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Google Fires AI Ethics Co-Lead Timnit Gebru (venturebeat.com) 318

Timnit Gebru, one of the best-known AI researchers today and co-lead of an AI ethics team at Google, said she was fired Wednesday for sending an email to "non-management employees that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager." VentureBeat reports: She said Google AI employees who report to her were emailed and told that she accepted her resignation when she did not offer her resignation. According to Casey Newton's Platformer, who reportedly obtained a copy, Gebru sent the email in question to the Google Brain Women and Allies listserv. In it, Gebru expresses frustration with the lack of progress in hiring women at Google and lack of accountability for failure to make progress. She also said was told not to publish a piece of research and advised employees to no longer fill out diversity paperwork because it didn't matter. No mention is made of resignation.

"There is no way more documents or more conversations will achieve anything. We just had a Black research all hands with such an emotional show of exasperation. Do you know what happened since? Silencing in the most fundamental way possible," the email reads. When asked by VentureBeat for comment, a Google spokesperson provided a link to the Platformer article with a copy of an email sent Thursday by Google AI chief Jeff Dean to company research staff. In it, Dean said a research paper written by Gebru and other researchers was submitted for publication at a conference before completing a review process and addressing feedback. In response, Dean said he received an email from Gebru.

"Timnit wrote that if we didn't meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date. We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google," he said. "Given Timnit's role as a respected researcher and a manager in our Ethical AI team, I feel badly that Timnit has gotten to a place where she feels this way about the work we're doing. I also feel badly that hundreds of you received an email just this week from Timnit telling you to stop work on critical DEI programs. Please don't. I understand the frustration about the pace of progress, but we have important work ahead and we need to keep at it."

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Google Fires AI Ethics Co-Lead Timnit Gebru

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  • AI Ethicist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @08:28PM (#60792164) Journal
    You lose nothing upon firing an AI ethicist because they do nothing anyway.
    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      That's pretty much my view as well. The military nor any hacker, terrorist or criminal will hire an ethics committee deciding their next gen weaponry so the AI will be at least that 'evil' (or good, depending on your views) and if an AI can be that 'evil', it will destroy any other AI that can't act in the same way.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        What Google need to do is send out a truthful memo. To all employees Google as bran conducts many virtue signalling marketing programs. Any employee who treats those virtue signalling programs with the expectation of results, will be fired should they express the dissatisfaction at the lack of results. We are watching and monitoring you at all times, any sign of resistance to management ideology and lack of love and adoration for google and it's executives will result in immediate 'voluntary resignation' do

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by cayenne8 ( 626475 )
          This part of the article sticks out to me:

          We just had a Black research all hands with such an emotional show of exasperation.

          WTF?

          A "Black research all hands (meeting)"?

          So...are Asian or White folks not welcome/invited?

          How racist sounding is this?

          Can you imagine the outrage and blow up if there were a "White research all hands" to be called at any time or any place?

    • But if you fire an unethical AI ethicist, at least you go from negative to zero, don't you?
    • AI "ethics" is a field for the moral entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with actually solving real problems with AI. I love how her research includes the AI "white guy" problem, where machine learning algorithms pick up patterns that are deemed to be racist by a reality denying moral betters. As in, if a facial recognition algorithm correctly detects a relationship between skin tone and criminal violence, then the algorithm is at fault. Underlying this world view, is the idea that *some* black (gang) subcul
      • by ArmoredDragon ( 3450605 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @01:16PM (#60794532)

        The facial recognition issue is a little more telling: She wants to make it into the ethical dilemma that it isn't, instead of the technical issue that it really is. Black skin has less contrast, so it is inevitably harder to recognize facial features. Nobody decided it would be harder, it just is. All you can really do is improve the technology to work better; having an argument with it doesn't help.

  • Apparently Alphabet (Google) needs a new CEO.

    My experience is that Larry Page and Sergey Brin were wonderful.

    Now, for example, Google searches have problems that need fixing. And there are issues such as the one in this story.

