No, Google should never have messed with their researchers’ publications; it’s always the coverup that becomes the story. Contrast Google Research with Microsoft Research, which enjoys a stellar reputation and independence.
There is no reason for Google to pay researchers and to not have some ownership over the process or outcome in some manner, in fact, it's unreasonable to contemplate otherwise.
Google was exceedingly gracious by sponsoring the work and having it make public in the first place.
The demands made of the researchers in question were quite minor, and completely appropriate, and frankly immaterial to the thrust of concerns anyhow.
To boot, accusations of 'racism' are vicious and repulsive.
If researchers want to be completely independent in the terms they might expect in academia - that's entirely understandable - perfectly fine - but they'll have to find jobs elsewhere.
Google has a Search Engine and bunch of other products, and to suggest that their major investment in research should entitle them to some kind of fair parameterize of the process is very reasonable.
To remedy the situation, and an obvious failure on Google's part, they should spend some time thinking about where that line is drawn, and what kind of expectations should be in place. In retrospect, it seems like a management failure for there to have been any misunderstanding on that front. But the point is -> there is a line. Researchers that don't want to with those parameters can make the choice not to. That's why we have both private and publicly funded research.
This case was really just mismanagement by Google. They could have just as well taken those researchers seriously, allow them to investigate whether there is systemic discrimination and then try to correct it, as was the whole point of hiring them in the first place. AI ethics researchers all over the world are publishing articles about the dangers of serious discrimination by large language models. Not addressing this and firing researchers who were working on it on their behalf is not going to help Google in the long run at all.
Google didn't allow the team to make revisions. They stated the paper couldn't be published, period. The difference here is very clearly the management, not the researchers.
If the paper was good it could go through the process and be ready for the next conference. Nobody is seriously suggesting that those words were axed forever.
> The paper was submitted late.
This is not true. The paper was submitted for internal review with about the median amount of notice. The normal internal review process was and is usually very quick, it is not normally a weeks-long back and forth. Importantly, the paper actually passed the normal review process before being submitted to the conference.
> there was a special go/no-go review
It's unclear to what extent the special review was a go/no-go review. It may have been. The review however was not due to the paper being submitted late. As far as I know the special review was actually only done retroactively, after the paper had been submitted externally and approved by the normal internal process.
> If the paper was good it could go through the process and be ready for the next conference.
Even after submission for conference review, there was ample time for back and forth and review internally. Timnit asked if there was feedback she could incorporate into the paper, as even after the paper was submitted to the conference, they could revise it. Google's response was initially to not provide any specific feedback, and then to say that the feedback could not be addressed, the paper could only be unsubmitted.
> Nobody is seriously suggesting that those words were axed forever.
Actually yes, that appears to be precisely what happened.
This is true. There was a requested amount of time and it was not met. To show discrimination you'd also have to show median quality and median editing work required. This paper had a lot of flaws that would be hard to correct without writing it again.
> Importantly, the paper actually passed the normal review process before being submitted to the conference.
But not the corporate review where the people paying the money decided if they thought it was good to attach their name to.
> It's unclear to what extent the special review was a go/no-go review.
Not at all. There was a strong 'No Go' message given. That's how you know.
> The review however was not due to the paper being submitted late.
The "don't bother fixing stuff, we're just kiboshing it" part was.
> after the paper had been submitted externally and approved by the normal internal process.
The normal internal process is about writing quality and fact-checking. The corporate review is entirely separate and always last in the process in order to see the latest version.
> Even after submission for conference review, there was ample time for back and forth and review internally.
No, not for the level of rework they thought it should receive. If it had passed then sure. The reason to meet the deadline is to handle the situation where it doesn't pass on the first go.
> Timnit asked if there was feedback she could incorporate into the paper
And her bosses decided that the paper wasn't worth the last-minute work. I imagine they felt she submitted it late to game the system.
> Google's response was initially to not provide any specific feedback, and then to say that the feedback could not be addressed, the paper could only be unsubmitted
Right, because it wasn't feedback to her. That ship had sailed. It was confidential feedback to her boss about their belief in the quality of the work. To share that feedback would put innocent employees in a Damore position, attacked for feedback they'd been asked to write. Given how she attacked her boss by name it's reasonable to think she'd have included the coworkers, where they'd be pounced on by an angry twitter mob.
> Actually yes, that appears to be precisely what happened.
No. The preprint was released. Google just said "not in our name". And now that she resigned she has the freedom.