Two Google Engineers Resign Over Firing of AI Ethics Researcher Timnit Gebru (reuters.com) 125
An engineering director and a software developer have quit Alphabet's Google over the dismissal of AI researcher Timnit Gebru, a sign of the ongoing conflicts at the search giant over diversity and ethics. From a report: David Baker, a director focused on user safety, left Google last month after 16 years because Gebru's exit "extinguished my desire to continue as a Googler," he said in a letter seen by Reuters. Baker added, "We cannot say we believe in diversity, and then ignore the conspicuous absence of many voices from within our walls." Software engineer Vinesh Kannan said Wednesday on Twitter that he had left the company on Tuesday because Google mistreated Gebru and April Christina Curley, a recruiter who has said she was wrongly fired last year. Both Gebru and Curley identify as Black. "They were wronged," Kannan said. Google declined to comment, but pointed to previous statements that it is looking to restore employees' trust after Gebru's departure and that it disputes Curley's accusation.
"Both Gebru and Curley identify as Black." (Score:2, Insightful)
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But call a girl a "tomato", and you're the bad guy...in a 1940s film noir.
Re:"Both Gebru and Curley identify as Black." (Score:4, Insightful)
New thing from the progressives. It's difficult to run a scheme to dispense favoritism to those of the right race when there's no coherent definition of what race a given person is. So they came up with the idea of people "identifying" as a minority. In other words, you're a minority because you say you are. Unless, of course, it's decided that you don't have the right to say you are, in which case they'll tear you apart. [washingtonpost.com]
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As it turns out, Elizabeth Warren decided that she didn't have the right to say she was, so that story has a happy ending.
If you really wanted a good example you would have gone with Rachel Dolezal, who was raised to think she had to be black to get attention, and who did good work for the NAACP before they found out she wasn't actually black, and just had her hair did.
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Calling bullshit on that. It's not her parents' fault that she decided to lie for personal gain.
No? Who raised her, then?
I submit that it is exactly her parents' fault. Dolezal claims that she was ritually beaten by her parents, and that she believed it was in part for being white. Tell me whose fault that was, please, and try to do it without blaming the victim.
Further, she wasn't exactly rolling in cash, and she was faithfully performing the duties involved in her position, so was it for personal gain? Or was she doing what she thought was right? And, by the way, actually helping people in the proce
Afraid of discussion much? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Flamebait? You fucking cowards.
An idea comes along that makes you uncomfortable and you have to bury it.
Re:Afraid of discussion much? (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more, we're starting to see cancel culture start to eat their own.
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More and more, we're starting to see cancel culture start to eat their own.
In case of drinkypoo, we can tell them to drink shit and die. -1 moderation is not a substitute for "disagree'.
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Slashdot has been full of conservative cowards with mod points for a long time now. The worse of the mod system abuse has been stopped but there are still enough cowards who can't stand contrary ideas, can't form a coherent response to them that isn't just shitty rhetoric and sock puppet agreement, that this still happens.
I mean look at some of my posts. Modded to oblivion and called a liar, by someone whose rebuttal is to provide evidence that they don't actually know that what I said was untrue but their
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The moderation on this discussion says you are wrong about it.
Well, maybe there are more fair moderators overall, because usually what happens is you get trolled down to -1 for a bit and then back up again as better mods get to work. The conservative trolls seem to wait for the right story and then get in early, which is unfortunately somewhat effective at controlling the narrative.
In any case what is clear is that some people really, really can't stand the open marketplace of ideas they claim to want.
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Or you're the one who can't stand any ideas contrary to yours.
Re: Afraid of discussion much? (Score:2)
Go find the genetic basis for race.
I Dare you.
"you are denying real historical injustices suffered by People of Color"
In what way? I didn't say racism is fake...
"and downplaying or minimizing race is White Privilege."
Believing race is real when it isn't is racism.
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"and try to do it without blaming the victim." I'll stop you right there buttercup, she was no victim end of story.
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Calling bullshit on that. It's not her parents' fault that she decided to lie for personal gain.
No? Who raised her, then?
MOFO please, stop this bullshit. Not every bad decision we make goes back to parentage. This is just reaching out to hate just shits and giggles and cheap pseudo-psychology.
