• About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • DMCA
  • Sitemap
  • Write For Us
Saturday, February 27, 2021
Daily illinois - USA | News, Sports & Updates Web Magazine
  • Covid-19
  • News
    • All
    • Education
    • Politics
    • Sports
    • World
    Medical workers wait for consultations after receiving a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in Tokyo on February 17, 2021.

    Why Japan took so long to start Covid-19 vaccinations, even with the Olympics looming

    Crown prince's actions in Khashoggi killing leave Saudi fund vulnerable, ex-Obama official says

    Crown prince’s actions in Khashoggi killing leave Saudi fund vulnerable, ex-Obama official says

    LeBron to Zlatan: No way I'll ever 'stick to sports'

    LeBron to Zlatan: No way I’ll ever ‘stick to sports’

    Chrishell Stause and Keo Motsepe

    Selling Sunset’s Chrishell Stause slams ex Keo Motsepe ‘playing the victim’

    House passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, sends it to Senate

    House passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, sends it to Senate

    The battle over voting restrictions is playing out nationwide. Arizona Republicans are leading the way

    The battle over voting restrictions is playing out nationwide. Arizona Republicans are leading the way

    Legendary F1 designer Murray names latest car after Lauda

    Legendary F1 designer Murray names latest car after Lauda

    7NEWS.com.au

    Democrats aim to pass virus aid bill

    Sandals sit in the dirt following an attack on a Nigerian school

    Nigeria’s Zamfara school abduction: Hundreds of girls missing

    Black Americans have disproportionately suffered from pollution. It’s time for a new policy.

    Black Americans have disproportionately suffered from pollution. It’s time for a new policy.

  • Science & Tech
    • All
    • Mobile
    FDA advisors endorse Janssen's single-shot COVID-19 vaccine

    FDA advisors endorse Janssen’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine

    Facebook apologizes for 'mistake' in threatening to ban 81-year-old woolen pig knitter for hate speech

    Facebook apologizes for ‘mistake’ in threatening to ban 81-year-old woolen pig knitter for hate speech

    How will NASA's Perseverance rover engineers pilot first helicopter on Mars?

    How will NASA’s Perseverance rover engineers pilot first helicopter on Mars?

    Sir David Attenborough narrates the "exhibits" in this AR iPhone app

    Sir David Attenborough narrates the “exhibits” in this AR iPhone app

    There's a secret code in the Mars rover's parachute

    There’s a secret code in the Mars rover’s parachute

    Spotify reveals HiFi tier, 80-country expansion, new exclusive podcasts

    Spotify reveals HiFi tier, 80-country expansion, new exclusive podcasts

    ‘Follow the Sun’ is a new Mac app to automate brightness and color temperature of HomeKit lights - 9to5Mac

    ‘Follow the Sun’ is a new Mac app to automate brightness and color temperature of HomeKit lights – 9to5Mac

    Democrats ask cable and streaming providers about their role in spreading misinformation ahead of Capitol riot

    Democrats ask cable and streaming providers about their role in spreading misinformation ahead of Capitol riot

    Bradley Voytek

    The Brain’s ‘Background Noise’ May Be Meaningful After All

    This Android's under-display selfie camera isn’t great, but it's a sign for future phones

    This Android’s under-display selfie camera isn’t great, but it’s a sign for future phones

  • Entertainment
    • All
    • Gaming
    • Movie
    • Music
    What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

    What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

    The House passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package

    The House passed Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package

    Review: Billie Eilish is an ordinary teen with extraordinary talent in 'The World's a Little Blurry'

    Review: Billie Eilish is an ordinary teen with extraordinary talent in ‘The World’s a Little Blurry’

    Coronavirus in Illinois updates: United Center COVID-19 vaccination site could distribute up to 6,000 doses a day; 2,441 new cases and 55 additional deaths reported

    Coronavirus in Illinois updates: United Center COVID-19 vaccination site could distribute up to 6,000 doses a day; 2,441 new cases and 55 additional deaths reported

    Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung (right) with actors Steven Yeun (left) and Will Patton (center) on the set of "Minari."

