It seems to me like we have two different people arguing about 2 (maybe 3) completely different things when it comes to this Gebru situation.
1 - Google fired Gebru for trying to push a paper that presented google in a negative light. Doing so by creating special magic policies for her and then telling her she was fired. The concern in this case appears to be the fact that Google is suppressing criticism and ignoring it's own Ethics department and this is an example of morality being destroyed for profit.
2.- Gebru acted in an incredibly unprofessional manner following instruction to retract a paper, including posting charged complaints and accusations on an internal company mailing list as well as demanding to have revealed to her the identities of people that reviewed her paper and found it wanting. Those in this camp seem to generally accept that her firing was a result of unprofessional behavior from an employee that was disruptive to the organization. They then see that Google accepted her offer of having her demands met or working on an exit date as a reasonable business decision [See note], and see the subsequent drama as an attempt to draw attention to herself. Ultimately they see it as removing a toxic employee.
I don't really know what my point is but it seems in these comments we generally have 2 totally different discussions going on with one side lambasting the other for being ignorant, naive, or clueless.
Note: Also point of clarification that I don't see often asserted, it is SOP to remove a disgruntled employee's access to everything as quickly as possible after (or often before) termination in order to prevent them from using their access in a manner detrimental to the company.
I think the synthesis of both of these narratives goes like this:
Google had been wanting to get rid of Gebru for a while, for both good reasons (based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her) and bad (retaliation against the lawsuit she filed last year, which is both unlawful and incredibly unethical). They picked this paper as what must have seemed like a clean reason when she made the threat to resign, but taking her up on that threat has blown up in their face because everyone can see their supposed rationale doesn't hold water.
Taken as a whole, neither side looks particularly sympathetic, which makes it easy for partisans to latch onto the bad behavior of whomever they dislike.
It’s abundantly clear that Google was itching to get rid of her. They probably couldn’t believe her luck when she (stupidly) tried to bully them with not just a threat of resignation, but an actual statement of “I will resign on date XXX”.
I also don’t believe that Google would have done this for no reason (given her behaviour during the LeCunn incident) so I’m sympathetic towards Google’s conduct. If Gebru had simply come out and said “Google tried to censor my paper and so I was forced to resign”, I would be thinking very differently.
I don’t believe anyone has claimed she said “I will resign on date XXX.” The wording I think she and Dean have said she used was “or I will work on a last date” or something. As in “or I’ll work on figuring out what my last date at google will be.”
That's not SOP at Google except in very limited circumstances. When I resigned, I told my manager and we negotiated an exit date 2 weeks after. I volunteered to give up my laptop early etc and not come into the office, but they really wanted me to finish up. People who steal or leak, however, could be terminated immediately and walked out by security. I guess also if you worked on a competitive product and changed to a competitor, they'd walk you out, too.
> ...based on her emails and tweets she does indeed seem like an incredibly toxic personality and I sure wouldn't want to work anywhere near her...
I agree I wouldn't want her reporting to me, but is it really that hard to fire someone in California? From the outside Google management seems to endorse solidly left-leaning politics, so while anything is possible it seems unlikely that they objected to her views or activism. If they think she is toxic, it follows that they likely had actual reasons - and if there are actual reasons someone is a bad employee then they can be fired in my experience.
That lends some credence to the retaliation theory. If they can't expel her for good reasons, grab the first half-baked opportunity.
Employment in California is “at will”, meaning that absent extenuating circumstances (such as a written contract) either the employee or the employer can terminate the relationship at any time, without cause. So, it’s not hard to terminate someone in California, but nonetheless employers are hesitant to terminate employees without cause, probably for fear of being sued.
I think it has to do with lawsuits being highly visible whereas underperforming employees are sort of an invisible cost. So, the risk assessment focuses on the rare but highly visible occurrence rather than the ongoing cost of continuing to employ someone who isn’t productive.
Just guessing. I don’t really understand this phenomenon.
What makes it even more perplexing for me is that most companies require you to sign an arbitration agreement, which significantly reduces both the cost of a legal conflict as well as the risk of an extreme verdict being rendered.
And yet, my perception is that companies often resist terminating problem or unproductive employees due to the perceived risk of being sued.
Discriminating against a member of a protected class is against the law, so perhaps they are worried about being accused of that?
Google can afford lawyers and PR to deal with an employment lawsuit but a lot of smaller companies don't feel like they can.
