[refenestrator]

The problems they identified have been known for years and there are lots of papers exploring how to mitigate.

The whole paper was a nothing burger wrapped in social justice language with asides about how global warming is Actually Racism because of disparate impact (interesting, not an ML topic).

If the problems aren't novel and you're proposing zero solutions, it shouldn't be a paper.

[jl2718]

I wonder what would drive someone to do this. Anger? Loneliness? Work pressure? Imposter syndrome? Her prior work seemed more observational than theoretical, and the she got thrown into a top-level leadership position in a theoretical research organization with almost zero experience. Is there a single person that would have defended decision if that person was a straight able christian white or north asian male? (Note: please do not respond by speaking for others that do not share your own views.)

I wonder when the “performative wokeness” bubble will burst.

[Traster]

I don't know where you get these ridiculous ideas about imposter syndrome. Take one look at her career. She's written signal processing algorithms at Apple, won awards at conferences, got a PhD and worked for Microsoft in their AI ethics lab. She was more than qualified for her position and the research paper she was publishing passed peer review.

You're right, this wouldn't have happened if she were a straight white male - if she were a straight white male, there wouldn't be comments like yours making asinine assumptions about how good she was at her job.

[refenestrator]

An impressive career makes this paper's quality and the subsequent meltdown over it more puzzling, not less.

[jl2718]

Non-sequitur. I invite you to disabuse me of any of my exact statements.

[skinkestek]

> You're right, this wouldn't have happened if she were a straight white male

If anything, straight white males are trashed harder around here.

That's the only problem I've ever had with having a woman on the team: the fear of saying something that offends someone, her or other.

[throwaway19937]

This is #4 (Pollution of Agency) and #8 (Anomalousness) from Joanna Russ's How to Suppress Women's Writing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Suppress_Women%27s_Writ...).

Poorly written papers are a regular occurrence in any field - that doesn't justify attributing bad faith or character issues to Dr. Gebru.

[ausbah]

survey papers, reproducibility papers, and the like are still valid contributions to science