Having read the paper (https://gofile.io/d/WfcxoF), I can't take the idea that Google wanted to suppress it seriously (as the article argues).
In the paper, another paper is summarized describing the environmental costs of training large models. It is then argued that global warming will disproportionately affect marginalized people. This constitutes "environmental racism" because the main beneficiaries of these models are rich white people whereas the people bearing the costs are poor people who live near the equator. In my mind, this is two-points-make-a-line thinking.
The rest of the paper is more interesting. It argues that machine learning is conservative in that it "reinforces hegemonic language". I think this is true. Models are trained using data, data is what exists rather than what we would like to exist. If you're unhappy with what exists (as Gebru is, terribly), this represents a problem. Two of her solutions are "curating" data (censoring data) and "working with panels of experiential experts through the Diverse Voices methodology" (constituting powerful groups made up of her ideological allies). I think these solutions are dead-ends. It seems to me that we have to make peace with the conservatism inherent in these models (and maybe all models).
The paper also argues (I think rightly) that problems will materialize "should humans encounter seemingly coherent language model output and take it for the words of some person or organization who have accountability for what is said". In other words, we grant other humans responsibility for what they say and do but what about models that can mimic humans very accurately? A similar problem exists today when a Google or Youtube account is erroneously locked by some algorithm. There's a sense that, really, no one is responsible for this outcome because an algorithm did it. Even if the owner manages to get his account restored, there's no clear way to assign responsibility for the mistake. Perhaps this problem will become even worse if we start to see algorithms powered by models that are near-indistinguishable from people.
Anyway, the paper doesn't seem controversial to me. It seems clear that Gebru's strident tone and personal style were the cause of her firing/resignation. Jeff Dean's claim that the paper was rejected for not citing other papers may be false. The truth seems much simpler: based on her own public communications, Gebru felt she was the subject of "harassment" and "dehumanization" but those grievances seem to be hyperbole, and the personal injury that she felt became an excuse for her to treat her coworkers poorly. In other words, she didn't drop her twitter persona at work.
The idea of Google exploiting its programmers is an insult to actual exploited labor. These aren't coal miners. There's no factories.
The programmers where I work have too much power. We're exploiting the company. If I don't feel like writing code, I just do github stuff and answer questions. In fact that's what I did yesterday and the day before. No one notices or cares because, among other things, they couldn't replace me because there aren't thousands of hyper-educated new college grads after my job. I think many of the Google employees who are unhappy at Google due to "exploitation" would be happier working at a smaller, less famous company. Of course there's a pay cut and you lose that special feeling when everyone instantly recognizes you employer and assumes you're a genius.
1. Unionized coal mines had/have much better wages and working conditions :)
2. Of course there are shades everywhere. And just because there are worse exploiters, doesn't mean google should get away with anything that's not "as bad" as those.
This is also such an insane take because organized labor at Google stopped a project (Dragonfly) that would’ve been used against “troublesome” workers in China, as well as a military project that also undoubtedly would’ve been used to kill more poor people.
Yes, unions watch out for their member’s bottom line, but even without a union, workers at Google have organized to protect others beside themselves!
Coal mines should be unionized because the miners have their backs against the wall.
If I felt I was being under-compensated, working in poor conditions, and had my back against the wall, I'd want a union too. But describing my job like that is hysterically funny, much less Google programmers.
What's really going on here is simple. If you work at Google, your job is too good. There's no struggle. People want a struggle and so they invent one by LARPing as Marxists.
It is certainly the case that tech workers are not exploited in the same manner as 19th century factory workers. But that doesn't mean people shouldn't seek even better conditions. Google made 34B in net income in 2019. That's like $340,000 per employee. Clearly it would be possible for the workers to capture even more of the value that they create.
Ironically, the idea you're pushing, something like "this doesn't really matter, the important thing is the government giving people money, the more the better, who even cares if they're American," precisely represents the best objections to the welfare state. Which are its shoddiness, its lack of administrative rigor, and so on. These objections raise the question: can a welfare state be effective if it's administered so poorly? If the American government is sending money to Swedes, can we trust it to send money to "people who need it"?
Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens? If not, perhaps that partly explains why the Swedes are more comfortable with an expansive welfare state than Americans.
