[glenneroo]

> The question as to whether these demands are ethical is not clear at all to me.

You left out some vital pieces of context from the same article[0]:

> The note centers on the departure of Google AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, which set off protests inside the company. Citing that situation, the employees called for a company vice president, Megan Kacholia, to no longer be part of their reporting chain. “We have lost trust in her as a leader,” the researchers wrote, according to a copy of the later obtained by Bloomberg.

> “Google’s short-sighted decision to fire and retaliate against a core member of the Ethical AI team makes it clear that we need swift and structural changes if this work is to continue, and if the legitimacy of the field as a whole is to persevere,” the letter reads.

> “This research must be able to contest the company’s short-term interests and immediate revenue agendas, as well as to investigate AI that is deployed by Google’s competitors with similar ethical motives,” the researchers added.

As I understand it, the demands themselves are not directly ethical, but in order to do their job (dealing with ethics), they need the VP to stop blocking them in order to make money. As for Gebru receiving a higher position, my take is that, as is with most companies, being a higher-level in the hierarchy allows one to affect more change within the company (or, perhaps in this case, even just to get the job done?).

[0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2020-12-16/googl...

[mlthoughts2018]

Several of the cited passages you link are factually wrong. For example, she definitively resigned and was not fired. Saying she was “fired” instantly reveals partisanship and prejudice to de facto define Google to be in the wrong and the resigned researcher to be in the right completely divorced of the facts.

[itsdrewmiller]

This is misinformation presented very confidently. Unless you give a date for your resignation and the company honors that date, it is a termination. She alluded to one in the future but didn't even give a specific one, as I understand it.

[prepend]

> Unless you give a date for your resignation and the company honors that date, it is a termination

I’m not sure there’s such a fine line. Unless this is defined someone where in Google, I don’t think it’s accurate. I can resign in many ways and then there’s formalities.

[itsdrewmiller]

It is: https://cuiab.ca.gov/board/precedentdecisions/docs/pb39.pdf

[mlthoughts2018]

I think you are asserting misinformation. If Gebru did not list a resignation date and made the resignation conditional on demands in her ultimatum, then the resignation would be effective instantly under the conditions of not fulfilling her ultimatum, just as she said.

You would need example case law of employees declaring a resignation conditional not on any date or time, but on specific demands which are immediately denied by the employer.

>> If you don’t give me a raise then consider me resigned.

>> I don’t give you a raise, therefore I accept your instantaneous resignation.

This linked example where an employee listed a departing date and then was terminated sooner than that does not seen applicable to Gebru’s situation, and I don’t appreciate you saying my comment is misinformation if this is the level of countering material you’re providing. I’m happy to be shown to be wrong, but that’s not what your link describes at all.