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Marco Rogers Profile picture
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12 Dec, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Apparently this person is “somebody” in AI research. They’re having a meltdown right now. Including calling Timnit Gebru a liar.
And I mean full meltdown.
This man has never used to word "diatribe" to describe anything in his entire 5 years on twitter. I checked.

The first time he reaches for it is describing a Black woman who is frustrated and fed up with poor treatment. He calls it a "toxic environment".
Similarly. First time ever referring to anyone or anything as "deranged". Reserved for the passionate voice of a Black woman who only wants wrongs to be righted.
Correction. The "deranged" comments seems to be referring to a *different* woman of color who he takes issue with today. My bad.
Welp.
Besides pointing out this person is an asshole, I’m really just saying what @KimCrayton1 has been saying. Tech is not apolitical or neutral.

Plus what I always say. Which is there is no magic. Humans make all of this stuff. And a lot of those humans are assholes.

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More from @polotek

Marco Rogers Profile picture
13 Dec
Economics just isn't this simple. I wish that people who wanted to use this simple definition would admit that they're incentivized to do so because it benefits them in their current situation. It's okay. Just call it what it is.
Many employers are absolutely selling a lifestyle. Why does it make sense for an employer to upgrade their healthcare plan when the actual work hasn't changed? Because it's something their employees value and raises their standard of living. It makes the company more competitive.
Why does it make sense for a company to move to open a new office in a different location or even relocate the whole company. Part of the calculus is always that folks in that area will accept less money because they can still achieve a similar lifestyle there.
Read 26 tweets
Marco Rogers Profile picture
13 Dec
"...even with artificial intelligence and third-party moderators, the company was 'deleting less than 5% of all of the hate speech posted to Facebook.'" buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/ryanma…
"The implicit vision guiding most of our integrity work today is one where all human discourse is overseen by perfect, fair, omniscient robots owned by Mark Zuckerberg."

That's a hell of a sentence.
I was debating this with @operaqueenie. She says facebook is a big problem, but not the only problem. And I found myself making a very passionate case that, yes, Facebook is the *whole* problem. Not the tool per se, but the power it wields and how it wields that power.
Read 8 tweets
Marco Rogers Profile picture
13 Dec
Oop! Shots fired.
They’re referring to this thread, which has been going around in coding circles. It’s highly entertaining. These kinds of technology “war stories” usually are. But we do have to ask if it was at all necessary.
I hesitate to share these kinds of stories these days. Because I realized that while they are interesting to hear, they are not fun to live through. It’s actually a story of a bunch of people being damn near run into the ground for the benefit of their employer.
Read 11 tweets
Marco Rogers Profile picture
12 Dec
Having a place to post this is seriously the only reason I spun up a new blog. If I could have one single idea take hold in tech management it's to stop talking about project updates in 1:1s.
Let me be clear though. You need to talk about project updates. In fact, you probably need to talk about them more often. I see a lot of places where they are locked up in short 1:1 conversations. Change your process so you are hearing them all the time in other venues.
Get project updates out of 1:1s and you'll have room for much more important conversations with your individual direct reports. If your org is stuck in update mode, it will take some time to make this shift. But you will be glad you did.
Read 8 tweets
Marco Rogers Profile picture
12 Dec
I hear you Jon. But we're not gonna pretend like this is a Trump thing. This is white America and has always been. You're just taking this opportunity because it's particularly bad right now and you wanna use it to punish Trump. I get it. But you can do better.
Please do use whatever rhetorical tactics you can to blast Trump. But be careful that you're not just describing how America has always worked and only pretending it's bad today. And more importantly, make sure you're gonna still be mad about it after Trump is gone.
These things Jon describes, where powerful people profit off the harm of others while giving themselves advantages, is at the very core of how America works. We have accepted that way of life for centuries. Trump does it with glee and forgets to pretend at decorum. That's all.
Read 9 tweets
Marco Rogers Profile picture
4 Dec
You can learn a lot by really examining what is happening with Timnit Gebru. Both how she was used to bolster Google's brand and credibility and how she was ultimately sacrificed when she wouldn't fall in line.
I'm really interested in hearing from Jeff Dean. The Google exec who Gebru says is responsible for backstabbing her. Because here's the thing. He could be a villain. Or he could just be an example of spineless white men who follow orders to destroy PoC when we don't behave.
I'm only talking about this explicitly because Gebru has decided to share her story openly. Keep in mind that what she's doing can and probably will be incredibly damaging to her. But we have to start standing our ground against this kind of villainy. This is how things go bad.
Read 10 tweets

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