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So, I work in medical research and was headhunted by (but turned down) Juul to work on sponsored trials and research related to smoking cessation and health imp

So, I work in medical research and was headhunted by (but turned down) Juul to work on sponsored trials and research related to smoking cessation and health improvement in patients who are switching to pods. Per the article, "Google has recruited top scientists with promises of research freedom, but the limits are tested as researchers increasingly write about the negative effects of technology and offer unflattering perspectives on their employer's products." Like... these AI researchers are delusional if they think their work is truly unbiased and that they can work at a company and get paid by that company to produce unbiased research. If I took that job at Juul even though it was ridiculous $$ I would have known what I was getting into and who was buttering my bread. It's either sell your soul and move to industry and enjoy the industry $$ or stay in academia and enjoy your moral purity and being able to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day but not being able to buy a house in the Bay Area.

loopz 6y ago
I don't know. On the surface of it, it seems a very good opportunity to work in an area with lots of potential, but which also need lots of regulations. You get to ensure decisions by machines will improve lives and not be unintentionally biased by any means. It's also good money, knowledgeable peers and pretty wide net for R&D. Good times! It's just a bitch that for-profit company lobby for no regulations, and fire people who speak up to power. However, we all know company culture do not tolerate speaking up to power. So these people also went about it the wrong way, and going public too soon over something that was just theoretical. What you need to do is gather evidence, and escalate as security violations internally. Use the proper channels. This is harder work than crying wolf, obviously.
- randycupertino 6y ago
  > However, we all know company culture do not tolerate speaking up to power. So these people also went about it the wrong way, and going public too soon over something that was just theoretical. What you need to do is gather evidence, and escalate as security violations internally. Use the proper channels. This is harder work than crying wolf, obviously. This is incredibly spot-on way to describe navigating through delicate office channels to create change and also not ruffle too many feathers. Well said! Can you sit on my shoulder please and advise me real-time throughout my career? Comments like this are why hacker news is so much better than reddit!
pydry 6y ago
It's funny how google started off with such a good reputation and managed to end up with "you can't expect them to be any better than drug hawkers".
- nickserv 6y ago
  The price of success I suppose.
  - bartvk 6y ago
    I think there's more to it. First is that they made their data collection much more sophisticated, and second is that people seem to be paying more attention to data collection in general.
Udik 6y ago
I don't think the comparison holds. Juul's business is that of selling nicotine pods, as many as possible- there doesn't seem to be much wiggle space there. Google's business is not that of selling AIs, much less that of selling unethical AIs. It seems there's plenty of space for constructive research on how to improve, or at least monitor, Google products for better results. It seems that the issue here is that Google didn't hire dispassionate ethical researchers able to deal with a wide range of ethical issues; instead it hired activists with a precise, narrow agenda. People who think that the world itself is biased (including the company they work for and their own management) and that Google should change its products to enact a change upon it. Once these activists have found themselves cuddled the most powerful company in the world and showered with praise and money, it seems their egos just started inflating until they burst.
Aeolun 6y ago
> or stay in academia and enjoy your moral purity I have a very hard time believing you can retain much moral purity after all the publish, publish, publish, grants and will they or won’t they tenure drama. At least the motives of the company hiring you to do research for them are clear.
jariel 6y ago
Different companies, different industries, different rules. Researchers can publish anything they like as long as it's uncontroversial. Google sponsors tons of work for which there is no oversight. But if you're going to directly make the company look bad, then yes, it's delusional. It's one thing to protect whistle blowers, it's another thing to make bad public statements. The previously fired researcher wanted to demonstrate how training AI was energy intensive and that was a problem, though in the grand scheme it may not be i.e. it's not as though model training is a primary source of energy draw. Google wanted to review the work and asked her to include more recent information about how Google had actually improved energy consumption process given the old data set from the research. That's perfectly reasonable. Corporate HQ asks the researcher to include more recent data which doesn't make the company look so bad? On a scale of 1-10 in terms of interference that's a 1 or 2. I suggest the vast majority of researchers would be fine with that, and consider it ethical. Juul probably hires scientists more along the lines of cigarette companies wanting to provide science to show that cigarette smoking is not harmful. That's another thing altogether.
notSupplied 6y ago
They wanted both the FAANG level compensation AND the academic freedom. They ought to know their role in this machine is akin to Big Sugar tricking the country into believing that fat was the real evil for 5 decades. My wish is for companies to stop outputting "research" and researchers to work for the correctly aligned institutions...and accept the pay cut that comes with it.