> the idea you're pushing, something like "this doesn't really matter, the important thing is the government giving people money, the more the better, who even cares if they're American,"
I'm almost unsure how to reply because you seem to ignore the central point of the comment you're replying to. Your characterization omits the most salient point: That it had to be done fast. I don't see how the tradeoffs in emergency distribution of funds are in any way indicative of whether you can trust welfare states to be administered properly or not. The comment was precisely about "lack of administrative rigor" being warranted in favor of preventing greater harm.
> Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens? If not, perhaps that partly explains why the Swedes are more comfortable with an expansive welfare state than Americans.
I don't understand how this point relates to the general value of welfare systems that you are discussing. Are you saying an American welfare system has to be inherently less reliable? Or that there are more Americans than Swedes so statistically Sweden will receive more accidental checks from America than the reverse? Could you elaborate?
> I'm almost unsure how to reply because you seem to ignore the central point of the comment you're replying to. Your characterization omits the most salient point: That it had to be done fast.
It had to be done fast, and it had to be handled by a department that's chronically underfunded due to decades of underfunding fueled by all the political hand-wringing for which terms like "welfare state" have become watchwords.
One could mount an argument that that's irrelevant, the real problem is that the IRS is being asked to do something like this in the first place, and there would otherwise be no need to have an organization that's well-funded and competent enough to handle things like this quickly and accurately. I personally find those sorts of arguments specious, though, by virtue of being anti-democratic. This is not Plato's Republic, and we do not get to rely on infallible philosopher kings to make our decisions. As long as there is a plurality of opinions, and as long as opinions change over time, there will always be this sort of tug-of-war and sloppiness as the policy decisions being made now interact poorly with the policy decisions that were being made at other times.
Or perhaps I should say ademocratic? It's arguably sensical to think, "Everything would work great if it just went my way," but it's best to relegate that sentiment to the world of political thought experiments. Taking it as an unstated major premise in an actual political discussion about current policy decisions in a functioning democracy is painfully impractical. It's just like code: If you try to deal with a messy legacy system by closing your eyes and blithely steamrollering along with your own clean, modern code, the end result will not be more clean and modern. It will just be an even bigger mess.
Yes, the parent comment was about "lack of administrative rigor". The cheerful acceptance of that situation was the topic of my post.
There is no reason why someone can't support the welfare state and also demand efficiency. That demand represents an ideal; there will always be errors, but the insistence that all errors are unavoidable and that (as the parent suggested) we shouldn't even talk about them is extremely irritating. It provides the enemies of the welfare state with the best possible arguments ("you don't even care if the money is going to people who need it").
It's more that such a focus on 'efficiency' actually in practice comes from people who either place an extremely high moral cost on cheats or mistakes (far greater than the actual monetary cost of such issues), or from (more cynically) those opposed to the goals of such institutions in the first place (i.e. they believe the welfare itself is wrong and even those allowed under the rules do not deserve it). This is born out in the reactions that such critics tend to impose on the system, i.e. imposing draconian and expensive checks on those who seek it, both rejecting or impeding legitimate claiments while also not demonstably reducing costs (any savings due to catching fraud or even just rejecting those who need it being swallowed up by the cost of the checks).
See the UK government's current (over the last 10 years) approach to welfare. Lots of money spent on checks which are run almost seemingly malicously incompetently, the vast majority of rejections not being upheld when they go to court (even more expensive), assuming the claiment hasn't died by then (as many have due to extreme poverty).
It's the kind of argument which carries a lot of emotional weight (everyone hates a cheater) but it's really hard to believe is being taken in good faith from a rational, cost-reduction perspective.
> I mean, they sent what, $34m overseas erroneously of $2T?
Far less. That $34m included disbursement to non-resident US citizens. Considerably more than 28,333 US citizens live overseas. I have had to file tax returns for 10 years despite not living in the US and having no US income, you bet your ass I cashed that check.
> Objecting to social programs because they have minuscule errors drives me up the wall.
It makes sense if you consider weak people to be exploitable material for powerful interests. Social programs interfere with that dynamic - ergo the endless propaganda and demonetization of compassion.
> if you support the welfare state, mistakes like this should bother you more, not less.
Why? I support social programs, I accept some inefficiencies and waste.
In general I think small waste is not worth the energy to be concerned about if the benefit is huge.
That said, I think means testing is a waste of everyone's time. Just provide the benefits to everyone -- it simplifies the process of providing the benefit.