    What the controversy over ‘Minari’ says about being American

    Review: Mexico's 'I'm No Longer Here' spans the gap between alienation and connection

    Review: Mexico’s ‘I’m No Longer Here’ spans the gap between alienation and connection

    ACMs shut women out of top country category but say female representation improving

    ACMs shut women out of top country category but say female representation improving

    CPAC organizers begged attendees to wear masks — and got booed

    CPAC organizers begged attendees to wear masks — and got booed

    Gary Oldman, left, and Ben Affleck joined a Hollywood Reporter roundtable on COVID-19 and the movie

    Ben Affleck And Gary Oldman Reflect On The Changing Business Of Moviemaking During COVID-19

    Tobias Ighofose, Founder of BisonPlay

    Meet Tobias Ighofose: Entrepreneur Creating Diverse Mobile Games Inspired By His Daughter

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    second co. apparel

    The Second Co. Drops Apparel + More Canadian Fashion News

    The inaugural Sunshine & Sunflower Day is happening at Kalbar – March 27, 2021 | Australian Food News

    The inaugural Sunshine & Sunflower Day is happening at Kalbar – March 27, 2021 | Australian Food News

    How did Bad Bunny end up as a snake plant on SNL? The team behind the skit explains

    How did Bad Bunny end up as a snake plant on SNL? The team behind the skit explains

    Demi Lovato shared a post on Instagram written by someone else that called gender reveal events 'transphobic.'

    Demi Lovato shares post claiming gender reveals contribute to transphobia, draws mixed reactions

    20 of the world's best soups

    20 of the world’s best soups

    Brandy, a brown tabby cat, was reunited on Feb. 22 with her owner, Charles, after she went astray for 15 years.

    Man reunited with cat after it vanished 15 years ago: ‘It was very emotional’

    Lady Gaga dognapping: FBI ‘investigating political motives’

    Lady Gaga dognapping: FBI ‘investigating political motives’

    Covid vaccine passports are being considered. And health experts and rights groups are deeply concerned

    Covid vaccine passports are being considered. And health experts and rights groups are deeply concerned

    product image

    32 Reusable Cloth Face Masks You Can Buy Now

    Supplier Catalog - Reiser

    Trends and Challenges in Pet Food and Treat Packaging – Food Industry Executive

44 °f
Chicago
39 ° Sun
28 ° Mon
30 ° Tue
41 ° Wed
No Result
View All Result
Daily illinois - USA | News, Sports & Updates Web Magazine
No Result
View All Result
Home Covid-19

The controversy behind a star Google AI researcher’s departure

by Staff Writer
December 10, 2020
in Covid-19
Reading Time: 7min read
0
The controversy behind a star Google AI researcher’s departure
491
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter


Google’s workplace culture is yet again embroiled in controversy.

Related posts

Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a news conference in December 2019.

$377 million in federal stimulus spending authorized by City Council (LIVE UPDATES)

February 27, 2021
FDA panel unanimously recommends third Covid vaccine as J&J wins key vote in path to emergency use

FDA panel unanimously recommends third Covid vaccine as J&J wins key vote in path to emergency use

February 27, 2021

AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru — a well-respected pioneer in her field and one of the few Black women leaders in the industry — said on December 2 that Google fired her after blocking the publication of her research around bias in AI systems. Days before Gebru’s departure, she sent a scathing internal memo to her colleagues detailing how higher-ups at Google tried to quash her research. She also criticized her department for what she described as a continued lack of diversity among its staff.

In her widely read internal email, which was published by Platformer, Gebru said the company was “silencing in the most fundamental way possible” and claimed that “your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people” at Google.