Re: "Both Gebru and Curley identify as Black." (Score:3)
Race has no biological basis.
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At what point do we decide that a bush is indeed a tree?
Race is a defined in a messy way currently. How many genes of a particular race do you need in order to be called that race? What about folks with genetic mixing so complex that no single set of genes are the majority?
I suspect that is why the OP is saying that race has no biological basis... they are wrong. The system of classification does not represent reality so they reject reality rather than the classification system. Weird.
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Then what the fuck it is if not a social construct?
There probably isn't any "concept" more vague and baseless than "race" for defining someone's identity.
For fuck's safe, real racist like Benjamin Franklin considered even the Germans "swarthy" and not really white.
Since then, Americans have standardized on the melamin content as an "objective" way to determine "race", but anglo cunts have never bought into it wholesale -- see the Know- Nothings from the end of XIX century USA or the Pole-bashing brexiteers
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In other words, you're a minority because you say you are.
This is one of those "All lives matter" truisms that are actually lies by redirection. Yes, minorities (as all people) have the right to self-identify. But that truth masks that much greater truth that many people in the minority are mistreated in ways that are substantial and not self-chosen.
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"I identify as a tomato."
Is that a toe mae toe or a tah mah toe? Pretty sure those are not the same.
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(sauce/paste)?
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Beefsteak, Delicious, Celebrity or other?
If you start a trend, I can see Facebook's going to have to build a huge tomato varietal [wikipedia.org] picker.
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That is some very poor journalism. You don't identify as an ethnicity, as Rachel Dolezal discovered.
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You don't identify as an ethnicity
What an absolutely idiotic thing to say. You must have missed the past two centuries of Central and Southern European history where millions of people had to decide their ethnicities for themselves.
Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:2, Insightful)
Suits are not stupid when it comes to shoveling BS, the whole point of MBA is to teach you how to do it. There is no way they don't understand the power grab behind SJW movement.
Affirmative Action is Wrong (Score:1)
Kamala Harris and other African politicians regularly divide us Americans by supporting preferential treatment for Africans and Hispanics.
Under pressure from both African politicians and Hispanic politicians, Joe Biden is using his presidential power to expand this preferential treatment for Africans and Hispanics.
Preferential treatment includes affirmative action (AA). It is gross discrimination against Americans of European or Asian ancestry.
"'[Affirmative action] offends me,' [Yukong] Zhao continued, te
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Bizarre narrative you have invented there. Damore was an example of them getting it right, backed up by the Labour Board decision that firing him was legal and justified by his behaviour, and the fact that the was forced to drop his hilariously misguided class action lawsuit against them.
I'm sure losing long term employees from high level positions, taking their knowledge and experience in your domain with them, is probably not what MBAs consider a win.
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See Fired Google Engineer James Damore Dropped His Lawsuit Against Company [dailywire.com]
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So Google probably agreed to let him walk away without paying their legal fees.
Citation required.
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I was going to ask you for one. You link only says that there was some kind of agreement, as required when the accused as spent significant amounts of money on the defense and expects to be reimbursed.
So why do you think he got a penny?
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I think he got a multi-million settlement based on how [forbes.com] Google reacted [bloomberg.com], where these actions look to me as a loss-prevention activities. Google would not be doing something like that if they got favorable terms as you trying to suggest.
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Ah, so pure speculation based on your desire to see Google lose.
How exactly would he get millions in settlement (on a class action suit no less) given the potential amount if he went to court would be a fraction of that much?
As I said, far more likely they agreed to go their separate ways and not argue over costs. If he gave any shits at all about the other members of the class ("conservatives" lol) he wouldn't have settled if he could have won.
Re:Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, so pure speculation based on your desire to see Google lose.
Now you are just making bad faith accusations and lashing out. You asked me directly what I thought. More so, you did so after I called you out on presenting your unsubstantiated opinion as factual.
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Let's just recap sinij. You posted a link that says you don't know what the settlement was, but your feelings tell you that Google is bad so they must have paid your hero millions of dollars. And because you don't know but your snowflake feelings are so strong, I must be lying.
In response I point at that the very best possible interpretation of your claim is that Damore pocketed millions of dollars that threw all the other people in his class action lawsuit under the bus, and all you can come back with this
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Bizarre narrative you have invented there. Damore was an example of them getting it right, backed up by the Labour Board decision that firing him was legal and justified by his behaviour, and the fact that the was forced to drop his hilariously misguided class action lawsuit against them.