Because, as I said in my original post, "[shoddiness, etc] represents the best objections to the welfare state".
In other words, blithe dismissals like "I accept some inefficienies and waste" provide the other side with the best possible ammunition against the idea of a welfare state.
It's laughable to see the number of people here who, straight-faced, say nonsense like "Nitpicking efficiency is for the capitalists".
If you're looking for government waste and inefficiency, you'd be better off looking at military spending. That's where a lot of the low-hanging fruit is.
False. If you support effective government, welfare state or not, learning of this mistake should be considered a sign that they may have hit the right balance between spending on implementation and spending on platinum grade superpowered mistake detectors. One big obstacle to a welfare state is the unhinged obsession with not giving anyone anything they don’t deserve, which leads to idiotic programs that spend more money drug testing applicants than helping them.
> if you support the welfare state, mistakes like this should bother you more, not less.
This doesn't follow at all.
As long as the policies are progressive (in the economic sense) and enough money gets to those who need it, why should small inefficiencies bother me? Nitpicking efficiency is for the capitalists.
> Does Sweden send welfare checks to Americans who aren't Swedish citizens?
Generally, yes, if they worked for some time in Sweden. There is probably a non-zero error rate associated with that too. It's not like the gov't is sending checks to random Swedes - they were sent based on available sufficient tax criteria not originally intended to be used for entitlement distribution.
I do suspect most countries wouldn't have a problem on the scale the US might because a) they have larger, simpler entitlement programs (qualifications tend to be based on a a small number of straightforward residency classes), and b) they do not generally process any tax paperwork from non-residents. It is the US's stinginess and paradoxical fear of inefficiency that hurts it here.
In the Nordic countries, people often know personally someone who has managed to live on the dole for years and years in spite of being totally able-bodied and capable of working; the person would simply prefer to spend their lives playing video games or toking or whatever. That is rather unfair and that person might be called a leech, but still few would want to rock the boat and end the welfare state just to eliminate those cases. So, indeed, in the Nordic countries people are prepared to accept some fraud and mismanagement to keep the overall system going.
I have to agree here, having family on welfare in the U.S. Try living like that sometime, its terrible. You will have to live in a terrible neighborhood, with not enough money to survive on without resorting to taking handouts from charities like foodbanks. If someone wants to scam the system and live like that their entire lives let them, if that means that people using it to get back on their feet have a safety net.
I think the real irony here is that the best rebuttal to your point is the exact comment that you replied to.
The amount in question is less than 0.0011%. Literally a thousandth of a precent.
Meanwhile the result was keeping hundreds of millions afloat of Americans (at least until we decided to abandon them again for the sake of politics)
Besides, since when is a leaner government protection against an incompetent government? We're literally watching thousands of Americans die as proof this theory of "the less my government does the less it can do wrong" is completely nonsensical
I think it’s important to remember that one of the goals during this process was speed. The government could surly be more accurate in their distribution of the 1,200$, but it would come at the expense of time. Getting the stimulus check in 2021 would be worth way less.
I don't agree that the effort was shoddy and I don't think any errors made in standing up a new government program in a matter of weeks, with a mandate to move as quickly as possible, and in the middle of a pandemic say anything useful about the concept of welfare in general
The DHS was established in the panic following 9/11. If they're knocking on doors trying to intimidate dissidents, it seems clear that it has outlived its usefulness (if it ever had any) and should be dismantled.
You'd think that would be something small-government republicans progressive democrats could agree on...
> Do you? Not to over simplify things, but freedom, liberty, and equal treatment were pretty much empty words and applied only to white American men (see: treatment of Native Americans, the Mexican-American war, slaves, and women).
This is nonsense. The US was a left-wing experiment. It was a repudiation of the way things were done in Europe. The fact that it didn't solve every single inequity in one blow is not an interesting observation.
It's fair game to criticize the US, but to misunderstand its history to this extent is just sad. The US was radically egalitarian at its founding and served as the example for the rest of the world for at least a century and a half.
John Adams: "I always consider the settlement of America as the opening of a grand scheme and design in Providence for the illumination and emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
It's understandable that you have been misled in this way; enforcing this particular myth seems to be the primary purpose of USA public schools. I recommend historian Gerald Horne. He has identified Somerset v Stewart as an important event in inspiring American slaveholders and their sometime lawyer John Adams to start the Revolutionary War. That is, they fought a war in large part so that they wouldn't have to give up the practice of slavery.