After Gebru’s departure, Google’s head of AI research Jeff Dean sent a note to Gebru’s department on December 3 saying that, after internal review, her research paper did not meet the company’s standards for publishing. According to Gebru, the company also told her that her critical note to her coworkers was “inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.”

On December 9, a week after Gebru tweeted that she was fired, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide email, published by Axios, acknowledging the controversy surrounding Gebru’s exit, saying that “it seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google.”

“We need to accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily,” Pichai added, writing that the company would investigate the circumstances behind Gebru’s departure.

Pichai did not apologize directly to Gebru in the memo or confirm that she had been fired, as Gebru claimed.

After Pichai’s note went out, Gebru tweeted that she saw “no plans for accountability” in his memo. “I see this as ‘I’m sorry for how it played out but I’m not sorry for what we did to her [Gebru] yet,” she wrote.

A representative for Google declined to comment. Gebru did not respond to a request for comment.

Gebru’s allegation of being pushed out of the powerful tech company under questionable circumstances is causing a stir in the tech and academic communities, with many prominent researchers, civil rights leaders, and Gebru’s Google AI colleagues speaking out publicly on Twitter in her defense. A petition to support her had by December 5 received signatures from more than 1,500 Google employees and over 2,000 academics, nonprofit leaders, and industry peers.

Her departure is significant because it hits on broader tensions around racial diversity in Silicon Valley as well as whether or not academics have enough freedom to publish research, even if it’s controversial, while working at major companies that control the development of powerful technologies and have their own corporate interests to consider.

What led to Gebru’s departure

People are still trying to unravel exactly what led to Gebru’s departure from Google.

What we know is that Gebru and several of her colleagues were planning to present a research paper at a forthcoming academic conference about unintended consequences in natural language processing systems, which are the tools used in the field of computing to understand and automate the creation of written words and audio. Gebru and her colleagues’ research, according to the New York Times, “pinpointed flaws in a new breed of language technology, including a system built by Google that underpins the company’s search engine.” It also reportedly discussed the environmental consequences of large-scale computing systems used to power natural language processing programs.

As part of Google’s process, Gebru submitted the paper to Google for internal review before it was published more broadly. Google determined that the paper was not up to its standards because it “ignored too much relevant research,” according to the memo Dean sent on Thursday.

Dean also said in his memo that Google rejected Gebru’s paper for publication because she submitted it one day before its deadline for publication instead of the required two weeks.

Gebru asked for further discussion with Google before retracting the paper, according to the Times. If Google couldn’t address her concerns, Gebru said she would resign from the company.

Google told Gebru it couldn’t meet her conditions and the company was accepting her resignation immediately.

It’s a standard process for a company like Google to review the research of its employees before it’s published outside it. But former colleagues and outside industry researchers defending Gebru questioned whether or not Google was arbitrarily enforcing its rules more strictly in this scenario.

“It just seems odd that someone who has had books written about her, who is quoted and cited on a daily basis, would be let go because a paper wasn’t reviewed properly,” said Rumman Chowdhury, a data scientist who is the former head of responsible AI at Accenture Applied Intelligence and has now launched her own company called Parity. Chowdhury has no affiliation with Google.

The conflict and Gebru’s departure reflect a growing tension between researchers studying the ethics of AI and the major tech companies that employ them.

It’s also another example of deep, ongoing issues dividing parts of Google’s workforce. On December 2, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint that said Google had spied on its workers and likely violated labor laws when it fired two employee activists last year.

After several years of turmoil in Google’s workforce over issues ranging from Google’s controversial plans to work with the US military to sexual harassment of its employees, the past several months had been relatively quiet. The company’s biggest public pressure came instead from antitrust legal scrutiny and Republican lawmakers’ unproven accusations that Google’s products display an anti-conservative bias. But Gebru’s case and the recent NLRB complaint show the company is still fighting internal battles.