    "Don't be Evil" has become "It's okay to be sloppy." My opinion.
    • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @08:36PM (#60792186) Homepage

      Someone who makes that kind of move is being blatantly insubordinate and actively working to undermine the company's efforts. As Google observed, that's pretty much incompatible with being a manager. I guess some AI ethicists have a pretty blinkered view of ethics.

      • I agree.

        However, my guess is that there were months or years of insufficient management that contributed to the confused response of a manager.
        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          I'm sure there were months and years of _something_. People do make dramatic professional stands, sometimes with justification, if they feel they've been ignored for years. Given the abuse that occurred of James Dalmore for writing calmly and factually to his supervisors at Google and eventually to the broader community in an "open forum", perhapst tension between the "equal outcome" and the "equal oppportunity" advocates in gender equality efforts are finding it very difficult to reconcile their disagreeme

      • by EMN13 ( 11493 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @06:54AM (#60793196) Homepage

        I completely disagree. I you hire an ethicist, and then proceed to not just ignore ethical problems but additionally rub peoples faces in it by making them fill out pointless forms that never get acted upon, your company should have a bit of nasty discourse, ideally not just internally. Even if you don't care about what the employee perceived as bigotry one bit, this behavior by Google is a big red flag both in terms of morals, and in terms of competence. Note that they're not disputing they have a problem with bigotry nor disputing that they're failing to address it - the only issue they're taking action on is the fact that it was communicated internally in a way they disapprove of.

        The kind of behavior google is engaging in here means discouraging valid criticism - after all the proper channels not ignored initially, and internal discussion then circumventing those channels resulted in immediate termination. That kind of corporate culture is a losers business; however - it means they won't be able to respond to issues their employees note, because they won't even see them in the future. This is the kind of thing that leads big organizations to drive themselves off a cliff with poor decisions even though "everybody already thought they were poor". Famous recent examples include Boeing's utter self-own, leading to not just hundreds of lives lost, but also an almost existential threat to the company.

        It's absolutely vital employees feel they can criticize company policy, especially if problems arise such as when the proper channels for feedback fail to act or even attempt to address concerns. Sure, at some point enough whining is enough, but nothing in the story indicates a long history of toxicity. Even if there was such a long history, to avoid a chilling effect, it's necessary to point out the long history of toxicity so that others don't feel like any criticism is punishable, but see that it's the long history of toxicity that's the issue - and even that is a tricky line to draw, and they clearly didn't do that.

        Many people are looking at what the employee did or said. But it hardly matters! The point is not how much right or wrong was on each side of the dispute, it's that the employee believed they were in the right and nevertheless summarily terminated for telling what they thought was the truth. Even if they were completely in the wrong, these actions by Google (and specifically how quickly and unyieldingly they were performed) will inhibit their ability to benefit from their own employees.

        Therefore, this response by Google is both morally repugnant (those with power over others need to be able to take criticism, even the kind they couldn't make themselves); and furthermore self-destructive. Not good signs for the long-term health of the company.

        • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @07:30AM (#60793246) Homepage

          Allegations of ethical problems do not equal ethical problems. You seem to think that just because a disgruntled employee threatens to quit if her 98,000-employee company doesn't do what she wants, she must be right.

          Yes, people should be able to critique company policy -- but doing it on the employer's dime, slagging the company to line-level employees, and telling employees that they should effectively boycott the company's efforts to improve conditions, are all absolutely incompatible with being a manager or leader in that company.

          What is repugnant would be elevating a disgruntled employee's desire to vent spleen over the rights of everyone else in the company to have a respectful, productive workplace.