Horne is a clumsy propagandist and you've been thoroughly propagandized.
In this kind of history, all nuance (like Adams' views on slavery) is lost and all historical events are made to fit a predetermined narrative. In addition to being wrong, it's incredibly boring stuff.
Just because you view all history as the result of a "secret cabal of evildoers" (in this case, plotting to preserve slavery) doesn't mean I have to.
As you let slip here, Horne's writings aren't about history: they're a form public of agitation so that "the USA will do less racist shit". Which would be fine if he was a social critic or a politician. But he's been passing himself off as a historian.
Words have meanings. "Propaganda" isn't just funny stories; it is done for particular interests. You claim he's a propagandist, so you should identify which interests those are. Failing that, you could retract your vicious slur...
Der Spiegel tries to pin him down as a reactionary Putinist and anti-semite. I think the attempt fails but judge for yourself. I don't think we have a category for people like Solzhenitsyn anymore but "jew-hater, authoritarian, reactionary" doesn't seem accurate to me.
I just read the article; the parts about Jews are particularly interesting. It looks like in the current climate a critical look at activities of some countries or peoples became a taboo. I understand the motivation behind that, but by stifling any reasonable discussion we might get an opposite result.
Don't you see the contradiction there? First he says it isn't helpful if foreigners criticize Russia, because Russians need to learn to criticize themselves. But later he says that his work aimed to lead the Jews to examine themselves, even though he is an outsider to that people and, by his own declared standards, it is none of his business.
Also, after the Holocaust it is extremely inappropriate for any non-Jew to suggest that the Jews as a people have done anything bad or negative. The sole appropriate thing Solzhenitsyn could have done with regard to the Jews is either say something nice or not say anything at all.
> Don't you see the contradiction there? First he says it isn't helpful if foreigners criticize Russia, because Russians need to learn to criticize themselves. But later he says that his work aimed to lead the Jews to examine themselves, even though he is an outsider to that people and, by his own declared standards, it is none of his business.
This only follows if we accept the axiom "Jews aren't Russian". I'm not convinced that he thinks that (and I certainly don't).
> Also, after the Holocaust it is extremely inappropriate for any non-Jew to suggest that the Jews as a people have done anything bad or negative. The sole appropriate thing Solzhenitsyn could have done with regard to the Jews is either say something nice or not say anything at all.
To me, this is intellectual cowardice.
As far as I know, Solzhenitsyn's controversial view about Jews in the USSR is that they were viewed as less likely to be counterrevolutionary, and therefore quickly climbed the party hierarchy...at least initially. Stalin eventually adopted various anti-semitic measures (and Solzhenitsyn mentions this in The First Circle).
I think you're partly right but I also think there's something a bit deeper at work here.
These days science is viewed as a means to various ends. These ends are all wonderful...eliminate poverty, curtail climate change, cheaper energy, etc. But what's missing is the idea of doing something for the sake of doing it. It's not totally clear what landing on the moon or maintaining a space station really accomplished in terms of material goals. They're glorious accomplishments because of their difficulty.
I think that attitude is what's missing. Listening to JFK's "we will go to the moon" speech is almost unbelievable today. Politicians of either party absolutely cannot talk like that today.
Human spaceflight programs have struggled to justify their existence pretty much their entire lives. Non-human spaceflight has had clearer rationales: the development of rocket technology is intertwined with long-range missile technology, and satellite technology has long clear military ramifications from the launch of Sputnik. The Space Race grew past its missile origins largely because it was a competition between the US and the USSR for prestige points. Once Apollo 11 successfully landed a man on the moon, both of them quickly lost interest in manned space travel to the moon.
Post-moon, human spaceflight programs seem to be have been largely directionless. The early space stations were probably originally meant as a stepping stone to developing orbital habitation, but the fact that we haven't really expanded much further makes it look more like faffing about. The US developed the space shuttle with the intention of building a low-cost, human-driven satellite launch and servicing service, but the only real success it had there was the Hubble. Instead, a lot of the real purpose probably lies more in geopolitical goals: the US-USSR cooperation helped drive some amount of detente. The ISS in particularly was driven in large part by a desire to keep ex-Soviet rocket engineers gainfully employed and not seek employment with rogue states looking to rapidly develop a missile program.
