It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising.
> I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them.
Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a different mission and sometimes the leadership forgets it, and needs to be reminded.
I'm not clear on what Whittaker's role was with regard to the Chinese project, but the final straw appears to have been her protest regarding the composition of the AI ethics panel.
How is an outside ethics panel going to affect their working conditions? The people on the panel don't have any say on employees' pay, promotions, disciplinary actions, assignments, or anything else that might affect their working conditions.
The idea was to have some people from outside the company look at the tech and its potential hazards and provide some input on the ethics of developing and deploying it. People inside the company said, No, we don't want that particular viewpoint to have a seat at the table on this outside committee. The ethics panel had nothing at all to do with their working conditions.
Are you trying to make a fine distinction between "working conditions" and "work"? You just said that this panel that she was protesting the composition of would look at what the company was doing and plans for what the company wished to do, and have input into the ethics of developing and deploying them (and I'm assuming changing them or ending them, otherwise this panel's only job was to kiss paper.)
The employees of google would then be expected to produce and maintain these projects. That's their work. At the least, they're expected to share a roof with these projects, and profits from the work they do could be spent on these other projects, or vice-versa.
'Working conditions' includes those things I mentioned: pay, promotions, hours, etc.
The AI ethics panel may or may not have led to a change in the scope of 'work.' We'll never know, because the panel was disbanded. Presumably Google is now making decisions about future AI work without the benefit of the ethics panel.
In any event, organizing a protest against the composition of this outside panel that had exactly zero power to change Google employees' working conditions does not fall under the NLRA. Apparently Meredith Whittaker was counseled along the same lines, which is why she resigned after trying to pressure Google into changing their decision by using publicity via the press, rather than suing under the NLRA.
Isn't a "protected concerted activity" an activity that is done for "mutual aid and protection"? It may be closer, but I don't see a case being made under NLRA either.
> What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?
Have you made any effort to investigate who Meredith Whittaker is on your own?
Her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated precisely because she was a distinguished contributor. The cultural aversion to building weapons is not novel thing in that culture.
Yes, I googled Meredith Whittaker before commenting. She joined Google in 2006 after getting a bachelor's degree from Berkeley, apparently in literature and psychoanalytic theory. By 2012 she appears to have been a program manager in initiatives regarding internet measurements. So far I haven't found any references to products or reports from the Open Research Group, which she appears to have founded sometime prior to the 2016 White House conference where she met the other co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU.
Typically when you see someone engaged in "technology ethics" their professional career is based on limiting or stopping the technology, rather than building or advancing the technology. See, for example, stem cell ethics. Companies don't typically set up adversarial organizations within themselves. A more usual approach is to set up temporary "red teams" to address specific issues.
This is true, but the function of the compliance department is to ensure that the company operates within the boundaries set by law and regulation. They typically operate with the authority and access to top management. They would report incidents of non-compliance to management and much more rarely to a regulator, very rarely to the media. If members of the compliance department report to the regulators or public they are covered by the relevant whistleblower statutes. I can't recall members of the compliance department organizing other employees to demonstrate.
Another organization is the quality control department of a manufacturer. They also tend to report independently to top management, and they function similarly.
Please don't cross into personal attack and snark, regardless of how wrong another comment is or you feel it is. That only makes this place worse. Your comment would be just fine without the first sentence.
I clicked on the first one with her name, and the main conclusion was that AI needs more workplace diversity.
I clicked on the second one with her name, and the main conclusion was that AI needs more government regulation, labor unionization, and yes, you guessed correctly, workplace diversity.
I begin to feel that AI is only a red herring here.
So is the insinuation here that if she doesn't meet some arbitrary series of qualifications you put forth, it's okay for her to be illegally harassed out of her job?
I'm reluctant to engage further because it seems like an absurd line of reasoning.
Nope, you've made yourself a straw man. I hope you did not do it intentionally because it's plainly disgusting. Please don't do that again.
You've said that she didn't just leave Google instead of protesting because she didn't 'want to see the thing you [she] worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"'.