        • by Dale512 ( 1073668 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @09:23AM (#60793606)
          This mostly speaks to my current situation in my work. Granted, it is on a much more minor scale and the work I do is far less related to ethics. We have a fairly clear ethical issue that crops up a couple of times each year. This last week my boss finally asked "why do you bring it up every time it happens?" and he was floored when I responded with "because it is still wrong and will still be wrong the next time it happens." I face mockery for even raising the point of the ethics violation. The immediate people actually agree that the situation is not good and not how they would deal with it. They also say they aren't going to challenge it. I gain no benefit and suffer real harm by bringing it up. I can go home and tell my children the importance of being truthful even in the face of adversity though. The price of that is feeling like a souless husk at times at work though. Nobody at work cares, least of all those in charge of decision making and the people that create the company culture. I take the position it is incumbent on every individual to challenge immoral, unethical, or wrongs when they see them. Even if the individual can't change the world, if they do what they can within their own spheres then that should encourage others to do the same. If everyone did that then the systematic things like this could change. Sadly, I feel isolated on my own island on this and makes me wish I won the lottery so I could avoid it. There are processes in place where complaints could be made. Those processes are ineffective, would not be effective or create change, would create harm to people I don't wish harmed (even though they are complicit in the issue), and would certainly create massive live challenging/changing harm to myself. I know I am not alone in concept on things like this, but it absolutely feels that way almost all of the time.
      • Someone who makes that kind of move is being blatantly insubordinate

        If you didn't want insubordination why did you hire an ethics lead? Their entire job is there to tell you no and that the company is overstepping their bounds. There are many such roles in corporations, not just in ethics, but also in customer advocacy, internal assurance, etc.

        It's not insubordination to do the job that you were literally hired to do. Thinking so makes you an incredibly stupid manager who shouldn't have any authority on deciding what an org chart looks like.

    • by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @09:27PM (#60792338) Homepage
      This is one of the stories that makes me think that Google (Alphabet, Inc) is no longer a happy place to work:

      Google is tackling mental health challenges among employees through 'resilience training' videos [cnbc.com]. (Nov. 27, 2020) Quote: "Employees were already stuck in front of their screens for too many hours..."

      Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, Inc., does not seem to be guiding in a sufficient fashion. My opinion.
      • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        I don't think Google was ever a happy place to work. It was always a typical tech sweatshop, but there were nap pods and the cafeteria was nice enough that the inmates could convince themselves it was awesome. Now they're aging out and realizing there's more to life than a free lunch and an onsite masseuse you don't have time to use.

      • There was a while where it was. That time evaporated when the hiring process took at least six months to tender a job offer, and then offered a position that people had not applied for nor been interviewed for. The only people left to take the offer after that winnowing process were not the leaders in their field, they were often under considerable personal pressure that led them to accept the undesired role.

      • It never was.

        Providing a greenhouse environment always leads to things like that. People, especially middle management lose touch with reality and lose the plot.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Most large organizations are not great places to work, and as Google has grown it has been no exception.

        I always try to work for smaller organizations for this reason. Larger ones can mitigate the problems to some extent by splitting into smaller units but even that often fails. Once place I was at a few years ago got bought by a larger company that promised a great deal of autonomy, but a few years later most of the people I knew, good people, have left because they didn't like the changes.

  • Private matter (Score:5, Informative)

    by azcoyote ( 1101073 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @08:37PM (#60792188)
    The summary gives me the impression that this is really a private matter that has, unfortunately, been made public. Her subordinates were emailed because her superiors took her threat to quit more seriously than she may have intended it, and in response she spread the news even farther that she was not intending to quit. So she was not actually technically fired. But it sounds like the dispute relates to her decision to publish a paper that her superiors felt was not properly reviewed and revised--sloppy work--and she took this criticism as an attempt to silence her research. This is just my summary of the summary, since I know most of us won't bother to RTFS.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      I think you got it backwards:

      She complained to a listserv about her bosses not taking the critical race theory crap seriously and said that if they don't conform, she'll resign. Their bosses said "we accept your resignation"

      The fact that she delivered crappy work was simply proof to her that they weren't taking the critical race indoctrination seriously, because, according to that theory, anything that goes wrong is the fault of "white male" society - white means in this context: anyone that doesn't vote De

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Just because someone conducts a study focused on race does not mean they study "critical race theory." I not a fan of critical race theory, but if you're going to criticize the theory, it would serve you well to at least have a cursory understanding of what you're talking about. You sound like a talk-radio host who just spews out names and concepts of the awful hated ones.

        No one will take your grievances seriously when you cannot articulate them.

        • "No one will take your grievances seriously when you cannot articulate them."