I had an experience once where a toxic, delusional, pathological liar of an employee was hired and started making up wild accusations about their coworkers on day 1. They then proceeded to do no work and had their role at the company progressively minimized so that they could have satisfactory performance for how little they were doing (and couldn't do much damage). There was no way the company was going to fire them and thankfully after a couple of years they decided to quit, despite making their entire team miserable that whole time.
The solution to dealing with such a person is a transfer, TDY for successive three month periods around the country (including Alaska in the winter), requiring reimbursement of hotel bills (i.e., no cash advance). You'll find the disgruntled employee resigns quickly, usually after the first safari.
I mostly agree, but on the other hand, if you were Google and wanted to fire Gebru, how would you do it? It's not like there's a better alternative, just firing her normally would probably have been worse.
She has the (public) sympathy (of some fraction) of her direct (subordinate) team.
You can have the loyalty of a couple of close coworkers and still be toxic for the company as a whole, if you don't have professional interactions with other teams, or with your own managers.
I mean, there’s no counter petition (nor should there be) so it’s pretty tough to know whether those 1,200+ are representative.
Where I work, if someone is ousted, people might talk about the person’s toxicity or whatever got them fired one on one or in small groups, in a pretty off the record kind of way.
I’d bet the people who agree with the petition think it’s representative and the people who disagree think it’s not representative (“people are generally like me” is a reasonable prior).
For me, it's the fact it seems Google was quite willing to keep her around and keep allowing her be so toxic people felt they had to go to HR and anonymously give feedback and that they didn't just fire her straight away for publishing a paper they didn't like.
Point 1 sounds a bit like the Hundred Flowers Campaign. Mao invited critics to openly express opinions on how to improve the communist party, then one year later, rounded up those who did under the Anti-Rightist Campaign for persecution and executions.
I think there is a little bit of a difference between a prominent researcher being let go from Google and a revolutionary dictator performing a genocidal purge of people on suspicion of disloyalty.
Well, Damore was fired after being explicitly invited to give feedback. Probably anyone at Google who agrees with the firing is going to keep their head down because why risk being chopped like Damore was?
> Cynthia Yeung, an industry veteran who spent five years at Google, put it bluntly: "Maybe the trade-off should be more clearly spelled out so researchers can make informed decisions before they accept a job offer: You get paid academic salaries in exchange for intellectual freedom, and you get paid Silicon Valley salaries in exchange for allowing your name/likeness to be used for brand/PR purposes and your research to be censored arbitrarily."
this case had nothing to do with censorship though. It was Gebru' unprofessional conduct - she gave ultimatum to her managers demanding to disclose names of the reviewers who criticized her work or she would resign, and broadcasting emails to entire team literally calling for sabotage.
Her behavior fits the definition of 'toxic employee', it was unprofessional by any standard.
You choose to trust the words of the man that did the firing vs. the corroborated stories of dozens of Google Brain researchers that contradict his corporate messaging. Don't take corporate's word as "what happened:" that's about as naive as taking a police's side as the "truth."
It's a "boy who cried wolf" for me. I've seen these activists promoting lies to us the entire summer of protests for completely made-up causes. I've seen them distorting facts and pushing misinformation through media. I've also seen them bullying people via social media 'witch hunts', which is happening now with Jeff Dean, Nando de Freitas and whoever stands in their way.
The whole activism movement is toxic and whoever brings it to the workplace.
> The whole activism movement is toxic and whoever brings it to the workplace.
Why do you find people that are putting in the work to bring fairer, more just, and more even-handed application of human rights to all corners of society "toxic"?
What are you afraid of, or believe is "toxic", by removing the gap in privilege* that exists between white men and everyone else?
What I see is a bunch of bullies forcing their opinions on everyone else, spreading lies and propaganda on media, attacking and 'cancelling' anyone who stands in their way.
Whatever seed of 'social justice' motivation was there, the activist movement completely discredited themselves, and the ideas they so aggressively promote. And the more I interact with them the more it seems their primary motivation is promoting themselves.
If you push someone until you know they will break by being difficult and stupid to them you lose the ability to point to them and say "well that's unprofessional". Given that this is a company vs a person, odds are better than 90% that they just wanted to be rid of her and pushed her until they could.
Sadly, there is no intellectual freedom in academic world either. These days, the only way to intellectual freedom left is anonymity, and even then you have to be careful to not be doxed by New York Times.
There is intellectual freedom if you have enough cash in the bank to last you a lifetime. Then, feel free to offend anyone with your opinions as you cannot die from starvation.
No room for gentlemen scientists when there are plethoras of people out there who will happily crucify you and negate everything you've achieved if you happen to have the slightest social dent in your image.
