Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway-kmc | Hacker News Reader

Here’s a good summary: https://www.google.com/amp/s/syncedreview.com/2020/06/30/yan...

I think it’s clear Gebru was acting in bad faith and LeCunn was baffled and trying to deescalate. Gebru responds to each attempt to deescalate by a reply designed to further rile up Twitter, without actually talking to any of the points LeCunn makes. Virtually all of her replies are some variant of “you are wrong, but I won’t say why” and “listen to me because I am Black”.

View on HN

I wouldn't be shocked if Google saw this drama, saw that she was offering to resign, and was like "that's a freebie."

It seems like most of the other AI researchers, at least those mentioned in that summary, agreed with Gebru? So while Gebru may have been “acting in bad faith,” it seems that the consensus, at least as the article presents it, was that Yann was wrong.

Maybe you’ve noticed that almost everyone who thinks this was probably justified is using a throwaway, and everyone who is claiming it was unjustified is not. Only one group stands to lose their careers here.

The same is true of AI research Twitter.

I have to disagree. I read the article posted above and this strikes me as an excessively critical view. I don't see Dr. Gebru acting in bad faith although they are clearly frustrated with the exchange.

> Virtually all of her replies are some variant of “you are wrong, but I won’t say why” and “listen to me because I am Black”.

I don't see that in the summary you posted.

The discussion shows that Gebru is a racist to the bone because she viewed everything from the racism angle. LeCunn could be wrong by attributing bias to statistical bias in data, but how is it bigotry without evidence? Yet, oh no, LeCunn is a racist in Gebru's eyes, and in this strange American culture, Gebru could just call anyone or any opinion she didn't like racist or racism.

I'd say she deserved to be fired for she is a racist who's damning to a normal society.

Racism is discrimination based on race (from a position of power)

Whom did Gebru discriminate against, based on their race? No one.

That episode is unfortunate imho, but she only suspected racist rationales... Calling out racism does not make you a racist, just like calling something "fishy" does not make you grow fins and gills

Calling out racism does not make one a racist, for sure. Labeling anyone who disagrees with her a racist, without even a slightly plausible evidence, makes her a racist because all she can see is race. You're right that that's not the standard definition of racism. It's a fair game, though, as people like Gebru pretty much uses racism as a weapon however they like.

> Labeling anyone who disagrees with her a racist

Which she doesn't.

Most notably, people here have been raising concern about the discussion with Yann Lecun, but that was also just a civil, if tense, discussion.

You're better off not twisting the meaning of words to favor your argument, though. It'll just create more problems down the line

Fair point. "Any" is too strong a word that invites just one counterexample to get debunked. I'd say "in many cases" then, as demonstrated in her Twitter stream and her email. The words like "white men"( such a vile and irrational perspective), "oppressors", "racists" show up often. Case in point, a professor who tells his/her student that the student's life was easy, even though the student had to sleep only four hours a day. Lack of empathy, sure. It's racism without other evidence? Are you kidding me?

And her paper was rejected and her immediate reaction is to demand the company to reveal the identity of every reviewer? Yeah, right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com