Sure, and, if false, its also damning — in both cases, of Google management.
Either:
(1) They have received an early indication which may indicate either unauthorized or legally protected activity, and are publicly naming and blaming and specific employee before completing an investigation, which is merely grossly unprofessional and unethical though probably not actually illegal, or
(2) They are lying and libeling a current employee.
The (1) case is a bit inaccurate/misleading. From what I can gather from the article:
- Gebru tweeted the name of the employee [1]
- Axios then reached out to Google, who then made the following statement:
> Our security systems automatically lock an employee’s corporate account when they detect that the account is at risk of compromise due to credential problems or when an automated rule involving the handling of sensitive data has been triggered. In this instance, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts. We explained this to the employee earlier today.
Sure, more to the point Gebru tweeted that Mitchell’s corporate email appeared to be nonfunctional, sure.
> Axios then reached out to Google
That seems likely to be the sequence of events, sure.
Usually and ethically, a company that was in exactly the circumstances Google described would have:
(1) Declined comment, or
(2) Confirmed the email was nonfunctional and declined further comment, or
(3) Explicitly declined comment on personnel matters (especially if the framing of the question from Axios raised the issue of it being a disciplinary action of some kind; raising a personnel issue when it wasn’t part of the framing of the question would itself be somewhat unusual.)
> Context matters.
As an abstract truism, sure; while the narrative you describe is exactly what seems like the most likely scenario to me, I didn’t describe it because that fact was already considered in the description of scenario #1. Google’s behavior is (even assuming that they are being completely honest) grossly unethical in the context described.
The only way I can read your argument is if I were in the spirit of "the big guy is always wrong".
If you're accused of a SECOND action taken against an ethicist, and AGAIN it's not because of anything you did that was bad, then yes your hand is actually being forced to say more than "no comment".
It's absolutely incredible how much Google has not spoken out to defend itself against the lies upon lies upon inconsistencies that Timnit has thrown out. And now another case pops up?
> The only way I can read your argument is if I were in the spirit of "the big guy is always wrong".
How about “the guy burning the person they are currently in a business relationship with without getting all the facts is wrong”. Or “a wrong by party A against party B does not justify a wrong by B against C.”
> It's absolutely incredible how much Google has not spoken out to defend itself against the lies upon lies upon inconsistencies that Timnit has thrown out. And now another case pops up?
Er, nothing in Google’s story, even taken as gospel truth, indicates that either Gebru’s fact claims in this case were lies or that her speculations were unreasonable or inconsitent in her position given the observable facts. So, your characterization seems...misplaced, at best, even if your characterization of her past actions was accurate. (And in the cases where Google has presented contrary stories to Gebru on other points, Google’s own stories have been outright self-contradictory whereas Gebru’s were at least internally consistent, so I can either trust Gebru or neither.)
> How about “the guy burning the person they are currently in a business relationship with without getting all the facts is wrong”. Or “a wrong by party A against party B does not justify a wrong by B against C.”
I don't even know what you think are the actions people have been taking, to make you interpret things in a way to make you say that.
> Er, nothing in Google’s story, even taken as gospel truth, indicates that either Gebru’s fact claims in this case were lies or that her speculations were unreasonable or inconsitent in her position given the observable facts.
It's very damning that she chose to call out Jeff Dean as being the person who fired her.
Her manager was not a man. Her manager's manager (who actually delivered the news) is not a man. The CEO is not white. She chose probably the ONLY person in her entire reporting chain who happens to be a white man (and in engineering circles famous), and she points to him and says "He! He did this!".
And that's just a start.
Face it, you don't even have to read Google's official account, much less believe it, without seeing that her story absolutely does not add up.
Even the headline does not match the content in any article about her.
The researcher who tweeted out the name of an employee who's email has been blocked, and throwing out theories about crackdowns and firings - that's all good.
Explaining the email account has been blocked due to mass-leaking documents - that's beyond excusable?
Sure. When facts contradict your opinion, you shouldn't hate the facts.
The researcher who's departure sparked a lot of controversy tweeted the name of the employee in question, with some opinion attached. Axios reached out to Google who then made the statement saying security systems detected mass-forwarding of internal documents. They didn't name the employee, but prefaced the explanation with "in this instance".
> Why do you think Google reached out to the press?
Why do you think I think that? I never said anything about who reached out to the press.
> I’d bet the employee leaking documents did
I bet they didn’t, because none of the articles include anything that the employee would have given them, only that they could not immediately be reached for comment. If that employee was the first source of information, then there would actually be some information from their perspective.
> and Google just responded to a request for comment.
The normal response (for a variety of good reasons, including legal and ethical ones) from a company on a matter like this when asked by the press when they haven’t completed an internal investigation would be to decline comment on personnel matters. Google’s behavior is grossly unethical here irrespective of who reached out to the media first.
> "publicly naming and blaming and specific employee"
They're not doing this if the press reaches out to them for comment with the specific details first. Given the bad faith actions of Gebru already (and apparently she's at least partially the source here from the other reply to your comment) it makes sense for Google to clarify with the response they gave (and in that response Google also did not mention the name of the employee).
This issue is way too heated for real productive discussion on internet forums. It's obviously tribal, flamewar bait, with a massive undercurrent of partisan politics (and perceived partisan politics on the side of the person you're disagreeing with).
I found what Gebru did earlier to be wrong, my prior is that the behavior here by the employee is also likely to be wrong. I've been generally disappointed in the level of discussion from the political fringes (both 'woke' and pretty much the entire GOP at this point). I find a lot of overlap between this Google AI ethicist community and critical race theory woke politics.
I suspect in the end when all the details are out Google will be in the right.
Without waiting there's no point for all the arguing that's going to go back and forth in these comments.
> They’re not doing this if the press reaches out to them for comment with the specific details first.
The press didn’t have the specific details until given them by Google, which is the “naming and blaming”.
The press had a report from another party of an apparently nonfunctional corporate email address. Describing the existence and basis of an internal investigation that had not been completed from that is grossly unprofessional; I’d be mildly surprised if it was done by a small outfit where media inquiries were regularly fielded by someone with no corporate PR, HR, or legal training, advice, or guidance, but for anything at Google’s scale it is unimaginable as anything but a conscious, deliberate breach of norms with the intent of harming the subject employee in public without developing a full picture of the facts, and that’s assuming Google’s statement is completely truthful as far as it goes.
> The normal response (for a variety of good reasons, including legal and ethical ones) from a company on a matter like this when asked by the press when they haven’t completed an internal investigation would be to decline comment on personnel matters. Google’s behavior is grossly unethical here irrespective of who reached out to the media first.
To give a counter-argument to this: If party A makes a claim or accusation, and party B just says "no comment for now", it'll be near-impossible to reduce the (potentially unjustified) fallout of the premature verdict made. Public opinions matter, and stories told one-sided should not be desired by anyone interested in an objective discourse.
Sure, and, if false, its also damning — in both cases, of Google management.
Either:
(1) They have received an early indication which may indicate either unauthorized or legally protected activity, and are publicly naming and blaming and specific employee before completing an investigation, which is merely grossly unprofessional and unethical though probably not actually illegal, or
(2) They are lying and libeling a current employee.