more hands off and had researchers publish work critical of MS technologies. It's quite telling that supposedly more open Google is incapable of creating as open a research org as MSR, which remains in my view an excellent example of what an industrial research org can be.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Cacti 6y ago
I haven’t seen any of the “smear campaign”, just what these two employees have written publicly and, honestly, they both seem like entitled self-absorbed pains in the ass who crap on everything around them just because they didn’t get their way, who view anyone who disagrees with them as an idiot (or worse, evil), and as completely unprofessional and poorly prepared to be dealing with something of such significance at a $50B company. These are people who should have never made it past individual contributer. There is a difference between pushing your company towards a better place and dropping bombs every time someone disagrees with you, a distinction neither of these two seem to realize.
2-tpg 6y ago
The political activist collective is slowly falling apart. If you get blamed for racism when firing an employee for telling colleagues not to pursue KPIs, there is not much you can do to continue placating these professional victims. They are now resorting to calling Google gaslighting for replacing Gebru with a Black person. It is low-brow ugly neo-racism, but then again, I don't really want Google AI in charge of AI ethics, with or without Gebru, so may the mess and reputation damage linger for a long time.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > They are now resorting to calling Google gaslighting for replacing Gebru with a Black person. The complaint isn't what they did, it's what they didn't do. There were no substantive policy changes that could address the underlying issues. Tokenism without change isn't improvement.
  - mupuff1234 6y ago
    What are the underlying issues?
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Broadly there were two complaints: 1. Concerns about censorship of research critical of Google. 2. Concerns about diversity efforts within the Research organization. Replacing someone with a proven track record of being above-average on diversity work, even to his own detriment, and who was willing to fight for his reports when they were censored by higher ups (Samy) with someone who is at best an unknown quantity (Marian) does not instill confidence. Further, the claimed changes don't really do much. Supposedly, failures of DEI will be more impactful on perf for executives. Does that mean that the executives involved in this sequence of events will be dinged for mishandling this? My impression is no, or if anyone is, it'll be Samy. As a sidebar, there's also the more nefarious thought that if you're being judged on the diversity of your org, firing a black woman and then bringing in a black woman executive means you won't get dinged for DE&I failures. Hence: tokenism without addressing the underlying issues, which might be summed up as many of the employees have no confidence in management.
- true_religion 6y ago
  Who was Gebru replaced with? I couldn't find anything when I looked it up (ironically on Google).
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    She wasn't, really. For context, you had a reporting chain of Jeff Dean -> Megan Kacholia -> Samy Bengio -> Timnit Gebru/Meg Mitchell. Timnit and Meg have been fired. Samy appears to have been sidelined, despite everyone involved in the ethical work liking Samy and finding him willing to protect them. My best Guess is that Marian Croak (a Black woman who is currently an Engineering VP in an unrelated area) will approximately replace Megan Kacholia with Megan focusing on other areas, except that "ethical AI" was only a part of Samy's purview, much less Megan's, and its unclear if Marian is stepping down from her former position, or if she's going to split her time between ethical AI and completely unrelated work. So there are no direct leads of the ethics team currently. There's a VP in charge who has other significant responsibilities and relatively junior researchers (some of whom are very recent hires with limited experience), and no one in the middle. So any chance of mentorship is gone, and the system is quite clearly adversarial. Those researchers have lost their direct and skip level manager, with no clear replacement. Lovely.
