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Comment by amitport | Hacker News Reader

tl;dr;:

+ "Google’s new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy."

+ "A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told authors to 'take great care to strike a positive tone,' according to internal correspondence read to Reuters."

+ surprisingly, there's not much else in the article beyond those two sentences

Edit: as commenters noted, there is more in the article. I apologize for not being clear that the last bullet is just MY OPINION. That is, for me the rest is not as meaningful as some consider it. I guess, if you care deeply on the subject, you'll want to read the article and decide for yourself.

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What about this:

"Subsequent correspondence from a researcher to reviewers shows authors “updated to remove all references to Google products.” A draft seen by Reuters had mentioned Google-owned YouTube"

or this:

"""A draft reviewed by Reuters included “concerns” that this technology can promote “disinformation, discriminatory or otherwise unfair results” and “insufficient diversity of content,” as well as lead to “political polarization.”

The final publication instead says the systems can promote “accurate information, fairness, and diversity of content.”"""

or this:

"A paper this month on AI for understanding a foreign language softened a reference to how the Google Translate product was making mistakes following a request from company reviewers, a source said"

or this:

"A draft described how such disclosures could infringe copyrights or violate European privacy law, a person familiar with the matter said. Following company reviews, authors removed the legal risks, and Google published the paper"

Seems like there's a lot more than "two sentences".

Why does your last bullet point make me feel like we read two different articles?

fwiw I agree with the parent comment. This article, especially the ludicrous attempt to tie in the Gebru stuff, is super weak and absent of any details or anything substantial.

I don’t see anything in the article that suggests Google suppresses unfavorable research or censors authors whatsoever. Instead it sounds like a lot of whining and complaining from exceedingly privileged researchers who want some version of tenure to apply within for-profit companies and seem too immature to accept that legal and compliance functions within a large corporation very differently than in academia.

Why did you find the mention of Timnit Gebru ludicrous? The issues are closely related. In fact, I was _expecting_ the article to mention it.

Google tells Researcher 1 to re-word things in X way for Y reason.

Google tells Timnit Gebru to re-word things in X way for Y reason.

The X and Y are the same.

Based on the rest of your response, I believe you are having trouble reading the article in an objective manner. You say that it sounds like whining to you. That’s because you already think it is. You came into the article with this viewpoint about academics in corporations already established. This is why I also found your comment hilarious. You already think Timnit is a whiny researcher. You say this article is about whiny researchers. Yet it’s _ludicrous_ to mention Timnit in this article?

Also, Jeff Dean lied in his email. Maybe that’s why you’re confused about the Timnit situation. I’m assuming you don’t work at Google.

You appear to be mistaken on nearly all the facts about the Gebru situation. Given this it seems clear we would draw very different conclusions. Anyone claiming Jeff Dean lied must be so disconnected from the actual facts and so prejudiced to blame Google and view Gebru’s actions as acceptable that their opinion amounts to nothing but partisan gainsaying.

To be clear, it’s ok to disagree with Jeff Dean or to dispute his charitability in accepting Gebru’s ultimatum-based resignation, but to claim he publicly lied is beyond the pale.

Yes, he literally lied by omission. Internally, there’s an entire data analysis available for viewing. We have literally asked senior leadership why his email does not align with facts and we have not gotten a response. Internally, you can also read the exact feedback that Timnit’s paper received. Like I said, I’m assuming you don’t work at Google because even if you didn’t like Timnit and just think she’s a whiny researcher, there’s no way possible that you could say that Jeff Dean didn’t lie.

Besides the 2 week thing, he also misrepresented the “list of demands” to make it seem like it was worse than it actually was. So much so that I’m even surprised he was allowed to publish the email publicly.

I can’t imagine a single lawyer looked at his email, honestly.

Hypothetical but likely scenario below.

Jeff Dean: “Oh, you say she made a list of demands. Ok, let me put that in the email. Oh, you said there’s this 2 week deadline that she didn’t follow. Ok, let me put that in the email. What else do you want me to add?”

I believe the question you should be asking is _who_ told him these things. Please guess.

It really isn't. He lied. Normalize calling out corporate executives when they lie.

I wish he hadn't. I'm disappointed that he did. But I don't know how else to describe sharing statements one knows (or should know) to be false.

No, he really, really didn’t lie. I wish people predisposed to only see Google as being on the wrong side of it would stop saying stuff like this.

I'm a Google employee who, I think most would claim is generally on Google's side of things.

He lied. There are falsehoods that he knew (or had a responsibility to know) were false in a public statement he put his name on. They've been repeatedly corrected both by other employees and by data.

Specifically, he at least lied about a 2 week requirement for paper reviews in the internal publication approval process. While that's listed as a further requirement, they don't "normally" require two weeks.

(I wouldn't, for example call the resignation statements lies. Those were unintentional falsehoods)

I doubt we will come to any common ground here. If you think that Timnit Gebru did not resign, it’s probably not possible for us to convince each other of anything, given that I view that as a core, irrefutable fact bolstered by tons of corroborating accounts. The idea that whether it was or wasn’t a resignation (it irrefutably was) can even be called into question whatsoever is completely incompatible with the facts. That attempt to subvert reality was retrofitted onto the situation later, once the consequences of her inappropriate actions had set in for Gebru.

It’s disgusting that you literally have two Google employees providing you the truth and you just keep saying “No, you must be mistaken.” I have eyes, I can read. I have a brain that functions very well. A lie is a lie is a lie. And even if lawyers some how manage to button this up, it’s still a lie in the court of public opinion...

EDIT: Sorry, I understand that you don’t have as much information as us and you’re just going off based on tweets and stuff. But come on. It’s insulting to be lied to like that. I hope you can understand that feeling at least.

I'll just point out that Google itself has backed off on statements that she resigned. Sundar's email (the most recent public comms) limit itself to describing it as "her departure", and my understanding of California law is that her "departure" would be classified as a dismissal, not a resignation, though ultimately this depends on very particular specifics that aren't public, such as when her last paydate was, however what I've seen seems to suggest that it would lean towards dismissal. [0]

For what its worth, I don't think "threatening to resign" is the same as resignation. Much as I don't think "threatening to shoot someone" is attempted homicide.

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-mem...

That comment from Sundar bolsters the fact she resigned. People were raking him over the coals to reverse the earlier claims of resignation to say she was fired, and seeing the CEO refuse to do that is pretty huge evidence of how secure the legal team must feel that calling it a resignation is completely correct and needs no retraction or correction.

I don't see how the CEO refusing to continue to say she resigned bolsters the claim she resigned.

> calling it a resignation is completely correct and needs no retraction or correction.

Alternatively: publicly calling it a firing is essentially an admission of guilt. That's the one thing Google's lawyers would insist Google cannot do.

Presumably neither one of us are the experts on EEOC and employment litigation strategies. So instead I'm going to take the statements at face value. And at face value: Google is no longer willing to state that Dr.Gebru resigned. Anything else is spin.

The CEO didn’t refuse to say she resigned. He refused to say she was fired and refused to contradict earlier statements of her resignation.

> He refused to say she was fired

I agree! He also refused to say she resigned. Fancy that!

The important thing to note is that one of these was a change in behavior and one was not.

I think (know for a fact) they were lies also. There was no huge list of demands.

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