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Timnit Gebru Profile picture
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26 Feb, 4 tweets, 2 min read
One of the things Jeff Dean keeps on doing is thrashing this paper: arxiv.org/abs/1906.02243 by @strubell Ananya Ganesh & Andrew McCallum. Andrew MacCallum even has a Google affiliation from what I understand, at least he did when I was there. 1\4
This is one of the first papers where researchers estimate energy consumption in THEIR OWN research and development process of models THEY develop. They write down what process they used and how they made these estimates. Why someone wants to harp on this work is beyond me. 2\4
On the other hand, Joelle Pineau, co-lead of FAIR, is a co-author on a paper building on this work.
jmlr.org/papers/volume2…

The leader of one company's research org uses his power to tarnish this work & acts incredibly defensively, leader of a peer org builds on it. 3\4
Jeff Dean used his power to thrash people's scholarship & tarnish reputations, going so far as to FIRE people & THEN lie about it.

This is not just a research "disagreement."

These power dynamics need to be accounted for in the academic community. 4/4

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More from @timnitGebru

Timnit Gebru Profile picture
19 Feb
I expected nothing more obviously.

I write an email asking for things, I get fired, and then after a 3 month investigation, they say they should probably do some of the things I presumably got fired asking for, without holding anyone accountable for their actions. 1/
They're still doing what they're doing to my team, my co-lead's been locked out for 5 weeks. They timed a re-org announcement RIGHT BEFORE this. There's no connection right?

But 3 months later they obviously can't hold anyone with any real power accountable. Thats impossible 2/
I think we're all used to this at this point.

E.g. the call for "unity" and "moving forward" when asking for accountability for the insurrection. Thats what people in power do. Tried and true method to protect them. 3/
Read 5 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
28 Jan
At Davos @sundarpichai gets a question about me & he talks about how Google is a leader in AI ethics & how they "allow debate." You are a leader in gaslighting. Privileged men like @JeffDean surrounded by other privileged men ordered me to retract a peer reviewed paper... 1\
They lied, gaslit, subjected me to harassment, stalking, attacks online against me & team with close to ZERO Black ppl in this space at Google where ones who were there left one by one while ppl like @JeffDean protect & promote harassers as you saw even in the WSJ fluff piece. 2\
There were at least 2 other incidents where we constantly mentioned harassers and bullies to @JeffDean & ask him what he did to them vs what he did to me.

"We allow debate?"
You create hostile work environments & send harassers out with millions. 3\
Read 6 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
5 Jan
The email where @JeffDean says they "accepted my resignation"
To: Megan Kacholia
Cc: @mmitchell_ai @JeffDean Samy Bengio @kat_heller @sguada

Ended with this exact sentence 1/3
"I hope you have a good week and as I mentioned I will neither answer email nor do anything else with respect to this until I am back from my vacation on Monday.

Timnit"

@JeffDean is this how people resign? 2/3
Then the following day I get an email to my personal email. I can't get over how cruel these people are.
Read 4 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
3 Jan
War makes people do senseless things. My friend told me that during the 1998 Eritrean Ethiopian war, he almost volunteered to fight on the Ethiopian side. He was almost brainwashed into giving his life for the war. I'm glad he didn't. But more than 100 thousand youth perished. 1\
Couples & families were separated, one stuck on one side, the other on the other side. Long time friends stopped talking--became enemies. Thats what happens during war and this fact stays the same. 2\
I was reading an article where an Ethiopian refugee said: "“Everyone looks at you and points out the part of you that doesn’t belong to them,” 3\
Read 7 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
3 Jan
I was looking through things and saw one of many the peer/spot bonuses I got from my peers. I wrote on the brain women and allies mailing list about how I often got thanked by my peers while others in the management chain were tone policing.
From @le_roux_nicolas: "Thank you Timnit for relentlessly working to keep every one of us, from top management to junior members of the team, accountable and for amplifying the voice of underrepresented groups. We need people like you at Brain to change the team for the better."
That was from August 2019. By then I had not only written many emails & documents, but had tried to get @JeffDean and Megan to take action on many fronts. One of the documents I co-wrote was titled "Hiring and Retention of Women at Google Research"--a 6 page document.
Read 7 tweets
Timnit Gebru Profile picture
17 Dec 20
"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\
Read 4 tweets

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