Your post shows how significant events are stripped of their meaning by the dictum that there must be some material end behind every act. But it's a decision to look at history and explain everything in terms of geopolitics. Can't people get together and do something for the glory of doing it?
When a government chooses to (or not to!) spend a significant portion of its budget advancing a particular scientific research program, that is pretty much by definition a political motivation. And if the motivation is driven by international relations, well again, that is the definition of geopolitics.
There's a reason we talk about the Space Race and not the International Geophysical Year. Popular and political support for the Apollo and predecessor programs were ultimately driven by the geopolitical goals, and once the Space Race had been "won," that support dwindled to the normal, pitiful scientific research levels. Spaceflight and space research reverted to just being yet another scientific field trying to catch a few drips of the governmental funding pipeline. It's the sad truth here.
This isn't to say that all science is driven by geopolitics. A lot of high-energy physics research isn't, for example (although supporters of the SCC did try to frame cancelling it thusly to try to preserve its funding, though they ultimately failed).
In theory? Yes. In practice? Rarely, if ever at scale.
Retroactively misattributing human action to fulfill a moral narrative produces a distorted view of the world, conducive to making dangerously naive mistakes.
That the space program was a friendly front for a highly visible ICBM program doesn't negate the glorious achievement of reaching the moon.
Not everyone working on the space program particularly cared about missiles. I'm certain most of them probably just wanted to reach the moon in the spirit of patriotism and scientific advancement. Their victory was pure. We just shouldn't pretend that their project was only facilitated due to a confluence of circumstances that made it a political necessity.
Predicting, advising, and describing political behaviors within the bounds of their constraints are geopolitic's raison d'être. 100% accurate all the time? No. But then again, neither is any other predictive field.
Friedman, and Zeihan have both proven very prescient over the last decade or so.
Besides, I hardly think there's a lot of latitude for interpretation. As far back as 1958 the USAF was mulling over nuking the moon as a show of force with incidental scientific ramifications. Sagan was involved in it. [0]
I think willfully ignoring those parts of the story stretch credulity within the context where the events of the space race happened borders on historical revisionism for the sake of creating a moral parable about the virtues of human endeavor.
> The ISS in particularly was driven in large part by a desire to keep ex-Soviet rocket engineers gainfully employed and not seek employment with rogue states looking to rapidly develop a missile program.
Energy independence (from Middle East) was once unthinkable, but we did it, and also included a speech. Sure, not the same level.
Climate change is also a similarly difficult problem, but neither of this gives a Hollywood movie style ending in a capsule format the “we are the greatest” crowd really wants - not just America though . Humility, empathy, and non-military-gained peace doesn’t give a movie style ending.
This is also why the mass public doesn’t give credit to leaders for solving issues though diplomatic means
Shale oil isn't going to last long, and then what? (And probably shouldn't have been extracted in the first place considering the low energy return and climate change...)
Energy independence is a huge obvious prize in itself. It was very easy to get people to agree that it would be something good to have.
The point about JFK’s moon speech is that it was justifying an endeavor that was a hard challenge without any particularly useful outcome. Nobody thought it was going to solve world hunger or prevent an energy crisis.
It would be like Trump giving a speech to justify sending astronauts on a trip around Venus. It’s super difficult and mostly useless scientifically.
I understand what you're saying but I disagree: atheism is not a religion. The verb "is" does not mean "fulfills the same function as". Just because atheists have to answer the same questions as theists does not make atheism a religion.
If you want a word to describe what atheism and religion have in common, I'd go with "spirituality". Not in the sense of "burning incense" or "believing in ghosts" but rather in the sense of holding beliefs that are not rational and deciding to care about the world and about humanity in particular.
I'd offer this idea in return -- religion may be the collective, social expression of individual spirituality, usually fuzzy and generalized beyond an individual's own specific beliefs in order to promote social harmony and cohesion.
Just as some people have "religious" beliefs that are very eclectic and isolated from organized religion, a sort of personal spirituality, I think there are atheists with particular and non-social views.
I also think many atheists, sharing similar "spirituality", find a similar kind of comfort in "communing" with other "believers", and socially expressing their beliefs with other "believers". Regardless of the specifics of said spirituality, I believe we do see some commonalities between "theists and atheists".
