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Comment by petulla | Hacker News Reader

This response really seems like gaslighting. He doesn't address her concerns and glosses over whether she was held to a different standard than others at GR.

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He was also extremely vague, perhaps intentionally, about what the issue actually was. His sentence about when the paper was submitted and approved and all that is impossible to parse and make sense of who did what and when.

Of course he was vague. This just happened, tensions are high, and no doubt Timnit is talking to an employment lawyer to find out what both parties' right and obligations are, and I'm sure Google's lawyers are also getting all their ducks in a row.

This is spin at best, gaslighting at worst. We'll never get the full story (and should we? it is an internal company matter made public, after all)..

>We'll never get the full story (and should we? it is an internal company matter made public, after all))

Not really sure what the point of an 'ethical AI' department is when there's no transparency or accountability facing the public because if it can be cancelled internally at any point if it threatens the company you've basically recreated some kind of Soviet ministry for truth

The point is to do foundational research, and to help Google ensure that its AI development complies with its own ethics. Google did try to set up an AI ethics board for accountability to the public, but it fell apart, because many segments of the public have ethical views which were seen as unacceptable. (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/04/google-cancels-controversial...)

I think you misunderstand. This is an HR matter, not an "Ethical AI" matter.

The official outputs and products of that department should (hopefully) be public and shared, I 100% agree with you. But that's not what this is about.

This matter in particular is an internal employee/employer dispute and dismissal, and is only public because of the high profile of the persons involved.

And what I meant that we'll never get the full story is that these kinds of situations are always more complicated than they appear. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and are not privy to the history that led to this moment.

These kinds of things don't just happen out of nowhere.

If I had to guess who's "more right" here, I'd side with Timnit, personally.. but again I don't have all the facts, so it's just a gut feeling based on what I know about how large enterprises work.

If Exxon had a fracking safety department it's goal would be to help Exxon make fracking safer, not to call out Exxon for being an unsafe fracker.

If Exxon had a fracking safety department, it's goal would be to help Exxon sell it's fracking as safe.

Right -- he once again talks about "accepting" her resignation, when it reeeeeally just looks like they fired her. At the very least, she certainly feels like she was fired; why is that not mentioned at all? Even just, I don't know, "sorry we were abrupt?"

Don't make ultimatums unless you're ready to accept the consequences of those ultimatums.

> ...if we didn’t meet these demands, she would leave Google and work on an end date.

To be fair it doesn't sound like her ultimatum was "I'll leave immediately"— that was forced on her by Google, and is an important detail.

Definitely. "If we don't fix this I don't think I can continue working here" is not a resignation, it's a negotiating position.

Sure, but sending out an e-mail accusing your colleagues of racism, exhorting them to stop working, and talking about potential lawsuits isn't. There's no way that Google (or any company) would continue to employ her after that.

> exhorting them to stop working

Perhaps it's just me as a URM, but her email resonated with me, especially this part. I see this position of calling what she did "exhorting them to stop working" often, but this isn't really what she did.

I too care about DEI, but after putting lots of time and effort into it I saw how futile the effort was in my organization because there was real buy-in from higher ups. I was putting a lot of unrewarded volunteer work helping with "inclusivity" and talking about the problems/solutions, but that was all it was in the end for the people we needed action from; "talk". I did decide eventually to dial it back and stick to my actual paid job of programming, and although I didn't send an email to other people telling them their effort was being wasted, if someone came and asked me, I'd tell them to not bother. There's other places, usually further removed from the the company and easily PR-able channels, where the effort is better spent.

In any case, I hope you realize your comment is full of hyperbole and the people who think she isn't in the wrong, myself included, aren't being unreasonable. We're smart people too.

> There's no way that Google (or any company) would continue to employ her after that

I agree. None of this comes as a surprise and I'm sure she expected it too; that doesn't mean Google is in the moral high ground.

Citation needed, for sure. I certainly believe that most companies don't particularly value honesty, especially when pointing out managerial flaws. But looking at what she wrote with a manager's eyes, I don't see anything I'd fire her for. But like aylmao writes, I see it more as an impassioned and probably valid critique of DEI work that is more posture than substance. What I see is somebody who really cares about the problem, and who could be channeled into productive work as long as that work truly has impact.

I also suspect that if she'd written the equivalently passionate comment about a technical failure or bad product choices, people here would be cheering her on. Especially if she were a he.

Just had a corporate counsel seminar on this: Under federal and most state harassment/discrimination laws the company actually can’t fire her for any of those “protected” activities unless the accusations of racism are shown to be untrue and made in bad faith.

I personally do not have enough info to decide who is telling the truth in this case.

It sounds like she said "I demand that you do X Y Z or I must resign" and they said "Very well we regrettably accept your resignation. No backsies." and she was like "You're firing me??!"

Judging from most of her writing online (which is all pretty assertive) I think it's far more likely she said "if you don't fix this, I can't continue working here".

And that's both a negotiating position and a resignation.

Something can't be both. A resignation is an unconditional desire to leave. "If you don't fix this, I can't continue working here", though, is a desire to stay.

Not really. If your girlfriend told you she was planning on breaking up with you after her birthday, would you stay with her until she did it or would you end it immediately?

Dean previously said this [1]

> Timnit responded with an email requiring that a number of conditions be met in order for her to continue working at Google, including revealing the identities of every person who Megan and I had spoken to and consulted as part of the review of the paper and the exact feedback. 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.

I find it unlikely Dean would lie about that, not least because the email would be easy to find.

Now, were the actions leading up to that effectively a firing, ie Timnit would have been unable to effectively continue in her role? Quite possibly.

[1] https://www.platformer.news/p/the-withering-email-that-got-a...

Having your research -- the very rationale for your employment -- being squashed by execs suddenly without explaination, and in a highly unusual procedure, should make you question whether you are able to effectively continue in your role, or whether you're simply window dressing.

It looks like Google's AI Ethics team is meant to be green washing.

And I'm sure that her lawsuit will allege bias, and will include a demand for exactly that information so that she can prove racial discrimination against her.

Which means that Google is likely to have to produce all of the documents that they didn't want to produce.

They almost certainly get to produce them under seal in that case though.

With such public communications, there really isn't much of a chance they'll be detailed and specific. It's why they are so rarely done.

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