          Oh, if only that were true... Inarticulate grievances are often the strongest; it's very hard to logically disagree with them, after all.

      • Re:Private matter (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ISayWeOnlyToBePolite ( 721679 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @05:36AM (#60793108)

        I think you got it backwards:

        She complained to a listserv about her bosses not taking the critical race theory crap seriously and said that if they don't conform, she'll resign. Their bosses said "we accept your resignation"

        The fact that she delivered crappy work was simply proof to her that they weren't taking the critical race indoctrination seriously, because, according to that theory, anything that goes wrong is the fault of "white male" society - white means in this context: anyone that doesn't vote Democrat, including conservative blacks and latino's (feel free to find quotes explaining this from AOC, Joe Biden, Ibram X. Kendi, Nikole Hannah Jones and consorts). And since there are no distinctions between the sexes, the word male has no added meaning.

        I didn't read it that way at all, the core of the conflict seems to me from be that from Timnit Gebrus account her paper had been approved and that she'd been waiting for PR & Policys (who gave her a heads up before it was written) final go ahead for 2 months when she was suddenly asked to retract the whole thing and when she wanted to give feedback on that to the persons who had critiqued it she was denied.

        Google on the other hand says that she didn't follow procedure for submitting papers and only gave them one day instead of the mandated 2 weeks and when the review was made it was deemed that it didn't reach the bar for publication and the critique was presented to her and she was asked to retract as the paper had already been submitted.

        Looks to me like a failure in communication and mismatch of expectations that has nothing to do with critical race theory or democrats vs republicans. The question on whether she quit or was fired seems to follow the same line.

    • Yup, that's pretty much how I read it too. But welcome to the US where you can be fired for anything and leave for anything.

      I bet there was already a strain on the relationship and since she wrote it down, it can be taken seriously. That pretty SOP.

      It has happened to me twice, one I left, no hard feelings, one I was asked to stay. Both had a few months of build up before it came to that decision; neither were a surprise. Bet it's the same here. But my demands were nothing compare to what she was asking.

  • BS position (Score:2, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    She became annoying, if she wasn't already. I am amazed people can hate and disrespect their employer but still feel entitled to work there and get a paycheck. She was unreasonable.

    • I'm amazed that people (with a low Slashdot ID) seeing it happen again and again and are still surprised by this. Well, not amazed, really, just curious why pretty much all of us have blind spots when we see these kinds of behavioral patterns and employer response, and are recurringly genuinely surprised by it.

      You'd figure that by now we'd understand the expectations and personality that leads to these kinds of behaviors, enough to have a common, specific description for it, but I guess not.

  • advised employees to no longer fill out diversity paperwork because it didn't matter

    Any efforts to "promote women" are automatically demoting men. Similarly, any efforts to promote one race are discriminating against all others.

    True equality is sex- and race-blind — and, of course, the "woke" crowd hates the idea [nytimes.com].

    • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @04:08AM (#60792970)

      Exactly this.

      I found it to be a sub-patten of a typical behavior of less developed humans: Upon seeing something evil, they *immediately* decide to imitate that evil and do the same thing to those who cause that evil. And they never even fuckin realize that that makes them no better. In their minds, it is alright "because" the other side "did it first". Then it is "punishment". And they never ever realize, that the other side might have the exact same reasons too, and no, they are not superior or "more right(eous)"!.

      The only difference in this paticular subset of cases here, is that the obfuscation of their own evil happens via *mirroring*. They think the mirror opposite of evil cannot possibly be evil too. When, as you rightly said, the problem is the difference from zero, no matter which direction you walk away from it on on the scale.
      (Actually, forcing it to be zero is still unnatural and bad. And as you said too, true fairness is blind to where it currently is on the scale, and goes by other, better properties.)

    • by Joe2020 ( 6760092 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @05:47AM (#60793126)

      Just had the same conversation with another guy... What you have is a circular argument and your problem is that you fail to include context.

      You are not demoting men, when these are over-represented but what you do is you correct it. You simply stop promoting men. That's not the same as a demotion.

      And yes, true equality is blind to sex and race. Only are we not living in a true nor perfect world and we first have to create equality, which is the point of these efforts.