Here is what you posted TODAY couple posts up. Are you already suffering from amnesia? The above statement is untrue, he did not drop class action lawsuit, it was settled. I offered you a link to the article that included the quote, I also copied into my post so you couldn't have possibly overlooked it.
So yes, you are essentially lying by trying to make this argument about anything else but the known facts at this point.
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You posted a link that says you don't know what the settlement was, but your feelings tell you that Google is bad so they must have paid your hero millions of dollars.
You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension about the US legal system. You think a settlement means Damore was giving up and slinking away a loser. That's not how the US system work. The US legal system is set up primarily for the benefit of lawyers, not plaintiffs or defendants. US lawyers always seek to minimize the amount of work they have to do. In a case like this one, the plaintiff can't possibly afford to pay enough lawyers to match the defendant. The defendant will therefore use the discov
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If he gave any shits at all about the other members of the class he wouldn't have settled if he could have won.
That not how lawsuits work. If you don't accept proposed settlement and the lawsuit doesn't award you greater damages, then despite winning you are liable for opposing party and court costs. Which in case of Google's army of lawyers and protracted lawsuit could be in millions. Being a rational player, he would have accepted millions now instead of more misery and possibly fewer millions and additional legal jeopardy later.
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It was a class action lawsuit, the class being "conservatives at Google". So offering to pay Damore money but nothing for the other members of the class would be pretty easy to beat, given that the whole point of a class action suit is to obtain redress for the class, not the individual who started it.
You are just arguing that he decided to get rich instead of standing by his principals and helping the poor oppressed conservatives that he claimed to care about.
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So offering to pay Damore money but nothing for the other members of the class
Citation required.
I am fairly tired of you pulling things out of your ass and pretending it is factual.
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So you are saying that the other members of the class got paid too? And all this was hushed up, including the call to identify class members?
What definition of "conservative" do you think they settled on? How did they identify them at Google? Could anyone just say they are a conservative and get millions of dollars?
This is complete nonsense.
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Re:Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:4, Insightful)
At most, if I steel-man your position, you can make a case that Damore misunderstood studies and reached wrong conclusions. Considering that Google solicited feedback, Damore provided that requested feedback internally, and only then someone else leaked this to public, you will be hard-pressed to find a jury willing to accept it as discrimination.
Yes, your partisan narrative works better if Damore is an evil misogynist, but that is not what actually happened.
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Re:Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:4, Insightful)
The facts that are known don't allows us to say more than " Google settled with Damore for undisclosed amount." where undisclosed amount is 0.01$ to Google's market cap.
Re: Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:5, Informative)
> His central thesis is that women are neurotic. Yes he said that multiple times in the paper.
This is incorrect.
Your homework assignment is to go read a textbook on the Big 5 personality model, which has been clinically validated.
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He specifically said that higher levels of neuroticism in women affects their work at Google, and is one factor in the gender imbalance there.
The lead author of the paper he cited for this claim, David Schmitt, has refuted that it, stating in a Wired interview that his conclusions, which were not in the paper, are unjustified.
https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com]
These sex differences in neuroticism are not very large, with biological sex perhaps accounting for only 10 percent of the variance.
The other 90 percent, in other words, are the result of individual variation, environment, and upbringing. Further
It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. Thatâ(TM)s a huge stretch to me)
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Just clarifying:
The claim of fullgandoo was that 'women are neurotic' was his 'central thesis'. It was actually only a minute part of the memo and as you point out, Damore already indicates that it is probably fairly inconsequential.
So bill_mcgonigle is correct and fullgandoo is not.
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We could argue over how important that point is to Damore's thesis, but it doesn't really matter because all the main ideas in his memo have been debunked by the people who wrote the papers he relied on.
It's a classic case of an engineer over-estimating their own ability to understand a different field, googling a few papers that confirm their existing ideas and thinking that makes them smart. Particularly when it comes to psychology these papers are not datasheets and you must be very careful not to draw y
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We could argue over how important that point is to Damore's thesis
Please either argue that it is indeed the 'central thesis' of Damore's memo or just agree with me. This is some backhanded way to imply that there is some reason for doubt even though you very well know there is none. Remember: the point under contention is that the neurotic stuff was his central thesis, which is at the very, very least wildly overstated.
but it doesn't really matter because all the main ideas in his memo have been debunked by the people who wrote the papers he relied on.