Aunche 6y ago
If Google releases a statement defending themselves, it's a "smear campaign". If Google remains silent, it would be evidence that they were wrong.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
As can be seen above, current team members state that Google is running a smear campaign against both of them. We should emphatically not take Google's words at face value here either. I don’t get this. Google’s words are that she exfiltrated company documents. She either did or didn’t do this. And is google going to risk making this into a much bigger story by committing libel against a former employee? Or should AI ethics researchers be empowered to steal corporate documents? I try to maintain an open mind, but things seem almost straightforward in this case.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Google didn't say where she sent the documents. Forwarding emails to her own employment lawyers would be exfiltrating company documents technically.
  - HunterWare 6y ago
    Isn’t that “actually” exfiltrating company documents? Not Google, but I don’t remember any of my NDAs mentioning that I couldn’t share confidential/privileged/company information unless I really wanted to with my lawyer...
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Laws override NDAs. Legal counsel is a common exception. Different jurisdictions have different specific rules. Your NDAs probably don't say you can cooperate with law enforcement investigations either. But it's very unlikely a court would say you can't.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        You still might need a legal order to obtain the documents.
        pseudalopex 6y ago
ergocoder 6y ago
Timnit and her supporters are toxic. Can you imagine calling out your manager of manager on Twitter like this? https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278569638532530177 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278569638532530177 Like wtf. This happened 6 months before Timnit was fired. I would absolutely not work with this person if they behaved like Timnit. She and her supporters are absolutely fired for being toxic. They are playing martyr.
- loopz 6y ago
  This tweet, what's wrong about it? Timnit Gebru Jul 2, 2020 Yep generally you did, thanks. But not about me, Deb and others being attacked by White supremacists, anonymous accounts etc. Clear support means taking a clear stand. And this doesn’t seem to be ending.
  - cecja 6y ago
    You know you can talk about things like that in private and don't have to use a twitter horde to make your argument because you are providing none.
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    Why would you call out your colleague to take a public stand? You really don't see anything wrong with it? Wut? And if he didn't, the implication would be that he was racist, basically. Timnit doesn't take a stand on blacks attacking Asians on twitter either. Is she racist against Asians? Now let's go through 1000 other issues in the world! So, yeah, this whole charade of calling out your colleague to tweet about your cause on twitter is highly toxic.
    - loopz 6y ago
      They are both engaging on Twitter, and I don't see any calling out. Unless you find a good quote, that is just discussing, as adults should. It may be bad choice on them both professionally, but you're singling out one..
ajb 6y ago
Microsoft did fire Caspar Bowden though.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Cacti 6y ago

