4 ms·

> Whether I did or did not violate those policies is likely to eventually be the topic of litigation so I will not attempt to make a claim one way or the other

by 0des 4y ago

> Whether I did or did not violate those policies is likely to eventually be the topic of litigation so I will not attempt to make a claim one way or the other here. Instead I will tell the story of what I did and why I did it. Can someone please get OP a lawyer? > I had three choices. I could either drop the AI Ethics concern which I was becoming more and more convinced was a valid one, I could ignore my manager’s guidance and escalate without his approval or I could seek a minimal amount of outside consultation to help guide me in my investigations. I chose the last of the three. Welp.

DannyBee 4y ago
Yeah, i don't get it. This whole thing strikes of an amazing amount of, i don't know, immaturity? Something. This starts with "I expect this will be subject to litigation, so i'm going to just write a story that is not vetted carefully by anyone, nor am i going to engage legal representation prior to making a mess of things". If it was vetted by a lawyer, etc, they need a new lawyer. If nobody suggested they get one, they are being taken advantage of :( The violation/non-violation may eventually be the topic of litigation, but they have pretty much ensured they are not going to win that litigation. The level of care taken in that story is way too low (ie the whole thing about an investigation). It also may end up with an investigation of them! For example, it does not appear to have occurred to them that if they are actually correct about their view, it would be very material non-public information that would affect the future performance of the company . There are rules and guidance about how that kind of thing gets disclosed to the public. See, e.g. https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oia/oia_corpfin/princdisclos.pdf https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oia/oia_corpfin/princdiscl... There are also lots of examples of companies making disclosure of the fact that they are under federal investigation (though it seems like that may or may not be real) This is just one example of ways this person seems to have not thought through the legal parts. Others include, for example, the possible personal liability - none of the confidential info exposed here seems to fall into any meaningful class of protection - so, for example, if it has an affect on the stock price, or if someone is bored enough to argue it did, they can sue him personally (and if reading matt levine has taught me anything, it is that the number of people bored enough to sue claiming something is securities fraud is nearly infinite) I could go on - this is literally off the top of my head. Beyond that, the weirdest parts about not choosing option 2 is A. escalation "without approval" happens all the time. No approval is required to escalate. Part of the gig of being the next level manager is always deciding when to kick things back down or get involved. B. It's the obvious way to achieve the third option in a way that is okay by your employer (IE get inside or outside consultation to help you). After reading the blog and the article, it really comes off as "Everyone told me i was wrong, i really think i am right, and that it's super important, therefore i am going to do whatever i think is necessary to prove it". If you really think it's that important, have at it, but you should expect that once you go outside the bounds of what your job actually is, or what the job policies say is okay, you will have consequences (whistleblowing, etc, excepted, of course. This seems ... unlikely to meet any legal definition of these kinds of exceptions)
- 0des 4y ago
  Reading your comment made me realize I don't know of a single time a notable whistleblower was protected or didn't get dragged through the mud in media in the process.
  - DannyBee 4y ago
    It's quite rare. I know someone who specializes in representing federal whistleblowers (IE folks who actually have some force of law that should be protecting them) and even then it's a tough gig when it shouldn't be. At least in the US, most real whistleblower protection is for federal government employees or related to federal government functions (IE waste/fraud/etc that costs the government money, or reporting on people who violate various federal agency acts, like wildlife or environmental protection, or cheating on taxes, or ...) Here's a quick rundown of the largest federal laws: https://www.whistleblowers.org/major-u-s-whistleblower-laws/ https://www.whistleblowers.org/major-u-s-whistleblower-laws/ You can see they mostly are not about "person discloses something about private corporation". To the degree it's protected, that kind of thing is often just a side-effect of other laws (IE labor relations laws, environmental laws, etc). So like, if you were to disclose something that isn't a crime, but is bad for society (chemical company knows it is killing honey bees or whatever), it's not really going to be protected that well. Particularly if it's about private corporations. It would have to probably be something like "chemical company is dumping honey-bee killing chemical in the water" to be protected (under some environmental act they are violating or something)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by 0des 4y ago

DannyBee 4y ago

Yeah, i don't get it. This whole thing strikes of an amazing amount of, i don't know, immaturity? Something. This starts with "I expect this will be subject to litigation, so i'm going to just write a story that is not vetted carefully by anyone, nor am i going to engage legal representation prior to making a mess of things". If it was vetted by a lawyer, etc, they need a new lawyer. If nobody suggested they get one, they are being taken advantage of :( The violation/non-violation may eventually be the topic of litigation, but they have pretty much ensured they are not going to win that litigation. The level of care taken in that story is way too low (ie the whole thing about an investigation). It also may end up with an investigation of them! For example, it does not appear to have occurred to them that if they are actually correct about their view, it would be very material non-public information that would affect the future performance of the company . There are rules and guidance about how that kind of thing gets disclosed to the public. See, e.g. https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oia/oia_corpfin/princdisclos.pdf https://www.sec.gov/about/offices/oia/oia_corpfin/princdiscl... There are also lots of examples of companies making disclosure of the fact that they are under federal investigation (though it seems like that may or may not be real) This is just one example of ways this person seems to have not thought through the legal parts. Others include, for example, the possible personal liability - none of the confidential info exposed here seems to fall into any meaningful class of protection - so, for example, if it has an affect on the stock price, or if someone is bored enough to argue it did, they can sue him personally (and if reading matt levine has taught me anything, it is that the number of people bored enough to sue claiming something is securities fraud is nearly infinite) I could go on - this is literally off the top of my head. Beyond that, the weirdest parts about not choosing option 2 is A. escalation "without approval" happens all the time. No approval is required to escalate. Part of the gig of being the next level manager is always deciding when to kick things back down or get involved. B. It's the obvious way to achieve the third option in a way that is okay by your employer (IE get inside or outside consultation to help you). After reading the blog and the article, it really comes off as "Everyone told me i was wrong, i really think i am right, and that it's super important, therefore i am going to do whatever i think is necessary to prove it". If you really think it's that important, have at it, but you should expect that once you go outside the bounds of what your job actually is, or what the job policies say is okay, you will have consequences (whistleblowing, etc, excepted, of course. This seems ... unlikely to meet any legal definition of these kinds of exceptions)

0des 4y ago
Reading your comment made me realize I don't know of a single time a notable whistleblower was protected or didn't get dragged through the mud in media in the process.
- DannyBee 4y ago
  It's quite rare. I know someone who specializes in representing federal whistleblowers (IE folks who actually have some force of law that should be protecting them) and even then it's a tough gig when it shouldn't be. At least in the US, most real whistleblower protection is for federal government employees or related to federal government functions (IE waste/fraud/etc that costs the government money, or reporting on people who violate various federal agency acts, like wildlife or environmental protection, or cheating on taxes, or ...) Here's a quick rundown of the largest federal laws: https://www.whistleblowers.org/major-u-s-whistleblower-laws/ https://www.whistleblowers.org/major-u-s-whistleblower-laws/ You can see they mostly are not about "person discloses something about private corporation". To the degree it's protected, that kind of thing is often just a side-effect of other laws (IE labor relations laws, environmental laws, etc). So like, if you were to disclose something that isn't a crime, but is bad for society (chemical company knows it is killing honey bees or whatever), it's not really going to be protected that well. Particularly if it's about private corporations. It would have to probably be something like "chemical company is dumping honey-bee killing chemical in the water" to be protected (under some environmental act they are violating or something)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]