“What Timnit did was present some hard but important evaluations of how the company’s efforts are going with diversity and inclusion initiatives and how to course-correct on that,” said Laurence Berland, a former Google engineer who was fired after organizing his colleagues around worker issues and is one of the employees contesting his dismissal with the NLRB. “It was passionate, but it wasn’t just non-constructive,” he said.

Why Gebru’s departure matters

In the relatively new and developing field of ethical AI, Gebru is not only a foundational researcher but a role model to many young academics. She’s also a leader of key groups like Black in AI, which are fostering more diversity in the largely white, male-dominated field of AI in the US.

While Google doesn’t break out its demographics specifically for its artificial intelligence research department, it does annually share its diversity numbers. Only 24.7 percent of its technical workforce are women, and just 2.4 percent are Black, according to its 2020 Diversity and Inclusion report.

“Timnit is a pioneer. She is one of the founders of responsible and ethical artificial intelligence,” said Chowdhury. “Computer scientists and engineers enter the field because of her.”

In 2018, Gebru and another researcher, Joy Buolamwini, published groundbreaking research showing facial recognition software identified darker-skinned people and women incorrectly at far higher rates than lighter-skinned people and men.

Her work has contributed to a broader reckoning in the tech industry about the unintended consequences of AI that is trained on data sets that can marginalize minorities and women, reinforcing existing societal inequalities.

Outside of Google, academics in the field of AI are concerned that Gebru’s firing could scare other researchers from publishing important research that may step on the toes of their employers.

“It’s not clear to researchers how they’re going to continue doing this work in the industry,” said UC Berkeley computer science professor Moritz Hardt, who specializes in machine learning and has studied fairness in AI. “It’s a chilling moment, I would say.”

Update, December 9, 3:30 pm PT: This article has been updated to include Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s memo to employees about Gebru’s departure.

Will you help keep Vox free for all?

Millions rely on Vox’s journalism to understand the coronavirus crisis. We believe it pays off for all of us, as a society and a democracy, when our neighbors and fellow citizens can access clear, concise information on the pandemic. But our distinctive explanatory journalism is expensive. Support from our readers helps us keep it free for everyone. If you have already made a financial contribution to Vox, thank you. If not, please consider making a contribution today from as little as $3.





Source by [author_name]

Share196Tweet123Share49
  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Van Morrison teams with Eric Clapton for anti-lockdown song

Van Morrison teams with Eric Clapton for anti-lockdown song

December 19, 2020
Sen. Rand Paul's ‘Festivus Report’ claims $54B in tax dollars was 'totally wasted'

Sen. Rand Paul’s ‘Festivus Report’ claims $54B in tax dollars was ‘totally wasted’

December 23, 2020
'Zombie' greenhouse gas lurks in permafrost beneath the Arctic Ocean

‘Zombie’ greenhouse gas lurks in permafrost beneath the Arctic Ocean

December 24, 2020
What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

0
Fact check: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would defer his annual raise

Fact check: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he would defer his annual raise

0
Swedish government sidelines epidemiologist who steered country's no lockdown experiment as deaths rise

Swedish government sidelines epidemiologist who steered country’s no lockdown experiment as deaths rise

0
What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

What really happened when the FBI persecuted Billie Holiday

February 27, 2021
Medical workers wait for consultations after receiving a dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in Tokyo on February 17, 2021.

Why Japan took so long to start Covid-19 vaccinations, even with the Olympics looming

February 27, 2021
Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a news conference in December 2019.

$377 million in federal stimulus spending authorized by City Council (LIVE UPDATES)

February 27, 2021
Daily illinois - USA | News, Sports & Updates Web Magazine

Copyright © 2020 Dailyillinois.com.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • DMCA
  • Sitemap
  • Write For Us

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • About Us Page
  • Contact
  • DMCA Policy
  • Home 1
  • Privacy Policy
  • Submit, Guest Post, Write For Us and Become a Contributor
  • Terms of Use

Copyright © 2020 Dailyillinois.com.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.