      • You are not demoting men

        Except, the feminists claim is that one is demoting women by promoting men. Either drop that claim or expect people to turn it around on you.


        Cue "but turning our argument against us is not fair!!!!" from feminists.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If you have two cups, one full and one half full, and you top up the half full one... Somehow that is draining the other cup? You don't end up with two full cups?

      As for true equality being race blind, clearly a pale skinned red headed person is somewhat more vulnerable to the sun than someone with very dark skin so equality would seem to require the acknowledgement of race and the application of sunscreen.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by thegarbz ( 1787294 )

      The goal is not about equality, it never was. The goal is to create diversity since there's ample evidence that diversity significantly improves performance in teams / organisations.

      I mean you need your ego stroked you can hire a bunch of white men in suits to sit around and nod their head at you. But if you want a geek relevant example of how that shit goes wrong look no further than Starwars Episode 1. George Lucas had his wife review *and rewrite/edit* scripts for the Starwards 4, 5, and 6, and heavily e

    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Filling out diversity paperwork is not necessarily promoting women (or any other demographic).

      It is possible for an organisation to have a structural bias against a demographic, and it's certainly likely that at least one individual at an organisation has a personal bias.

      While this may not be the purpose of the specific paperwork in question, it's not completely wrong for a process to include checklists and confirmation that actions and activities did not introduce or exacerbate any bias.

      I do not support di

    • by Puls4r ( 724907 )
      You are wrong. Correct in a very narrow regard, but wrong overall.

      Humans are tribalistic. Put 50 whites and 50 blacks in a room and they generally speaking will self-sort into white and black. Even if they are not outwardly racist.

      This is a known and much studied behavior, and extrapolated further it becomes clear that hiring merely on merit will result in employees having merit, but also being very similar to the people doing the hiring.

      Taken a step further, to the board room, people are not ge
  • by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @09:05PM (#60792260)
    I don't see the firing as very interesting, but the rhetoric around her arguments bugs me.

    Diversity only makes sense in domains where representation is the function, say for our representatives in congress.

    Everywhere else, a measure of inclusivity should be the target, not diversity. Inclusivity means ridding the workplace of sexist behavior and harassment, and doing appropriate outreach to underrepresented groups to make them known to be welcome. Inclusivity doesn't mean turning away qualified men, whites, and Asian-origin candidates. But "diversity" does, when it would mean missing "diverse hiring targets" and it's a sad state of affairs when color-blindness and gender neutrality is not the first principle in the hiring discourse.

    dismayed by the fact that after all this talk, this org seems to have hired 14% or so women this year.

    This just makes me shake my head. So bloody what? Most likely, 5% of the candidates were women and they were overhired on an equal-terms basis by a factor of 2-3. I've seen the callback statistics; being a woman is a significant asset when applying to a big tech firm. But in my crazy idea of utopia, it shouldn't be an asset or a hindrance.

    • by Anonymice ( 1400397 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @09:45PM (#60792382)

      Whilst I agree that, in principle, technical & professional merit would be the ideal priority, I'd argue that the development of AI is one area that a representative distribution of the diversity in society is quite important. It is a tool that is being increasingly deployed "upon" us all, and its impact on our daily lives is only going to get greater.

      I mean, remember the episodes where ANN's were unable to identify black people as...people (?!?!??!!) in images? Now imagine similar scenarios in more critical situations where shit like this actually matters.

      As to TFA, it does sound like she suffered a critical failure in the use of tact. When you're a manger, especially at that level, you need to start measuring how you express your opinions and act more like a politician. If you want to make progress, publicly disrespecting and undermining your superiors is going to get you nowhere. And if she can't grasp that, then she unfortunately proves that she wasn't suitable for the position.

      • by malkavian ( 9512 )

        That's a bit of a stretch. The development of an ANN is completely different to its training set. And the training set can be flawed, and in the case of imagery even be affected by the exposure, contrast and processing of images to hillarious effect.
        "Diversity" in its current political context would make zero difference.

        • That's a bit of a stretch. The development of an ANN is completely different to its training set.