This way of looking at it takes all the theology out of the issue. That's fine by me, so long as this isn't the motte position in a motte-and-bailey argument.
> Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence
Can we claim that we have some evidence based on a sample of 6 people?
> I'm curious what other people think the informational value of these hearings are. It seems like it is either posturing and grandstanding, or reasonable questions to which evasive or non-answers are given.
I agree with you.
They need to get the cameras out of congress. Everyone involved in these hearings is mining them for clips for their campaign ads and it's sickening.
Without the cameras they have no reason to posture. They posture so they can cut a clip, publish it, and say: "Look! Here's me standing up to the evil Republicans|Democrats|tech CEOs who want to steal your precious bodily fluids!"
In the presence of cameras, politicians become instagram celebrities.
If their motivations were to do their real jobs, they would do their real jobs regardless of the cameras. The presence of the cameras reveals that they prefer posturing to doing their jobs, but that does not imply that doing their jobs is the priority immediately below posturing. If the cameras were gone, do you think they would ask real questions, or would they start doing things far worse than posturing in front of the public?
Let's run an experiment by moving cameras into the Supreme Court -- actually all courtrooms -- and the rooms where juries deliberate and all Cabinet meetings. We'll be able to tell that I'm right after our government stops working.
Or we could save ourselves the trouble and ask ourselves why it is that we don't allow cameras in those places to begin with. And then we could extend that reasoning to Congress. Turns out treating your government like a reality tv show is a bad idea.
Removing the cameras isn't going to fix everything...but it will be a positive change.
Judges are motivated in part by the esteem of their peers. In congress, "esteem of your peers" means agreeing to the right pork projects. Public approval is the best metric we're going to get. Take that carrot away, and all remaining carrots will lead in worse directions. At least public approval has some correlation with policy quality.
They aren't exactly getting praise for what they are doing right now - only less complaints from the brainless hysterical "do-somethingists" and savage roasting by those who have even an amateur level in knowing what the hell they are talking about.
Really I would expect standing up to the fringes in their wings would be a popularity boosting move but party poltical machine alienating one as .
If there were no cameras on the floor, they'd just talk to the ones outside. The real work is not done in front of cameras. It will never be done in front of cameras. But it still happens.
Removing cameras from these hearings could make them more productive. But I don't know how useful these types of hearings could be.
Because bipartisan deals happen somewhat often, even between people who are invariably acrimonious on camera, and reporting on those bipartisan deals often mentions non-recorded meetings where compromises were made.
In the paper, another paper is summarized describing the environmental costs of training large models. It is then argued that global warming will disproportionately affect marginalized people. This constitutes "environmental racism" because the main beneficiaries of these models are rich white people whereas the people bearing the costs are poor people who live near the equator. In my mind, this is two-points-make-a-line thinking.
The rest of the paper is more interesting. It argues that machine learning is conservative in that it "reinforces hegemonic language". I think this is true. Models are trained using data, data is what exists rather than what we would like to exist. If you're unhappy with what exists (as Gebru is, terribly), this represents a problem. Two of her solutions are "curating" data (censoring data) and "working with panels of experiential experts through the Diverse Voices methodology" (constituting powerful groups made up of her ideological allies). I think these solutions are dead-ends. It seems to me that we have to make peace with the conservatism inherent in these models (and maybe all models).
The paper also argues (I think rightly) that problems will materialize "should humans encounter seemingly coherent language model output and take it for the words of some person or organization who have accountability for what is said". In other words, we grant other humans responsibility for what they say and do but what about models that can mimic humans very accurately? A similar problem exists today when a Google or Youtube account is erroneously locked by some algorithm. There's a sense that, really, no one is responsible for this outcome because an algorithm did it. Even if the owner manages to get his account restored, there's no clear way to assign responsibility for the mistake. Perhaps this problem will become even worse if we start to see algorithms powered by models that are near-indistinguishable from people.
Anyway, the paper doesn't seem controversial to me. It seems clear that Gebru's strident tone and personal style were the cause of her firing/resignation. Jeff Dean's claim that the paper was rejected for not citing other papers may be false. The truth seems much simpler: based on her own public communications, Gebru felt she was the subject of "harassment" and "dehumanization" but those grievances seem to be hyperbole, and the personal injury that she felt became an excuse for her to treat her coworkers poorly. In other words, she didn't drop her twitter persona at work.