loopz 6y ago

I don't know. On the surface of it, it seems a very good opportunity to work in an area with lots of potential, but which also need lots of regulations. You get to ensure decisions by machines will improve lives and not be unintentionally biased by any means. It's also good money, knowledgeable peers and pretty wide net for R&D. Good times! It's just a bitch that for-profit company lobby for no regulations, and fire people who speak up to power. However, we all know company culture do not tolerate speaking up to power. So these people also went about it the wrong way, and going public too soon over something that was just theoretical. What you need to do is gather evidence, and escalate as security violations internally. Use the proper channels. This is harder work than crying wolf, obviously.

randycupertino 6y ago
> However, we all know company culture do not tolerate speaking up to power. So these people also went about it the wrong way, and going public too soon over something that was just theoretical. What you need to do is gather evidence, and escalate as security violations internally. Use the proper channels. This is harder work than crying wolf, obviously. This is incredibly spot-on way to describe navigating through delicate office channels to create change and also not ruffle too many feathers. Well said! Can you sit on my shoulder please and advise me real-time throughout my career? Comments like this are why hacker news is so much better than reddit!

pydry 6y ago

It's funny how google started off with such a good reputation and managed to end up with "you can't expect them to be any better than drug hawkers".

nickserv 6y ago
The price of success I suppose.
- bartvk 6y ago
  I think there's more to it. First is that they made their data collection much more sophisticated, and second is that people seem to be paying more attention to data collection in general.

Udik 6y ago

I don't think the comparison holds. Juul's business is that of selling nicotine pods, as many as possible- there doesn't seem to be much wiggle space there. Google's business is not that of selling AIs, much less that of selling unethical AIs. It seems there's plenty of space for constructive research on how to improve, or at least monitor, Google products for better results. It seems that the issue here is that Google didn't hire dispassionate ethical researchers able to deal with a wide range of ethical issues; instead it hired activists with a precise, narrow agenda. People who think that the world itself is biased (including the company they work for and their own management) and that Google should change its products to enact a change upon it. Once these activists have found themselves cuddled the most powerful company in the world and showered with praise and money, it seems their egos just started inflating until they burst.

Aeolun 6y ago

> or stay in academia and enjoy your moral purity I have a very hard time believing you can retain much moral purity after all the publish, publish, publish, grants and will they or won’t they tenure drama. At least the motives of the company hiring you to do research for them are clear.

jariel 6y ago

Different companies, different industries, different rules. Researchers can publish anything they like as long as it's uncontroversial. Google sponsors tons of work for which there is no oversight. But if you're going to directly make the company look bad, then yes, it's delusional. It's one thing to protect whistle blowers, it's another thing to make bad public statements. The previously fired researcher wanted to demonstrate how training AI was energy intensive and that was a problem, though in the grand scheme it may not be i.e. it's not as though model training is a primary source of energy draw. Google wanted to review the work and asked her to include more recent information about how Google had actually improved energy consumption process given the old data set from the research. That's perfectly reasonable. Corporate HQ asks the researcher to include more recent data which doesn't make the company look so bad? On a scale of 1-10 in terms of interference that's a 1 or 2. I suggest the vast majority of researchers would be fine with that, and consider it ethical. Juul probably hires scientists more along the lines of cigarette companies wanting to provide science to show that cigarette smoking is not harmful. That's another thing altogether.

notSupplied 6y ago

They wanted both the FAANG level compensation AND the academic freedom. They ought to know their role in this machine is akin to Big Sugar tricking the country into believing that fat was the real evil for 5 decades. My wish is for companies to stop outputting "research" and researchers to work for the correctly aligned institutions...and accept the pay cut that comes with it.