I am of the general understanding that this paper became less about the LLMs & more of a insinuating hit piece against Alphabet. At least, some of the controversial nuggets got Gebru (and later M Mitchell) fired.
From a technical standpoint, there is little new stuff that I found this paper offered in understanding why LLMs can have unpredictable nature, or what degree of data will get exposed by clever hacks (or if there are systematic ways to go about it). It sounded more like a collection of verifiable anecdotes for easy consumption (which can be a good thing by itself if you want capsule understanding in a non-technical way)
It was activism masquerading as science. Many researches noted that positives and negatives were not presented in a balanced way. New approaches and efforts were not credited.
I haven't kept track but the activism of the trio could be severe sometimes.
(Anecdotally, I have faced a bite-sized brunt: When discussion surrounding this paper was going on in Twitter, I had mentioned in my timeline (in a neutral tone) that "dust needed to settle to understand what was going wrong". This was unfortunately picked up & RTed by Gebru & the mob responded by name-calling, threatening DMs accusing me of racism/misogyny etc, and one instance of a call to my employer asking to terminate me - all for that one single tweet. I don't want confrontations - not my forte to deal.)
> This was unfortunately picked up & RTed by Gebru & the mob responded by name-calling, threatening DMs accusing me of racism/misogyny etc, and one instance of a call to my employer asking to terminate me - all for that one single tweet.
Wait until an LLM flags your speech and gets you in trouble. That'll be a real hoot compared to random individuals who likely have been chased off Twitter by now.
Talia, if this was all a misunderstanding from Jeff, then why was Timnit accusing Jeff for the longest possible time. I can understand Megan Kacholia was the main person in all this drama according to you, but the trolling/accusing that we saw in the aftermath was vicious and in poor taste. Honest bystanders who were giving neutral opinions were gaslighted to choose what side they morally belonged.
Why didn't any of you try to stop this verbal carnage? Also if Timnit was largely not at fault, why is that on every social media where any modicum of anonymity is possible, Timnit had been harshly criticized for her conduct.
We respect her contributions to advancement of ML, but that conduct was inexorable & in very poor taste.
Note that not everything was a misunderstanding on Jeff's end, just the early stuff before she was fired, which Timnit did not know. To be honest, I don't think Timnit would even believe that now. It's maybe one place where I diverge from her on this. She would find what I wrote about Jeff way too charitable. Her view is valid and is one of the reasons I rarely discuss this in public anymore, because it's hard for me to do so and not emotionally want to defend Jeff, and it's hard to defend Jeff on just the things I believe he ought to be defended for and still hold him accountable, and not gaslight Timnit or minimize what she went through. I probably messed up somehow above too.
It's hard to believe sometimes that someone so smart in some ways can miss such obvious signals. It took a long time for me to come to that conclusion and to understand, and I'm still very upset with how Jeff reacted.
These are all people though, they make mistakes, Timnit included. The way she was treated is still not at all OK, and sometimes when we are in positions of power like Jeff we still hold responsibility for our mistakes. Even if Jeff genuinely misunderstood, he should have apologized for his role and moved to repair harm, rather than reinforcing and exacerbating harm in his public response.
I won't say anything else about Jeff in public. I did try to help minimize damage and pain in all directions. It was painful and exhausting and not very fruitful.
(Also sorry but who are you? Just because you addressed me by name and it feels weird when that happens unless I know who is talking to me.)
Got it, thank you. On why Timnit is criticized so intensely everywhere anonymity is possible, I honestly think that is more an artifact of sexism and racism than an indictment of anything she has done. Also a matter of the target audience of a lot of the anonymous forums.
FWIW, at Google in Research, many people have mentioned her to me as the only person they trusted to talk to about the things they went through when they were not treated well. After she was fired, many of those same people felt no longer able to raise issues about internal treatment and culture.
Timnit was not carrying just her own burden, but the burden of many at Google in Research who were not treated well, especially women and people of color in Research. And so she spoke not just for herself. She had witnessed for years how demoralizing it is to try to really change things within Google. I think the only person who has done that and not burned out is Kat Heller. I did a lot of it over the summer, and it really took a toll on my wellbeing, and my desire to stay (part-time) at Google to finish my own work there. I'm excited for my affiliation to end so I can remove myself more thoroughly from Google's internal politics and culture, though I hope I've made enough of a dent that some things actually continue to change for the better.
From a technical standpoint, there is little new stuff that I found this paper offered in understanding why LLMs can have unpredictable nature, or what degree of data will get exposed by clever hacks (or if there are systematic ways to go about it). It sounded more like a collection of verifiable anecdotes for easy consumption (which can be a good thing by itself if you want capsule understanding in a non-technical way)