I see no evidence for this. The Wired article for instance is quite clearly strawmanning Damore. Sentences from the Wired article like these: "What he
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He specifically said that higher levels of neuroticism in women affects their work at Google, and is one factor in the gender imbalance there.
Citation needed here, because all he said about neuroticism is:
"Neuroticism(higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."
What's your issue with that statement?
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The citation is the bit you quoted - "lower number of women in high stress jobs". Aside from the fact that making jobs less stressful should be a goal, that statement is directly contradicted by the lead author of the paper which he cites to back it up, in a Wired interview that I linked to elsewhere.
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This one: https://www.wired.com/story/th... [wired.com] ?
Let's see what the scientists he cited said, versus Damore:
Damore: "Neuroticism(higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs."
Author of the study: “These sex differences in neuroticism are not very large, with biological sex perhaps accounting for only 10 percent of the variance.”
“It is unclear to me that this sex diffe
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No, I'd say "directly contradicts" is accurate.
And as for the conclusion, the Labor Board agreed and said basically the same thing.
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No, I'd say "directly contradicts" is accurate.
Well, if you think This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs
and
It is unclear to me that this sex difference would play a role in success within the Google workplace (in particular, not being able to handle stresses of leadership in the workplace. That’s a huge stretch to me),”
are directly contradictory, I don't have much more to say to you. We have a fundamental difference in how we perceive reality, even
Re: Google is not keen to go woke and broke (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt many people commenting on Damore have actually read his paper. I've read it and consider it mostly nonsense. His central thesis is that women are neurotic. Yes he said that multiple times in the paper.
Welcome to science denialism. Women scoring higher on neuroticism [wikipedia.org] personality trait is firmly established fact backed by countless peer-reviewed papers and is consistently observer across cultural and socioeconomic groups.
It's funny, laugh (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is Left-leaning, which means that diversity of thought is not actually welcome. So now that the peons have thoughts which diverge from those of Management, they are finding themselves sidelined and ostracized.
They were happy when it happened to Damore, but now they are finding the shoe on the other foot, and they don't like the way it pinches.
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Have we seen the masses go crazy with self-righteousness, in service to politics, before in history?
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You're implying that right-leaning people appreciate diversity? The fact that people on the left can never agree on anything is very much an indication of how diverse they are. It may be disorganized and chaotic at times, but, like democracy, it's better than the alternatives.
Honestly, who GivesAFart ? (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't wait until we're - all of us, including the mainstream media - just totally bored by yet another SJW story.
It can't come soon enough.
Please let's all stop clicking on any SJW story in the news. Let's face it, you read it at least 10 years ago anyway.
Re: Honestly, who GivesAFart ? (Score:2)
Oh it will go away. This shit is old and perfected. Its starting point is flooding the news with victim stories and end goal is legislation. You will be glad that it has gone away from news and simply skip the story when the legislation is actively used to destroy innocent people. By the time the number of people, who see it for the political money grabbing maneuver that it is, reaches critical mass it will be long enough that they will be clubbed together with racists and you won't remember.
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Will it, though? It's starting to become really hip to be woke. Companies are starting to try really hard to cater to that demographic. And few on the left will call out woke people. While the woke will engage in bigotry, there're WAY too many people who think calling out that bigotry is itself bigoted.
I'm progressive, not woke (basically, fuck identity politics). I tend to agree with most of what the woke want (universal heatlhcare, consistent and good education not hampered by geography, social program t
Two?!? (Score:3)
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Director of engineering sounds fairly senior.
I am for a diverse workforce. (Score:2)
I strongly try everyone to embrace a diverse workforce, where people of different races, genders, cultures and politics are allowed and are encouraged to work together.
However there is also the fact that it is a job, where while you are being paid by your employer, you have to represent the company you are working for. A big company the size of Google, will undoubtedly make a decision that not all the employees will agree with, even some where most of the employees may not agree with. However it if it is
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Don't forget age. The compsci industry has horrendous and almost inhuman age discrimination. It's one of few job fields where being 45+ and skilled, experienced, and accomplished is frequently considered to be a liability instead of an asset.