          Hello! Actual working DNN reseacher here.

          No, you are wrong. If you want an ANN to do task X then the design of the network and the training set and training methods go hand in hand. There isn't some thing where you abstractly have a blind dataset, carefully construct a network, get results and declare "welp, that's it."

          If you're, say, detecting cars and you find your system doesn't work with snowy backgroudns, y

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Recently we had students unable to take exams because the AI face recognition system didn't work with their dark skin and less than perfect lighting. Google has had issues with image search confusing people and animals or people and objects, more so with dark skin.

          Having a diverse workforce would help with things like that simply by having people who have experienced these issues (e.g. face detection for focus and image enhancement in smartphone cameras failing) and who will be testing things out on themsel

      • I mean, remember the episodes where ANN's were unable to identify black people as...people

        This was a topic of Timnit Gebrus research and she started http://gendershades.org/ [gendershades.org] before joining google.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 )

      Diversity only makes sense in domains where representation is the function, say for our representatives in congress.

      The way I look at diversity, one time an Apple store was built with a glass staircase, not realizing that any woman wearing a skirt would be uncomfortable walking up it. If they'd had a woman on the design team, the staircase wouldn't have been built.

      So diversity can have a positive effect, but it's definitely not the only factor.

    • I don't see the firing as very interesting, but the rhetoric around her arguments bugs me.

      Diversity only makes sense in domains where representation is the function, say for our representatives in congress.

      Diversity is not the goal per se, but it is a canary for the real goal of equal opportunity, or more correctly is a canary for the absence of equal opportunity. That's why diversity as a metric is important.

      • by jlar ( 584848 )

        Diversity is not the goal per se, but it is a canary for the real goal of equal opportunity, or more correctly is a canary for the absence of equal opportunity. That's why diversity as a metric is important.

        It is useless as a metric for equal opportunity. In fact it leads to inequality in opportunity because managers are in many cases rewarded for hiring and promoting people not on base of their skills but because of their gender or skin color.

        A lack of diversity can exist for a number of reasons. Lack of opportunity is according to the research I have seen a minor factor for this. But please enlighten me. I am also happy to learn more:-)

        • As far as I'm concerned, if 20% of the people who hold the proper degrees are women, and you have 20% women, there is no problem.

          • by jlar ( 584848 )

            A thought experiment:

            You have a weapons (cluster bombs) manufacturer who have 1000 software engineers of which 950 are men and the remaining 50 (5%) are women. But overall 10% of the software engineers are women. You then seem to argue that this must be rectified because there is not equal opportunity.

            But what if the discrepancy is caused by something else that gender discrimination? What if women on average are more adverse towards working in the arms industry? Should the weapons manufacturer then discrimi

    • Even where representation is the goal, the categories should be relevant to the outcome. If I like rugby, my interests in a discussion could be represented by a man or woman of any ethnicity so long as their views on rugby reflect mine. Diversity is indeed a terrible target, more so because âdiversityâ(TM) almost always skews towards favouring women and non-white people regardless of context.

      Itâ(TM)s not about fairness. Itâ(TM)s identity politics driven by vengeance for imagined systemic

    • I have seen "inclusivity" being used for what you call "diversity" here, mate.

      Sorry, it seems to be just a euphemism treadmill again.

      The opponents to some form of hate are merely the haters again. Mirroring or not. Because assholes are asssholes. And dumb reactionary people are dumb reactionary people.

  • by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Thursday December 03, 2020 @10:37PM (#60792474)
    Firstly, no amount of advanced AI can parse her scattered and distracted writing style. I had to reread paragraphs several times and still not be sure what she was saying. Secondly, the letter reeked of elitist, "I'm the smartest person in the room" privilege, which is a huge irony considering that what she is attacking is the (valid) management privilege at Google. She clearly shows herself to be a massive pain-in-the-ass employee and probably quite worthy of being fired.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by nyet ( 19118 )

      She's totally incoherent. No wonder she was fired; she's clearly simply incompetent.

