They do not have a monopoly on talent and they are actually fearful of being no longer seen as the #1 workplace option for top candidates. Protesting as a Google employee gives you much more leverage than an outsider will ever have (unless you have the $$ to buy off a handful of senators).
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
For example, I left my country 20 years ago because I wanted a better future and I had no desire nor conviction to stay and try to make that future happen there. Of those who stayed, most had no other choice. However, there's a non-negligible number of people who stayed despite having opportunities to leave, precisely because they are willing to fight to make things better.
> 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 don't think that objecting to your company's AI work for DoD or plans to comply with Chinese internet search regulations fall under any of them.
What did the "Open Research Group" at Google actually build?
"Protected concerted activity".
If you want a good primer, "Labor Law for the Rank and Filer" is a good one.
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.
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.
29 U.S.C. Sec. 157
Do you think that objecting to a business model or alleged risks thereof falls under the category of "mutual aid and protection" of other workers?
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.
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.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/compliancedepartment.as...
Another organization is the quality control department of a manufacturer. They also tend to report independently to top management, and they function similarly.
What exactly was that?
Just looking at the titles I expect something similar in quality to articles debunked here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.09866
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.
I'm reluctant to engage further because it seems like an absurd line of reasoning.
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.
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.
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?
The claims of retaliation fell shortly after that.
I don't really understand this, the people accused of retaliation against Claire Stapleton are women as well. Why would they retaliate?
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.
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?
(Genuine question)
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?
But, I'd imagine, exceptionally difficult for a complainant to prove.
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.
It's completely expected for a company to get rid of individuals on the payroll who are badmouthing the company they work for.
Why would anyone willfully employ people to work against the company's interest?
It's the same old discussion about whether something is right just because it's legal or allowed. Just because a company has a right -- and an incentive -- to do something, doesn't mean that's a morally or ethically right thing to do.
In my opinion, what Whittaker is doing is, in a way, analogous to civil disobedience. And, just like with civil disobedience, reprisals are expected. It's worth keeping in mind that those reprisals aren't automatically right by virtue of being expected, just as her actions aren't automatically right by virtue of being similar to civil disobedience.
In other words, some of us feel we can't afford to, as another commenter put it, "leave your politics at home and let me do my job in peace". I believe this attitude -- that science and engineering should somehow remain orthogonal to and decoupled from ethics and morality -- to be downright pernicious to the society.
It's actually not about legality. I didn't even suggest that.
>Just because a company has a right -- and an incentive -- to do something, doesn't mean that's a morally or ethically right thing to do.
As I said, it is expected to do it. Because companies have their own interests. The interests of the shareholders in Google's case. And Google is expected to act to protect them.
This includes getting rid of employees that act to sabotage the company, in this case by publicly badmouthing it.
Thing is, part of Googles identity is "don't be evil". A vital part of this is stopping whenever you (unintentionally) do something evil. This should not be a problem for Google at all or reason to loose trust in an employee. Unless, of cause, the company has changed. And that's what those story's area about and why we need them: To make sure the public image of google actually reflects what the company now actually is.
Btw: To those saying "why don't you just quit as protest"? For one that makes it easy to be dismissed as disgruntled ex-employee. But more important is the same reason you don't just leave your country of family whenever you disagree or have a problem with those. Cutting ties is a last resort that shouldn't be necessary.
I definitely don't. I definitely applaud efforts to improve things (relationships, companies, ...).
But going public ("airing your dirty laundry") is a kind of an ultimatum - "I have no other option to enforce what I want than to public shame" - and, while potentially effective, it's also damaging for the other party (and, ultimately, the "whistle-blower").
And at that point, it seems that the values are already so misaligned (whether the employee, or the company, changed is ultimately not relevant) that "divorce" seems like the only option. I definitely wouldn't want to stay in a relationship with someone if they intentionally hurt me (regardless if it was "my fault" or not).
Publicly badmouthing the company you work for is indeed sabotage.
These are not the same thing at all.
In the US, talking about improving working conditions is also protected, but it's also not whistleblowing, either.
As a lawyer, i can tell you a lot of people badly misunderstand what "protected concerted activity" covers. It is not about your individual complaints. Explicitly not.