You was asked what she actually did at Google and you've come up with 'her work on AI ethics was much appreciated and celebrated' as a response.
Looks like she was not working 'so hard' on anything that can be of any use for building 'killer robots and war "minds"'. In fact, for building anything.
You crossed into personal attack and name-calling in this thread. Would you please review the site guidelines and follow them when posting here? Note particularly: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
> Looks like she was not working 'so hard' on anything that can be of any use for building 'killer robots and war "minds"'. In fact, for building anything.
This looks like you've subtly dodged the complaint I raised by trying to insinuate that she doesn't have a right to express opinions aboht functions of Google she herself did not personally participate in. This leverages the information asymmetry in disclosure; we can't publicly discuss the bulk of her work and therefore you can suggest that there was none.
I find this to be no different from suggesting that she has no right to protest and therefore deserves to be run out. You're just trying to run the standard "she wasn't that important and therefore doesn't have credibility" playbook. Gross.
But despite the disingenuous argument, I'll accept it head on. I challenge the entire premise. I certainly can and do express opinions about my employer's involvement in weapons development and I am glad they are not doing it. I'd fight to avoid doing any more of it, and I'd be willing to resign over it. I don't work in AI, but my work supports any such system at Google and therefore I'd feel responsible to help prevent building killer robots in any capacity.
I, like many such employees, am both a shareholder and an employee in a company that claims to have an interest in a transparent and egalitarian corporate culture. This practice will naturally introduce friction between different parties and I expect us to work through them as fairly as possible. So I will not simply eject at the first sign of something I don't like. But if I feel that there is a line crossed while I was there strenuously objecting to that line and I haven't been given adequate reason to change my mind, I won't hesitate to resign.
I make these facts clear to folks when they hire me. If they don't like it, they shouldn't hire me. Hopefully you respect your own agency and intellect enough to give yourself similar license in your own life.
>Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a different mission and sometimes the leadership forgets it, and needs to be reminded.
The question is not why would you publicly protest actions of your employer. The question is why would you expect, or even want, to work there while you do.
Also, do whistleblower laws protect you from retaliation if what you're blowing the whistle on isn't illegal?
I looked it up myself when it happened, not a single male in her entire reporting chain below Sundar. Marketing is female dominated so it isn't really that strange, but I wonder how a male could get enough influence to bully her in that position.
You cannot be "retaliated against" if you aren't engaging in revelations of illegal behaviour. These people were not doing the latter, when you look at the details. They were merely protesting against things they didn't like, but which aren't illegal, and in one case, didn't exist at all (Google underpaid men, not women).
If there's no illegal behaviour, there's no whistleblowing, and if there's no whistleblowing, then reducing "job opportunity" (which is of course not a right) is just ordinary corporate performance management in response to an employee behaving badly.
Please see the other half of this thread where a real lawyer explains the specifics. Given her involvement in the women's march, there are legal considerations.
> Radical reduction in job responsibility and opportunity IS retaliation.
Is that generally illegal in the US? if not then what specifically does the retaliation have to in response to to become illegal?
e.g I would expect negative retaliation in response to poor quality work or slacking off etc, and would expect it to be legal. This person's actions would be considered intentional bad PR, so what specifically about retaliating to it is illegal?
Are you perhaps forgetting that this person was involved in organizing the women's march? Do I actually need to find a source for US law suggesting that retaliation against women reporting sexism is in fact illegal?
This is basic compliance training for any US employment, and the EU has similar laws. Where do you live and work that you don't know this?
> It's literally illegal. There are laws against retaliation against whistleblowers. That is why it is surprising.
There are many ways around the law. It happens everyday: "oopsie your team has to work on something else, double oopsie you're no working on AI anymore you'll just work on our CSV parser, that's were the money is these days. Ah ? What are you saying ? You don't want to work on that ? Well feel free to resign, we'll sign you a $200k check if you forget about it", &c.
> I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them.
Because you don't want to see the thing you worked so hard to build misused to build killer robots and "war minds"? Seems reasonable to me. Google's got a different mission and sometimes the leadership forgets it, and needs to be reminded.