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Timnit Gebru Profile picture
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17 Dec, 4 tweets, 1 min read
"Google’s short-sighted decision to fire and retaliate against a core member of the Ethical AI team makes it clear that we need swift and structural changes if this work is to continue...1\
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
"and if the legitimacy of the field as a whole is to persevere,” the letter reads."

I am extremely worried about the fate of all those who are supporting me at Google and we should all keep an eye out for retaliation. 2\
While I was at Google these are many of the types of conversations I tried to have internally (as you saw in the email they cited when they "resignated" me). Like I mentioned in another thread, we try to have these conversations in all possible modes of communication. 3\
Until finally they target us and paint us as the problem, pushing us out. A culture that doesn't allow marginalized voices to even dare voice their issues cannot do any meaningful work in "ethical AI."

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More from @timnitGebru

Timnit Gebru Profile picture
16 Dec
This episode has had so much collateral damage--it has brought so many different threads together, and has damaged so many people. The latest is not only the racist & sexist attacks on Reddit we even wrote about on our paper, but fake accounts & troll farms targeting ppl 1\
As we know, and as @L_badikho has studied in his "spare time" in the last few months, these troll farms work within a specific context to harass and intimidate people who speak up, who are many times women of color. 2\
Anima Anandkumar, in addition to the sexism she has experienced all her life, the excruciating constant harassment she has had to endure from university to her work environment, to any professional interaction, has also been attacked for simply calling it out. 3\
Read 9 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
14 Dec
There is something to be said for Google saying they care about AI ethics & diversity, trying to say they're publishing in this area, highlighting a number of papers to prove their point, and seeing that the author list contains ZERO people from underrepresented racial groups.
No irony whatsoever that they were trying to gate keep people from underrepresented groups from publishing work that concerns their communities. I often talked about that internally--how their fairness initiatives *themselves* marginalized many. They had no racial literacy...
We even developed a set of principles: "nothing about us without us" the first time I heard this phrase was from people in the disability rights movement. We were so sick of these initiatives that exploited us we specifically wanted them to address this.
Read 4 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
9 Dec
Don't paint me as an "angry Black woman" for whom you need "de-escalation strategies" for. This thread is just the beginning of the toxicity I dealt with since before I even joined Google and I haven't said anything specific yet. 1\
"...from de-escalation strategies..." De-escalation-->Replace that with leadership accountability. This statement implies that I was out of line and that their failure was NOT discriminating OR retaliating against me, NOR having me face a hostile work environment daily. 2\
Nope. Take a look at @shaft's thread here outlining similar strategies for those who are "troublemakers."

Take responsibility for your toxic leaders, HR, Legal and other entities who harass and discriminate against people like me and protect toxicity. 3\
Read 4 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
9 Dec
People were checking in on me making sure I'm eating. @IfeomaOzoma even reminded me to hydrate :) This is reminding me of how when I joined Google, I lost 10 pounds in less than a month because of the toxicity I immediately met./1
I used to joke that I had the Google -10 rather than the Google 15--most people say they gain weight when they join. Sexism at Brain was notorious in my whisper networks--didn't hear about racism tho because if you have no Black people you avoid that problem right?/2
I had a meeting first with Samy and then @JeffDean asking each of them what they were planning on doing about this and a number of other issues. I did not feel comfortable signing my offer because there were so many red flags--so many issues I saw even before joining./3
Read 7 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
5 Dec
1/Man there’s so much to pick apart. Let’s start with one thing. I want to ask if Jeff Dean has looked at the publication approval policy that he keeps on mentioning in his email. Like, for example, a simple look at the website? Let’s read.
2/First off “Start the PubApprove process at least 1 week in advance of any deadline”. Okay, not sure where the 2 weeks in Jeff’s email came from.
3/ But ALSO “The perfect policy” “There is no such thing as the perfect policy. Fortunately Googlers like to do the right thing. Please do that here—read the policy and do what makes sense.”
Read 6 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
4 Dec
I have a suspicion that HR research BP Malini Rao had a lot to do with this. And my best friend Kate from legal who threw me and @kat_heller under the bus before. They’ve been looking for this opportunity, and @JeffDean just works with them to do these things to people it seems.
They have had it in for me since day 1. So much to say about this but I’ll save it for later. Many stories about what they said and did (about me to others). Malini Rao, I had also heard, had a huge hand in pushing out another woman out of research a while ago, a DEI advocate.
Remember when I said that every time I wrote an email to a list that’s supposed to be for women and allies I got harassed? Who do you think by? And you have leaders who are talking heads about DEI working with known toxic HR BPs.
Read 4 tweets

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