Eh, weak article, author paints a glowing biography of the hero of the story, but doesn't actually write what really happened. Or what really happened that escalated to the ousting.
No matter how right she was, posting an ultimatum was a tactical error. Also it seems the Google she encountered has a bad culture of sexism and racism.
In other discussions here, the notion that some jobs are “bullshit jobs”, an ambiguously defined term coined by David Graeber, has been subject of debate.
Timnit Gebru had a bullshit job. Indeed, her whole field, AI ethics, is a bullshit field.
Now, I’m not saying that AI ethics is unimportant. Indeed, it’s perhaps the single most important topic of consideration of our time.
The reason it’s a bullshit field, and Gebru had a bullshit job, is that ethics can’t be delegated. A firm is, at most, as ethical as it’s CEO and board of directors.
When Google hired Gebru, what they thought they were buying was a cosign of their policies by a “woman of color”. They had no interest in her critique, and they thought she was smart enough to understand that she wasn’t expected to think for herself.
What better way to silence criticism than to welcome it inside the walls, give it fancy titles and high salaries and absolutely no power.
I disagree that AI Ethics is a bullshit field-- but its one that belongs, has to belong, on the outside looking in. Its an academic field and a watchdog field. Its a subset of Ethics, not of AI. If Google were really concerned about AI ethics they would have set up an external entity with a consortium of other industry partners, seeded them with an endowment large enough to have some measure of intellectual freedom, put them under the auspices of an external parent organization with a long and positive reputation and severed all ties with them. They wanted the optics of ethics, the new car smell-- but they didnt wan't to breech the membrane of plausible deniability when someone internal pointed out that their golden geese were causing some problems.
What really happened: Google fired a toxic employee that was a net negative and liability to the company after she gave them an ultimatum. It's as simple as that.
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[ 38.6 ms ] story [ 430 ms ] threadNo matter how right she was, posting an ultimatum was a tactical error. Also it seems the Google she encountered has a bad culture of sexism and racism.
Timnit Gebru had a bullshit job. Indeed, her whole field, AI ethics, is a bullshit field.
Now, I’m not saying that AI ethics is unimportant. Indeed, it’s perhaps the single most important topic of consideration of our time.
The reason it’s a bullshit field, and Gebru had a bullshit job, is that ethics can’t be delegated. A firm is, at most, as ethical as it’s CEO and board of directors.
When Google hired Gebru, what they thought they were buying was a cosign of their policies by a “woman of color”. They had no interest in her critique, and they thought she was smart enough to understand that she wasn’t expected to think for herself.
I disagree that AI Ethics is a bullshit field-- but its one that belongs, has to belong, on the outside looking in. Its an academic field and a watchdog field. Its a subset of Ethics, not of AI. If Google were really concerned about AI ethics they would have set up an external entity with a consortium of other industry partners, seeded them with an endowment large enough to have some measure of intellectual freedom, put them under the auspices of an external parent organization with a long and positive reputation and severed all ties with them. They wanted the optics of ethics, the new car smell-- but they didnt wan't to breech the membrane of plausible deniability when someone internal pointed out that their golden geese were causing some problems.