[freditup]

> Interviewer: I suppose if you think that, the next obvious question is do you think Google itself is institutionally racist?

> Dr. Gebru: Yes, Google itself is institutionally racist.

> Interviewer: That's quite a thing to say - you were a Google employee until a short while ago.

> Dr. Gebru: I feel like most if not all tech companies are institutionally racist. I mean, how can I not say that they are not institutionally racist? The Congressional Black Caucus is the one who's forcing them to publish their diversity numbers. It's not by accident that black women have one of the lowest retention rates[, in the technology industry]. So for sure Google and all of the other tech companies are institutionally racist.

There's not really much to discuss or unpack here. There's no defining of 'institutionally racist' in the conversation, so it's impossible to say what standards are being using to determine if something is institutionally racist. Dr. Gebru also provides essentially no facts or evidence for her claims.

Asking if organizations are racist is a fair question, but the conversation will basically only be productive if terms are clearly defined and accusations are based on concrete evidence.

This seems like it was a very casual interview, so I'm not faulting Dr. Gebru for not providing more evidence here, just saying that this interview is not super helpful in the larger conversation around racism. Because an accusation of racism is a serious accusation to make, I wish in these situations that there was more substantiated evidence provided.

[yokaze]

> Dr. Gebru also provides essentially no facts or evidence for her claims

Your quote of hers contains two facts right there in the answer.

Also in the interview, she argues that she's being fired in contrast to "complicated" white male colleagues are usually encouraged to leave quietly (E.g. Andy Rubin).

[leoh]

It is arguably disappointing. Yet she is deeply upset and doubtlessly experiencing a severe degree of stress at the moment. Thus, I would cut her some slack here. Although an explicit, concrete, pedagogical discussion would be helpful, I don't think it's fair to expect it from her at the moment.

[FiberBundle]

Cut her some slack? She's making extremely harsh accusations without any kind of evidence. Why is it that these people have seemingly unlimited leeway in their statements whereas any just slightly politically incorrect statement can cost other people their careers?

[corty]

In addition, her research revolves around some definition of AI racism. At least one would expect some definition to be used. Not providing a definition or proof (or at least some indications) in the topic that is literally her specialty is somewhat remarkable, even if she is in distress...

[leoh]

Supposing you were terminated, in your view, without just cause; that you had issued what you viewed as an entirely reasonable ultimatum — the grounds of which, in this case, you can read about. Certainly there is a good chance you would be deeply upset, too, and might find it difficult to engage with individuals who are, by default, skeptical of her; i.e. to take a continued, defensive (as opposed to "offensive") stance. For the sake of argument: I would perhaps argue that the skepticism itself, which is held by many in tech at the moment, could be collectively considered institutionally racist.

[HexagonalKitten]

> For the sake of argument: I would perhaps argue that the skepticism itself, which is held by many in tech at the moment, could be collectively considered institutionally racist.

Well, if all racism is, is some deserved skepticism then I guess it isn't at all important. Or, is that not the message you're trying to send?

You aren't steel-manning Gebru's points, you're weakening the entire argument until what you hear she's said could be made to fit.

> you had issued what you viewed as an entirely reasonable ultimatum

That's 100% incompatible with asking for the identities of your anonymous reviewers. Even if you were to demonstrate a problem with a anonymous you do it with the label 'Reviewer 1'. That's how it's been done forever and it should be obvious why.

[HexagonalKitten]

All of which is caused by her going public with vague accusations. Had she not fought with her boss, and made the unreasonable demand of knowing who her anonymous reviewers were, she'd be able to have a nice quiet talk with a lawyer while still on the payroll, and eventually write a well sourced article about it once she left calmly and under her own power.

So no. You don't get slack once you make heinous public allegations. You'd better have your ducks in a row before attempting to tear someone down.

[geofft]

> made the unreasonable demand of knowing who her anonymous reviewers were

Why is this unreasonable?

First, they were not her reviewers. She got her paper approved by the normal, written process, i.e., a reviewer reviewed it and accepted it and thereby gave her formal permission to publish it. Then management said that anonymous people had concerns.

Furthermore, the review process does not involve anonymous review. And no similar process does. (This was not scientific peer review: no scientific process has peer reviewers from one's own institution. This was pre-submission review, and the venue would have appointed anonymous peer reviewers, almost certainly avoiding reviewers from the same institution specifically to avoid conflicts of interest.)

A more analogous process would be code review. If I made a code review, a coworker approved it, and my skip-manager said "This was reverted because some people said we couldn't ship it, but I'm not telling you who," I'd feel entirely justified in objecting. (This process is neither scientific peer review nor code review, but it's much closer to code review.)

[HexagonalKitten]

> First, they were not her reviewers.

They reviewed her paper, so tautologically they were. You seem to be suggesting that this was inappropriate though, yes?

> Furthermore, the review process does not involve anonymous review. And no similar process does.

Nope. I'm in an SV company similar to two FAANGs and it totally does. If you submit a paper and want the company to sponsor it, you'd better believe it does. Before your manager lets you even start the process on work time they'll have you meet with others above you to review the idea, and it goes to both your team's architecture review board (in engineering) and an adjacent team's review board. The reviewers aren't anonymous, quite, because you can look at who's in the groups, but they boil the requests down and present it as a list, not a set of feedback. You can ask to have anything reviewed, because it's not a one-and-done process. Some people sail through, others do it as an iterative process. And then legal looks at everything and they insist on seeing the final release version, even if you only tweaked a comma.

Of course they're stringent though, this is a new project you're proposing to release with their name on it, made in lieu of your other job.

> This was not scientific peer review: no scientific process has peer reviewers from one's own institution.

Generally your research institution, in your subfield, won't have more than 5-10 actual peers and they're all assumed to know you and probably your work. So it's not that it can't be, it's that it's usually not useful.

> almost certainly avoiding reviewers from the same institution specifically to avoid conflicts of interest.

Google has multiple interests. They're very concerned with their reputation and even if the paper didn't need more peer review (which it seems to) they clearly think it needed a second round of review.

> If I made a code review, a coworker approved it, and my skip-manager said "This was reverted because some people said we couldn't ship it, but I'm not telling you who," I'd feel entirely justified in objecting.

You'd be fine if you just said you disagreed for technical reasons, but if you actually objected and released it yourself over objection you'd be escorted out within minutes and very likely charged with unauthorized use of the work resources to do so.

They pay your salary. This job is about your work product, not your feeling of entitlement. Want academic freedom, separate it from your 9-5.