[HN Gopher] Google AI scientist Bengio resigns after colleagues'... ___________________________________________________________________ Google AI scientist Bengio resigns after colleagues' firings - email Author : Anon84 Score : 51 points Date : 2021-04-06 21:48 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.reuters.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com) | rahimnathwani wrote: | The word 'after' in the title suggests the two events are linked. | | But the email excerpts quoted in article do not support that | conclusion. | breakfastduck wrote: | We must have read a different article. | | > Gebru has said the company wanted to suppress her criticism | of its products and its efforts to increase workforce | diversity. | | > Bengio had defended the pair, who co-led a team of about a | dozen researching ethical issues related to AI software. | | From his email: | | > "how difficult yet important it is to organize a large team | of researchers so as to promote long term ambitious research, | exploration, rigor, diversity and inclusion" | rahimnathwani wrote: | "We must have read a different article." | | No need for sarcasm. | | This article says that "He did not mention their firings in | his farewell note.". | jjulius wrote: | Sure, but perhaps he chose to keep his professional career | as free of drama as he could while still quitting because | of this. Prospective employers are now more likely to hire | him because of this. | | Keep in mind that there's more to the sentence you're | quoting... | | >"Though he did not mention the firings in his farewell | note, they influenced his decision to resign, people | familiar with the matter said, speaking on condition of | anonymity." | [deleted] | PeterisP wrote: | Well, sure, but the farewell note isn't the only thing he's | writtern or said. | newnamenewface wrote: | This title should be amended to eliminate the (imo) implication | that he did so as a result of the firings. | | "He did not mention their firings in his farewell note." | karaterobot wrote: | This is a great example of the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" | fallacy, caught in the wild! | | It may very well be the case, that his leaving is related to | his colleagues being fired, but there's no evidence of it in | the article. So Reuters should not be strongly implying -- to | the extent that no reader would likely draw any other | conclusion -- that it is. I mean, it probably is, let's be | honest, but I kind of expect better from Reuters. | coding123 wrote: | Well he did do it after. | | The article mentions multiple links and things he said. | ska wrote: | > but there's no evidence of it in the article. | | That's not quite correct, but true that the evidence | presented is weak (e.g. anonymous "sources familiar") | whymauri wrote: | IMO, would also be helpful to have the first name since there's | Yoshua Bengio. | partingshots wrote: | It was most likely done on purpose unfortunately. | ska wrote: | I agree it's a bit of a problem, but your selective quoting | overstates the case. The full quote is: | | "Though he did not mention the firings in his farewell note, | they influenced his decision to resign, people familiar with | the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity." | jjulius wrote: | In the interest of eliminating implications, you included a | period at the end of that quote, which suggests there's nothing | else to that statement. In point of fact, the full sentence is: | | >"Though he did not mention the firings in his farewell note, | they influenced his decision to resign, people familiar with | the matter said, speaking on condition of anonymity." | | A farewell note is a formality for many people. I'd wager, | given that this article discusses his previous statements on | the matter, the firings did influence his decision. Having said | that, it seems that he's departing as professionally as he | possibly can, without blowing things up on the way out. | Prospective employers don't have to be afraid of him making a | scene even if he disagrees with them. | refenestrator wrote: | I would really like to hope that "people familiar with the | matter" means Bengio off the record, and not some non-Bengio | person with an axe to grind. | gennarro wrote: | I always find this sort of news confusing and completely lacking | in context. I gather this person was a high level manager, but | presumably he was part of a very large team. So will this have a | material impact on Google? On AI research in general? Or is this | just news because it's Google and that team has been in the news | a lot lately. I honestly can't tell and I feel like I'm the only | one who is confused but reflecting on it, this seems unlikely. | ejb999 wrote: | nobody, and I mean nobody, is irreplaceable. anyone that thinks | they are should see what actually happens in the hours and days | after 'irreplaceable' people leave...somehow organizations | manage to move forward. and within a week or two they are | forgotten (with the possible exception of tiny teams). | lukevp wrote: | I don't think this is true, but I also don't think most of us | are irreplaceable. For example, Jim Keller seems to make or | break chip design projects. | whatshisface wrote: | You're thinking of people who think they are irreplaceable | due to general intelligence. People who are unique due to | knowledge of specific systems are much less easy to swap out. | Money can buy general intelligence but specific | domain/application knowledge is sometimes unavailable at any | price. | Barrin92 wrote: | he's the cofounder of Google Brain and one of the original | torch library authors, also brother of Yoshua Bengio. | throwaway29303 wrote: | I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jeff Dean is going to | leave as well. Tick tock. | andyxor wrote: | nah, there is absolutely no reason for him to resign because of | a couple of butthurt snowflakes. | | He was completely in the right firing the first one for | throwing an ultimatum requesting to doxx colleagues (and | blasting group emails calling for sabotage) [1], and the second | one was fired for exfiltrating thousands of proprietary files | [2]. | | The entire organization knows it and supports him. | | [1] | https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/k77sxz/d_t... | | [2] https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/20/google-targets-ai- | ethics-... | dontreact wrote: | What makes you say this? I'd be willing to take the opposite | side of that bet. | mam2 wrote: | "After the firing of google ethics researchers, i am going to | pee" | | This headlines are hairpulling the issue in every news. | nojs wrote: | In case anyone else is confused, this isn't related to Yoshua | Bengio. | mwambua wrote: | It's about Samy Bengio (who is Yoshua's brother and technically | related). It is confusing though, and the title should be | updated to avoid confusion. | jonas21 wrote: | > _Reporting by Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin, additional | reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and | Anil D'Silva_ | | It's kind of incredible that 5 people at Reuters worked on | this story, yet nobody stopped to think that this would be a | confusing headline. | | Or, if you want to be cynical, maybe they knew it would be | confusing, but also that it would get more clicks... | codetrotter wrote: | I dunno how Reuters works, but afaik in newspapers it's | often different people that write the article and who | decide what the title will be. So if Reuters is anything | like that then 5 people may not have had much to do with | the title. | [deleted] | [deleted] | himaraya wrote: | Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26715360 | [deleted] | modularform123 wrote: | Lol I hope the door didn't hit him on the way out! | kragen wrote: | Can we fix this headline? The implication that _Yoshua_ Bengio | has resigned from Google is extremely misleading. (If you don 't | follow the field, the equivalent in politics would be something | like "Biden calls for probe into Google" and it turns out it's | not Joe Biden, the US president, but Ashley Biden, his daughter.) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-04-06 23:00 UTC)