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Amazing that they fired Timnit Gebru [1][2] after she pushed back against the removal of this very subject from one of her research papers, [3] only to publish

Amazing that they fired Timnit Gebru [1][2] after she pushed back against the removal of this very subject from one of her research papers, [3] only to publish their own work on it without mentioning her. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/technology/google-images-voters.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/31/technology/google-images-... [2] https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2017/03/02/a-machine-learning-census-of-americas-cities https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2017/03/02/... [3] https://www.theverge.com/22309962/timnit-gebru-google-harassment-campaign-jeff-dean https://www.theverge.com/22309962/timnit-gebru-google-harass...

aceon48 5y ago
"Fired" aka she said I'm resigning unless you meet my list of demands, and they accepted her resignation.
- monocasa 5y ago
  She said that they could discuss a possible resignation when she returned from her preplanned vacation. They said don't bother you don't work here anymore. Threatening to resign is no more resigning than threatening to fire is actually firing.
  - srvmshr 5y ago
    Threatening your employer and sending mutinous emails usually doesn't bode well for employment on a private corp, no matter how righteous the cause.
FartyMcFarter 5y ago
Was Timnit's paper related to reinforcement learning at all? Not sure how you're concluding that the papers have much similarity.
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  See this article [1] on the retracted paper. The article says: "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources,” they write." Meanwhile TFA concludes: "We are simply urging researchers to consider smaller-scale environments as a valuable tool in their investigations, and reviewers to avoid dismissing empirical work that focuses on smaller-scale environments. By doing so, in addition to reducing the environmental impact of our experiments, we will get both a clearer picture of the research landscape and reduce the barriers for researchers from diverse and often underresourced communities, which can only help make our community and scientific advances stronger." Looking more closely: Gebru: "It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources" TFA: "We are simply urging researchers to consider smaller-scale environments... and ... to avoid dismissing empirical work that focuses on smaller-scale environments. ... in addition to reducing the environmental impact of our experiments, we will ...reduce the barriers for researchers from diverse and often underresourced communities" So yes the similarity is striking. In fact its remarkable that google fired Gebru for questioning the retraction of the paper only to realize that these factors must be considered and then to publish nearly the same message six months later. Having worked at Google, I think they wanted Gebru to sugar coat the message more. That’s what they’ve done in TFA. But in doing so they’ve also taken away a publishing opportunity from a talented black woman (who they just proved right) and I think that’s a shame. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a...
  - pas 5y ago
    > google fired ____ for questioning .... This is the Google way apparently. They fired Damore too for pointing out that either the diversity effort is an intended sham, or it's so unscientific that it's useless.
  - 5y ago

aceon48 5y ago

"Fired" aka she said I'm resigning unless you meet my list of demands, and they accepted her resignation.

monocasa 5y ago
She said that they could discuss a possible resignation when she returned from her preplanned vacation. They said don't bother you don't work here anymore. Threatening to resign is no more resigning than threatening to fire is actually firing.
- srvmshr 5y ago
  Threatening your employer and sending mutinous emails usually doesn't bode well for employment on a private corp, no matter how righteous the cause.

FartyMcFarter 5y ago

Was Timnit's paper related to reinforcement learning at all? Not sure how you're concluding that the papers have much similarity.

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
See this article [1] on the retracted paper. The article says: "Gebru’s draft paper points out that the sheer resources required to build and sustain such large AI models means they tend to benefit wealthy organizations, while climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. “It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources,” they write." Meanwhile TFA concludes: "We are simply urging researchers to consider smaller-scale environments as a valuable tool in their investigations, and reviewers to avoid dismissing empirical work that focuses on smaller-scale environments. By doing so, in addition to reducing the environmental impact of our experiments, we will get both a clearer picture of the research landscape and reduce the barriers for researchers from diverse and often underresourced communities, which can only help make our community and scientific advances stronger." Looking more closely: Gebru: "It is past time for researchers to prioritize energy efficiency and cost to reduce negative environmental impact and inequitable access to resources" TFA: "We are simply urging researchers to consider smaller-scale environments... and ... to avoid dismissing empirical work that focuses on smaller-scale environments. ... in addition to reducing the environmental impact of our experiments, we will ...reduce the barriers for researchers from diverse and often underresourced communities" So yes the similarity is striking. In fact its remarkable that google fired Gebru for questioning the retraction of the paper only to realize that these factors must be considered and then to publish nearly the same message six months later. Having worked at Google, I think they wanted Gebru to sugar coat the message more. That’s what they’ve done in TFA. But in doing so they’ve also taken away a publishing opportunity from a talented black woman (who they just proved right) and I think that’s a shame. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-a...
- pas 5y ago
  > google fired ____ for questioning .... This is the Google way apparently. They fired Damore too for pointing out that either the diversity effort is an intended sham, or it's so unscientific that it's useless.
- 5y ago