I haven’t seen any of the “smear campaign”, just what these two employees have written publicly and, honestly, they both seem like entitled self-absorbed pains in the ass who crap on everything around them just because they didn’t get their way, who view anyone who disagrees with them as an idiot (or worse, evil), and as completely unprofessional and poorly prepared to be dealing with something of such significance at a $50B company. These are people who should have never made it past individual contributer. There is a difference between pushing your company towards a better place and dropping bombs every time someone disagrees with you, a distinction neither of these two seem to realize.

2-tpg 6y ago

The political activist collective is slowly falling apart. If you get blamed for racism when firing an employee for telling colleagues not to pursue KPIs, there is not much you can do to continue placating these professional victims. They are now resorting to calling Google gaslighting for replacing Gebru with a Black person. It is low-brow ugly neo-racism, but then again, I don't really want Google AI in charge of AI ethics, with or without Gebru, so may the mess and reputation damage linger for a long time.

joshuamorton 6y ago
> They are now resorting to calling Google gaslighting for replacing Gebru with a Black person. The complaint isn't what they did, it's what they didn't do. There were no substantive policy changes that could address the underlying issues. Tokenism without change isn't improvement.
- mupuff1234 6y ago
  What are the underlying issues?
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Broadly there were two complaints: 1. Concerns about censorship of research critical of Google. 2. Concerns about diversity efforts within the Research organization. Replacing someone with a proven track record of being above-average on diversity work, even to his own detriment, and who was willing to fight for his reports when they were censored by higher ups (Samy) with someone who is at best an unknown quantity (Marian) does not instill confidence. Further, the claimed changes don't really do much. Supposedly, failures of DEI will be more impactful on perf for executives. Does that mean that the executives involved in this sequence of events will be dinged for mishandling this? My impression is no, or if anyone is, it'll be Samy. As a sidebar, there's also the more nefarious thought that if you're being judged on the diversity of your org, firing a black woman and then bringing in a black woman executive means you won't get dinged for DE&I failures. Hence: tokenism without addressing the underlying issues, which might be summed up as many of the employees have no confidence in management.
true_religion 6y ago
Who was Gebru replaced with? I couldn't find anything when I looked it up (ironically on Google).
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  She wasn't, really. For context, you had a reporting chain of Jeff Dean -> Megan Kacholia -> Samy Bengio -> Timnit Gebru/Meg Mitchell. Timnit and Meg have been fired. Samy appears to have been sidelined, despite everyone involved in the ethical work liking Samy and finding him willing to protect them. My best Guess is that Marian Croak (a Black woman who is currently an Engineering VP in an unrelated area) will approximately replace Megan Kacholia with Megan focusing on other areas, except that "ethical AI" was only a part of Samy's purview, much less Megan's, and its unclear if Marian is stepping down from her former position, or if she's going to split her time between ethical AI and completely unrelated work. So there are no direct leads of the ethics team currently. There's a VP in charge who has other significant responsibilities and relatively junior researchers (some of whom are very recent hires with limited experience), and no one in the middle. So any chance of mentorship is gone, and the system is quite clearly adversarial. Those researchers have lost their direct and skip level manager, with no clear replacement. Lovely.

Aunche 6y ago

If Google releases a statement defending themselves, it's a "smear campaign". If Google remains silent, it would be evidence that they were wrong.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

As can be seen above, current team members state that Google is running a smear campaign against both of them. We should emphatically not take Google's words at face value here either. I don’t get this. Google’s words are that she exfiltrated company documents. She either did or didn’t do this. And is google going to risk making this into a much bigger story by committing libel against a former employee? Or should AI ethics researchers be empowered to steal corporate documents? I try to maintain an open mind, but things seem almost straightforward in this case.

pseudalopex 6y ago
Google didn't say where she sent the documents. Forwarding emails to her own employment lawyers would be exfiltrating company documents technically.
- HunterWare 6y ago
  Isn’t that “actually” exfiltrating company documents? Not Google, but I don’t remember any of my NDAs mentioning that I couldn’t share confidential/privileged/company information unless I really wanted to with my lawyer...
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Laws override NDAs. Legal counsel is a common exception. Different jurisdictions have different specific rules. Your NDAs probably don't say you can cooperate with law enforcement investigations either. But it's very unlikely a court would say you can't.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      You still might need a legal order to obtain the documents.
      - pseudalopex 6y ago

ergocoder 6y ago

Timnit and her supporters are toxic. Can you imagine calling out your manager of manager on Twitter like this? https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278569638532530177 https://twitter.com/timnitGebru/status/1278569638532530177 Like wtf. This happened 6 months before Timnit was fired. I would absolutely not work with this person if they behaved like Timnit. She and her supporters are absolutely fired for being toxic. They are playing martyr.

loopz 6y ago
This tweet, what's wrong about it? Timnit Gebru Jul 2, 2020 Yep generally you did, thanks. But not about me, Deb and others being attacked by White supremacists, anonymous accounts etc. Clear support means taking a clear stand. And this doesn’t seem to be ending.
- cecja 6y ago
  You know you can talk about things like that in private and don't have to use a twitter horde to make your argument because you are providing none.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  Why would you call out your colleague to take a public stand? You really don't see anything wrong with it? Wut? And if he didn't, the implication would be that he was racist, basically. Timnit doesn't take a stand on blacks attacking Asians on twitter either. Is she racist against Asians? Now let's go through 1000 other issues in the world! So, yeah, this whole charade of calling out your colleague to tweet about your cause on twitter is highly toxic.
  - loopz 6y ago
    They are both engaging on Twitter, and I don't see any calling out. Unless you find a good quote, that is just discussing, as adults should. It may be bad choice on them both professionally, but you're singling out one..

ajb 6y ago

Microsoft did fire Caspar Bowden though.