StargazyPi
This was in the "disassemble for scraps" tent. I do not think that's a particularly reasonable thing to assume.
95% of the time, someone unscrews the housing, sees the radiation symbol, behaves appropriately. 5% of the time it goes in a garage junk box, gets dropped, kid finds the shiny yellow disc and tries to open it.
As it was, this was hilarious, and perfectly on-brand for EMF. I'm glad there's not a small nuclear source sitting in some unknowing person's hackspace, I'm glad someone was watching out, and them wearing cute animal ears makes the story even better!
Tbh, I think I'd rather have diverse founding fathers by default (obvious problem, fixable by changing your prompt), than DALL-E's current default, which seems to just draw all white people. (I just requested a few images of doctors, nurses and patients, and an elven council - every last person of the 103 it drew was white).
I can see this sort of thing being at least a stop-gap, and something that might help while someone's waiting to get access to the better treatment.
We're never going to have experiences of our own that can inform our judgement on this, so shouldn't we just listen to and trust trans people to work out how to best to make their way in the world?
I disagree that professional ethicists aren't needed in an organisation like Google though. Just as security should be lived and breathed by every developer, you still need some experts to consult when things get gnarly, light the way when you need many years of study to understand the concepts, and spot things that laypeople would miss.
The large language models Timnit was studying are a great example of this; people like her were (and are) needed to help the engineers understand the breadth and scope of the issues. Everyone in the org having their hearts in the right place doesn't replace expertise.
However, my mind was changed by the idea that if killing people is easy, and there is little risk to the operators of the equipment, it will be done all the more. Countries will go to war much less overall, if there are higher stakes. I like there being high stakes.
He got fired for the other bits, the casually implying 40% of the workforce were, onr average, somehow inferior and less suited to their work than men, and for not taking it down but stirring the pot, when he realised that he'd wildly misjudged the reaction people would have to it.
I'm discussing the inference that people who possess more traditionally feminine traits are any less good at leading.
"This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading."
Sure, there are statistical differences between genders. This is a total non-sequitur from that, with no citation in sight to try allay blame. This is just the 1950s calling with its stereotypes.
Women may be more agreeable, and more less assertive. However you had better provide fairly convincing proof that we are speaking up too little, rather than merely less than men do.
The problem they're solving shouldn't be "we need more women in tech, so let's lower the bar for them". The problem they should be solving is "There are two candidates for this leadership position. One tends to use assertiveness and authority to get the job done. The other uses encouragement and persuasion. Who do you hire?". The default response is often to choose the person with the leadership style you've seen many times before, and thus the person who uses unfamiliar, equally effective techniques doesn't get a shot.
You sure as hell shouldn't hire me because I'm female. You should hire me because the set of techniques I employ to do my job are effective, even though they might be less familiar to you. Every tech lead has a different style, and that style has been tailored to that individual. Measure the outcome, not arbitrary characteristics that contribute to the outcome.
I agree - the discussion around this topic is very frustrating (more frustrating to me than the actual content of the manifesto by far), and everyone's trying to make it so black and white.
I think the current top comment has it right; it makes good points (there are statistical differences in traits across genders), it makes bad points (the wage gap...just doesn't work like that), and it contains some really bad non-sequitur conclusions (measure how a person leads on the outputs of their team, not how "assertive" or "technical" they are).
He put them in a difficult position. The brand and employee-esteem damage caused by tacitly condoning his manifesto by not firing him, vs just getting rid of one engineer. Easy maths. He's gone.
Edit: backwards words not now.
The reason I bring it up though, is that I don't see or experience any particular bias around most of the the issues in the article. Most of the points raised really don't seem like gendered issues.
It's always alarming to read stories such as Susan Fowler's, that remind you sexism is still out there in force, in places. But it's great to read things like this, which implies at least a good chunk of fellow female devs are having the freedom to leave because their company doesn't care about software quality.
As you said, progress!
Most of the common ones seem to be a company or manager's words not matching their actions. The sample sizes I've experienced may be fairly small so far (very few female colleagues, as ever), but I've seen men and women leave in equal measure for that type of transgression.
I can see this transitioning quite easily from a 'we can sanitise this data ourselves' job to a 'screw it, let a massive neural net figure this out' one.
Then I realised this was dumb, bought a £20 Ukulele, signed up to classes, and am happy as a clam.
4 months in, I play twice a week with a big group. I still sound awful solo, but am amazed at how far I've come, and how much embracing something totally different has enriched many parts of my life I just didn't expect.
I suppose the lens flare variant is prettier, and more star-like, but it would be interesting to see the plain variant occasionally.
On the one hand, responsible disclosure, and immediate patching would be the ideal way forwards.
However, with a company that has a history of neglecting security, and with such severe possible consequences, speaking the language only language that businesses understand is sometimes the only way to make them pay attention.
Had they gone the "responsible" route with a CERT disclosure, the vulnerability would have been published 45 days later, and would presumably be exploitable (as St Jude doesn't seem to prioritise fixes).
As it is, we get a brief media shitstorm, and hopefully companies paying more attention to product security as a result.
What I'd love to see is responsible disclosure with teeth. Someone like the FDA imposing severe penalties for failure to patch security flaws, and rewarding responsible hackers who find vulnerabilities. This means we avoid the nasty area of effective blackmail, whilst hopefully making it likely the 'good' guys find the vulnerabilities first.
Just because we, personally, have made it, doesn't mean we shouldn't make the path easier for others.