To be untouchable be openly degenerate & filthy rich.
It's really hard to think from reading that memo that they have any intention of making changes related to the core issue. It more or less read to me "look at all the things we're already doing" + "oops this really was a fuck up wasn't it, but too late I guess so we're going to try more things we were already doing to fix this".
In context, it only makes sense. Google is not going to admit in a memo that they have a structural problem with either race or ethics, but it still is ever so slightly disappointing to see this treated more or less as an internal PR issue and not a moment to look in the mirror.
The real mismatch here is what people think the core issue is vs what Google thinks the core issue is. From the memo, Google seems to think that some processes or policies would have prevented this. What it seems to me is that the general public sees a misalignment / direct conflict of values between Gebru's work and points and Google's profit / business. I think Google knows this internally but can't say the quiet part out loud.
Anyone getting tired of those toxic PC enthusiasts who stirs a fight in a team accusing its leadership for being incorrect on sensitive issues?
I don't know if Gebru actually qualifies aside the matters of ethical AI. In my experience those people who work in engineering who sidewalks into some non-engineering matters often lack skills to compete where most do, and decided to leverage their incompetency with some other topics. And Gebru is doing exactly that in Google.
You can't possibly be for real. You don't know her qualifications, so you assume she doesn't have any. Then you come up with a straw-man of "non-engineers lacking skills" and assign that to her! You're more willing to assign traits you made up to her than look up what she's actually capable of!
My other response was flagged for a part that was distracting to the main point, so I'm going to repost it without that part:
If you've been in academia for awhile you've seen this happen time and time again. Student does excellently in undergrad, masters, phd coursework but when it comes to making real technical contributions, they hit a wall. It was a clever move by her to use her pedigree to pivot into "AI ethics" where the standards for publishing are much lower (as we can see from this draft that was circulated).
I personally think it was this tweet that sealed her fate at Google. Calling out your leadership unecessarily with a tweet about white supremacy is just insane.
If you don't know her qualifications outside of ethical AI, you can't possibly know if "Gebru is doing exactly that in Google"
People's motivations and ambitions vary. She may be very skilled in all things AI and yet choose the role she had and choose that hill to die on.
It's like when you see an official's nephew get a plum job at a large corp. Sure, it's possible that they legitimately got there on their merits, but if you give them the benefit of the doubt then you'll get taken for a ride by the bad actors, and you don't have the time or ability to check the details.
>Anyone getting tired of those toxic PC enthusiasts who stirs a fight in a team accusing its leadership for being incorrect on sensitive issues?
In general? Yes. When it comes to the snakes FAANG have created biting the hand that feeds on the industry stage? No. I absolutely love to watch their internal dramas spill out for all to see or, if you're smart, take warning from.
>I don't know if Gebru actually qualifies aside the matters of ethical AI. In my experience those people who work in engineering who sidewalks into some non-engineering matters often lack skills to compete where most do, and decided to leverage their incompetency with some other topics. And Gebru is doing exactly that in Google.
Not in a position to comment on this person's credentials or skills but I don't personally begrudge the type of grifter you're talking about. Most of us are merely trying to optimize for income and they're no different, and their success is a result of poor leadership in companies and/or society.
I'm not seeing the connection between your comment and the Gerbu's firing.
As I understand it Gerbu was hired as an academic to do research into AI ethics (her field of study). She was fired, in part, due to a disagreement around the contents of a paper she was publishing.
Where is the sidewalking into engineering matters?
I haven’t the foggiest idea what “sidewalking into engineering matters” (from the parent comment) means. Is that a British expression? I’ve only ever heard “sidewalk” used as a noun.
She is eminently qualified to do ML research, and established an excellent position in ethical ML. I don't think this is a fair criticism of her abilities.
I think a lot of the commentary is incredibly naive about the chain of events. It may be that this researcher was a complete arsehole, who despite this had managed to climb to a well respected position in Google and within the community in her area of expertise.
However, I think it's much more likely her toxic behaviour is a direct result of her being put into an extremely difficult position by her employer. Her job is to publish research on the ethics of the AI work that Google is doing. But by the sounds of it, Google want to block her from actually publishing anything critical. It would be one thing to say that her work was unsound, but that doesn't really seem to have happened. Instead there seems to be the classic corporate pocket veto. They don't want her publishing something critical, but they also want the PR of having respected AI ethics researchers. So they don't say she can't publish critical work, they just won't let her publish critical work. And when she asks why she can't publish critical work... well she can publish critical work Google has always been very clear that she's free to publish critical work. So she can publish the work? No. No you can't publish the work. That would make me pretty crazy too. I don't she's handled it well, but at the end of the day she's a person and she's facing her job basically being taken from her (and arguably finding out she's been a useful idiot for quite a while).