      • Yeah - that's one thing about this - companies don't fire (or allow to easily resign in this case) people who are very valuable. She was clearly a pain in the ass who provided no real value to Google other than PR, and nobody has time to deal with that shit. She should have kept her mouth shut, kept her exorbitant salary, and hoped nobody noticed she added nothing to Google's bottom line.

        She'll move through a few other hopeful companies who think "won't happen to me!", burn bridges, and eventually end up on

  • Google : AI ethics. (Extended Harsh Laughing).

    We don't need no stinking ethics!

  • "Why should I have to follow the process? I'm a female minority, and rules are made by CISgendered people of non-color. Why should I listen to them? I reject their rules. Rules are designed to oppress minorities and the underrepresented."

  • From reading the details it seems an open and shut case, she certainly earned her firing. Really sounds like she was a completely inappropriate person for a management role.
  • You can FIRE tokens ?!

  • by jhoger ( 519683 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @02:38AM (#60792872) Homepage

    As a manager, the difference between a resignation letter and an ultimatum letter is the difference between a grenade whose pin was pulled 10 seconds before it's show to you, and a grenade whose pin is pulled in front of you.

    The employee is gone, either way. Neither side will trust each other again. It's over.

    If you're going to quit, just quit.

  • by nagora ( 177841 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @03:20AM (#60792904)

    "We just had a Black research all hands with such an emotional show of exasperation."

    I can't parse this. Anyone understand it?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by EmoryM ( 2726097 )
      The black people at Google had a very special meeting just for the black people at Google to talk about how to get more black people at Google - there aren't enough black people at Google according to the black people at Google. There also aren't enough women according to the women.
      • Does this mean the white males had a special meeting in which they all remained silent?

        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          I suspect not, as the white males at Google almost certainly don't support racial segregation.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They had a meeting for all black people from the research group and there was a feeling of exasperation expressed.

      It's the lack of explanation for "black research" (not normally capitalized) and "all hands" that makes it hard to parse, but I guess the intended audience would know what the jargon meant.

    • "We just had a ((Black research[1]) (all hands[2])) with such an emotional show of exasperation."

      This is why language needs brackets.

      1: the word "employees" is missing here
      2: 'all hands' is the incomplete form of 'all hands meeting', derived from 'all hands on deck', i.e. everyone.

    • I think(?) it means

      black research - ie a team working on confidential products?
      all-hands - that's the current workspeak paradigm for "meeting of the whole team" ...it's stupid, but that's all workspeak, really.
      emotional show of exasperation - her claiming that everyone agreed with her because emotion > everything to a certain group of people.

      Does that help? I don't know if I'm right but that's how I parsed it.

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday December 04, 2020 @03:55AM (#60792952)

    ... to be hired, not because you are good, but only because you are "diverse"?
    And even worse, if you aren't even "diverse", but a woman, which is a pretty damn common thing to be.

    I'd feel belittled. The whole thing screams "You are so inferior, you need crutches just to walk." behind p.c. wording and a stupid fake grin, *while* they tell you how "strong" you are.
    (Hey, I don't even want to be "strong"! I want to be comfortable. I can't sleep on a stone bed and don't want to either. Got a problem with that? ... But I still don't need your freakin crutches, what do you think I am?!)

    Sory, but I hire who's the best. And I see no reason why that should not also be a woman or foreigner or whatever. The whole thing is absurd to me.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 )

      In one of my previous jobs someone tried to use me, an intersexed man, emphasis on man, as an example of the place being "diverse" as I was "non-binary". Here are the problems with this.

      1: I am a man, and I don't consider non-binary to be a thing. Don't mistake your #NotLikeTheOtherGirls with a gender identity.
      2: The only reason I disclose that in the first place is to explain that "I'm using the bathroom" is a full sentence that is not up for discussion.
      3: It is considered a medical condition, and disclosi

  • Either this is some of the most advanced material in the history of computer science, or it was deeply meaningless academic hand waving meant to provide income for PhDs. Either way, I canâ(TM)t understand the significance of this persons research.

    Usually, people get these sorts of jobs because of the influence of their advisors and peers. My guess is that there was some kind of a falling out, so those social protections went away. When they did, so did the job, which naturally happens when your job onl

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