See, e.g., https://www.employerlaborrelations.com/2019/04/30/nlrb-publi...
"Charging Party 2 posted a 23-minute live video on Facebook during work hours and while in uniform talking about the discipline for wearing improper shoes and the confidentiality provision in the disciplinary notice, referencing the wage-and-hour lawsuits, making crude and disparaging jokes and comments about a supervisor, and stating that by asking Charging Party 2 to sign something interfering with free speech, the conduct of the company’s officials was “against the United States Constitution and you need to be shot on sight.”
As far as i can discern, hacker news would consider this protected because it complains, somewhere, about their working condition, and was in fact done as a direct response to being disciplined.
However, NLRB says
"The Division of Advice found that although Charging Party 2 referred to subjects in the video that could have been relevant to employees’ mutual aid or protection, the comments were entirely individual complaints and there was no indication that Charging Party 2 was speaking for other employees or seeking to act in concert with others. ... "
(They found it okay to fire this person)
In fact, the company had filed defamation lawsuits against the charging parties over the facebook videos, and the NLRB found that was okay too, because they weren't for protected activity.
It's obvious why you would fire someone for trying to start a union, or for turning down your sexual advances.
I do not understand why it should be preferable to say "oh well, nothing to be done, time to quit" rather than be a force for change. The former is easy, but it does little to correct systemic problems that affect many of your peers.
Also, you make "accept paychecks" sound like you're accepting some sort of favor. Paychecks are not charity; they are compensation. You produce something of value, and you receive something of value in return.
Not everyone has the freedom to instantly change jobs. The world might be a better place if employees had the right to whistle blow without being threatened with homelessness or fleeing to Russia.
Unions striking and protesting against their companies for better wages seems acceptable. Why is protesting for ethical reasons without quitting faux pas?
Ethics protests aren't so enshrined for one. The views of ethics are often personal and ideologically entangled to some degree. Self selection has been more favored and the protests bring to mind the "obvious" but assailable objection "Why not just quit and associate with others more like-minded." It gets into messy areas of rights of association in ideal vs practice. Ideology isn't protected and is explicitly trumped by other areas like anti-discrimination laws.
Many can see "strawman" can of worms being opened (they may be reasonable in this case but what of successors) accepted as a norm without a sensible defined law or doctrine. There were the whole clerks refusing shall issue marriage licenses and nobody wants a situation disrupted by free rider "do nothing vegans in the slaughterhouse" or similar absurdities.
This isn't saying the current situation is ideal at all but that changes are non-trivial and there are reasons to suspect the precedent would be preferrable to most.
https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
Source: https://gizmodo.com/google-removes-nearly-all-mentions-of-do...
> And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!
If you don't like something the US government is doing, you generally aren't going to leave. You are either going to ignore it, or try to change it. Even if your employer is the Federal government, few people would expect you to quit. If your problem is with the exact portion of the government where you are working, then some might expect you to quit but few would bat an eye if your next job happened to also be with the federal government.
What is happening here is akin to being forced out of government work for critizing the government; and we do not accept that behaviour.
I don't think anyone is that surprised, but that doesn't mean that it's right.
> I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize. I don't understand the desire to stay with a company and accept paychecks while simultaneously publicly denouncing and leading protests against them.
Good for you, but they decided to do something else. I don't think they were denouncing Google as heartily as you seem to suggest. They obviously had hope that they could change things. We're also talking about old veterans of the company. How do you know that they didn't do everything that they could internally before escalating things publicly?
When the somewhat immoral nature of that intrudes on people's thoughts, they can sort of silence it by finding fault with the person who IS following their conscience.
Going forward as an NYU employee, as a university researcher without an advanced degree, she will be lucky to clear $60k/year. In New York. Doing the exact same work she has been doing for the last two years
> If my company started doing business practices that I didn't approve of, I would try my hardest to change the direction from the inside out or I would leave and then criticize
Or maybe you'd stay, and maybe you'd retaliate against whistleblowers. There is no way to know, it's moot speculation. What we do know is that if the people who retaliated against the whistleblower had acted like you say you would have acted, they wouldn't have been around to retaliate.