I'm torn on this. Actually, if you think you're a researcher and then feedback comes in this weird way, that seems pretty weird. At the same time... "people like me who are constantly dehumanized" - really? I mean maybe, but to me this sounds like hyperbole, and actually, weaponized hyperbole. This is someone who's a respected and presumably very highly paid researcher. Dehumanized?

“People like me,” not referring to her privilege, but to women and people of color, I would guess. Since there are serious culture and systemic biases / prejudices against women and PoC.

Sure, but either she's constantly dehumanized or she isn't, and if she's actually rather powerful and important, and is then claiming that by being a black woman, she automatically gets a share in the victimhood, then that doesn't seem very convincing.

> spilling 'special sauce' information to the public. You never heard of it, and that's a good thing.

okay, cool. That's not what's going on here. We're talking about AI ethics, and the goal is that our (society's) use of AI meets a high bar for ethics and equity.

In light of Jeff Dean's email, which you can find in the updated original post, it appears that Timnit Gebru threw a public tantrum when one of the many papers she collaborated on was deemed unsuitable for Google Brain technical standards. That's the point: adults handle minor setbacks like adults, instead of rushing to social media to vent in public about their 'constant dehumanization'.

Why is this post flagged? I too was expecting more than 'social media venting' and am surprised that this article made it this far.

Ideological battle.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Would you please elaborate?

This is ideological battle boilerplate of the sort that contradicts the mandate of this site and which users were therefore right to flag:

This is the fundamental victim mindset of the social media woke: any setback is chalked up to identity based oppression. Reality check: everybody has setbacks, most of them unfair, or at least easily perceived as unfair, and definitely frustrating. Most have the decency to deal with it,

Complaining about life adversities on social media in a hyperbolic race / gender wrapping, 'constantly dehumanized', is a recent widespread phenomenon. The heroine of this story happens to embody this novel behavior, which used to be a whole lot more private and a whole lot less race / gender driven. Not sure where 'ideology' enters the picture, it's a reasonably truthful observation from someone that is old enough to remember life before social media.

Ideology enters the picture when people repeat predictable clusters of angry and rigid reactions about complex topics. Things we've heard many times already are off topic here, especially when they're tied to classic flamewar themes. This follows from the definition of curiosity, which is the mandate of this site.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html