Virtue signals. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Virtue signals. (Score:5, Insightful)
Google employees get their annual bonus (usually tens of $1K or more) paid in mid-January, so they probably opted to stay long enough for that payout (and the 401k match).
Identify as black? (Score:5, Insightful)
So can people now identify as black?
Re: Identify as black? (Score:2)
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Technically we're all African American (or African something).
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I think it's just bad writing, they probably meant that this person identified themselves as black in the context of why they quit.
In the UK when you are asked for your ethnicity you can put whatever you like. For example you might put "white" or you might put "Jewish", both are equally valid and some people prefer one over the other. I could put "white" or "mixed white/Asian", and you can usually decline to answer as well.
Of course if you are white and you want to identify as black... Well people may find
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What I learned from working with disabled people: (Score:4, Insightful)
Disabled people can be assholes too.
By extension, "diversity" doesn't automatically mean good. Nor understanding. Lots of mexicans vote "conservative values", for example.
And picking me because I am "diverse" says that I am so bad I couldn't get a job any other way. It would be insulting, if I were insultable. But really, it just is reverse discimination.
Doing the exact thing you say is wrong, but in a thin veil. Which seems to be all the rage nowaday.
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By extension, "diversity" doesn't automatically mean good. Nor understanding. Lots of mexicans vote "conservative values", for example.
Note to anyone reading: if you're still wondering why 70something million people voted for Trump, this is your answer.
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You seem to have misunderstood how increasing diversity is done. It doesn't mean hiring people because of their ethnicity or gender, that is usually illegal except out of certain situations where it is justifiable.
It works by increasing the pool of candidates and making the job more attractive to a wide range of people. It's good for all of us too, as it stops the race to the bottom.
This is how it is supposed to work (Score:1)
Why is this news? (Score:3)
Why is it news when a couple of disgruntled people quit google, a company with over 100k employees?
It's newsworthy when a Jony Ive quits, investors would sure want to know.
But these people are nobodies. The machine will run just fine without them
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Why is it news...
Because of culture wars we are to believe that evil-doers at Google pushed out a bunch of Mother Teresas so they could resume eating babies OR that an invisible hand of capitalism finally getting around to fixing idiocy by pushing out a bunch of ideological zelots that are hell-bent on enforcing their dogma.
AI Researcher (Score:2)
Is that basically someone who tries to find out wtf your program is doing?
Good. (Score:2)
Their departure is an unalloyed intrinsic good.
EITHER:
- they were similar woke pains-in-the-ass and good riddance generally to people like that, or
- they were actually good people and their departure will weaken Google.
I delight in watching either the implosion of a pernicious global monopolist, or the self-consumption of righteous leftists who are imploding due to the inherent contradictions in their shitty dogma.
Either one, I don't care. The collapse is fun to watch, regardless of the reason.
Good! (Score:2)
Hopefully, all the wokefolk will see the light and realize they should not be working for a company that is not adequately antiracist and antifascist. It is better to work on change from the outside in silicon valley cafes and twitter than to try to effect change from within, not to mention helping a fascist capitalist colonialist exploiter in its quest for world and galactic dominance.
Gebru wasn't fired for race (Score:5, Informative)
Gebru was fired for trying to push through an unreviewed research paper at the last minute without going through Google's review process and giving Google an ultimatum that if she wasn't allowed to go around their review system as she saw fit (aka submitting her paper without enough time for Google to review but they needed to sign off anyway) that they were somehow discriminating against her.
She was let go for being an ass.
She demanded they abandon AI research (Score:2)
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Re: Remember when "related links" were? (Score:3)
Yep, I did the editors' job for them and pointed that out, and got downmodded for my trouble.
I guess that's why the editors don't do their jobs, people don't appreciate it when they do.
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You should ask for your money back.
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I was never dumb enough to pay for Slashdot, because Slashdot was never competent enough to be worth paying for.
Time spent is gone and you can't get it back. But it's still tragic (however slightly) that Slashdot has become what it is today... even less competent than it used to be.
Based on your UID... (Score:2)
Based on your UID, you come here at least partly because of nostalgia.
Definition: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.