It's pretty clear here that Google wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants to tell the world that it's got respected scientists doing research into the ethics of their AI work, but they don't actually want researcher to do research about the ethics of their AI work because a lot of what they're doing is unethical.
Three times he uses the word "departure" as if this were her decision. The last reference uses the word "left," reinforcing the position that Google didn't fire her.
Have no doubt: this CYA text was massaged and went through several HR and in-house GC revisions, and maybe even a few round-trips to outside labor litigation counsel.
In other words, this statement is pure CYA and litigation-defensive. They're terrified of a racial discrimination lawsuit.
I hope that Timnit can find her way to the courthouse. I'd love to cross-examine Pichai with this statement in hand. He would deny that these were his words. He would say that he would have expressed it differently. He would say that he wasn't involved with the firing decision: every time the question is asked, the noun used is "termination" and not departure.
The only question remaining, assuming Timnit does file, is quanta of damages.
It looks to be partly her decision, if I'm reading The Verge correctly:
"After the email went out, Gebru told managers that certain conditions had to be met in order for her to stay at the company. Otherwise, she would have to work on a transition plan."
In what legal universe could she claim any damages at all, after making it clear that she was quite happy to resign if her ultimatum wasn't met? And with no evidence anywhere that her 'departure' was racially motivated? Are Californian courts really so biased that they'd see racism in a situation where the employee had been planning to sue her own employer, in an at will state?
My initial reaction to this was to support the underdog and vilify the big corporation. But then I read her responses online and found it to be extremely unprofessional. And also read her interactions with "Yann Lecun", someone who I respect a lot. The way she attacked Yann, even after his apologies is unacceptable. It's fine to be an SJW but it's not okay to bully others for your beliefs.
Including this line from the previous NYT article as some seem to be confused about firings: "The company responded to her email, she said, by saying it could not meet her demands and that her resignation was accepted immediately" - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/03/technology/google-researc...
I think the outcome of the investigation will be that Megan jumped the gun when she prematurely terminated Timnit, and Google will pay Timnit a bunch of money in a private settlement. It's unlikely Megan will see any real punishment for it, though- she's a favorite of Jeff's and is well-protected by HR.
This is a power conflict between the capitalists and the social justice warriors.
The last several years, the SJWs have progressively increased their power. The capitalists have adopted the clothing so that their power isn’t undermined.
The SJWs are seeing how much further they can push. The capitalists are deciding what trinkets they can give away without relinquishing real power.
Eventually, the SJWs will be paid off, destroyed, win completely, or gain seats on the table and then it will be in their interests to preserve the power structure and oppress another group of people.
Look at the Biden cabinet as seats on the table for groups that play nice with the Democratic Party or those that they want to court.
When Gebru presented her demand letter and resignation threat James Dean probably thought she had no leverage and moved quickly against her. That was an extremely poor calculation.
Minor nitpick but I think he's called 'Jeff Dean', one of the co-author of the map-reduce paper. It will be interesting to see whether Google CEO is ready to sacrifice the 'nerd faction' in favor of the 'intersectional faction' of Google, or if he is ready to take the heat.
1 - Google fired Gebru for trying to push a paper that presented google in a negative light. Doing so by creating special magic policies for her and then telling her she was fired. The concern in this case appears to be the fact that Google is suppressing criticism and ignoring it's own Ethics department and this is an example of morality being destroyed for profit.
2.- Gebru acted in an incredibly unprofessional manner following instruction to retract a paper, including posting charged complaints and accusations on an internal company mailing list as well as demanding to have revealed to her the identities of people that reviewed her paper and found it wanting. Those in this camp seem to generally accept that her firing was a result of unprofessional behavior from an employee that was disruptive to the organization. They then see that Google accepted her offer of having her demands met or working on an exit date as a reasonable business decision [See note], and see the subsequent drama as an attempt to draw attention to herself. Ultimately they see it as removing a toxic employee.
I don't really know what my point is but it seems in these comments we generally have 2 totally different discussions going on with one side lambasting the other for being ignorant, naive, or clueless.
Note: Also point of clarification that I don't see often asserted, it is SOP to remove a disgruntled employee's access to everything as quickly as possible after (or often before) termination in order to prevent them from using their access in a manner detrimental to the company.