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Comment by notsureaboutpg | Hacker News Reader

From my understanding of the events, there was not really anything wrong with the way Google handled the AI Ethics researchers it fired. One threatened to quit unless a long list of demands were met. The other was exfiltrating company data.

Why would this guy give up real money to defend them?

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> Why would this guy give up real money to defend them?

Dr. Gebru has a lot of support among the professor's peers in AI ethics; accepting the award would paint a target on his back.

Edited for clarity.

Dr. Gebru is a she

I don't think her gender matters, it's about Luke Stark's peers that she has support among. They happen to also be her peers, but that's not the point. If she was in a different field, or not in academia at all, but supported by his peers (which wouldn't be her peers, but might be her fans, or subordinates or whatever), it would be the same result.

Are you daft? You can use “he or she” if you don’t care or “she” if you do but to say “he” is patently incorrect.

Luke is a male name. It's about Luke's peers. They are his peers (if they weren't, it wouldn't matter who has influence on them). It's not about their status as Timnit Gebru's peers, so her gender doesn't matter and "his peers" obviously referred to "Luke Stark's peers".

This elevates him in his field, which isn't CS.

I think this is sad but true.

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