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19 posts total
Timnit Gebru (she/her)

So much benefiting of humanity by OpenAI and friends.

Definitely on the way to that utopia they promise us will come with so-called AGI.

theintercept.com/2024/10/25/af

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

“OpenAI’s stated corporate mission remains “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”

Lol

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

Does anyone with a background in electrical engineering/electronics etc have any references or other information for how datasheets became a standard thing, or something that is expected of a manufacturer to produce?

steve crandall

@timnitGebru early radios required repairs - I’ve seen schematics that were packed with sets from the early 20s. Why would you buy something that you or the local repair guy couldn’t fix..

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

🗣️ 🔊 July 8th @ 8am PDT/5pm CET, we’re launching the Data Workers’ Inquiry: 15 data workers from 4 continents answer their own research questions in their chosen modality, ranging from comprehensive reports, to animated shorts, documentaries, zines, comic books, podcasts & more. I’ll moderate a panel with founders of the 1st African content moderators union, & @DAIR's Krystal Kauffman, lead organizer of @turkopticon.
Register @ data-workers.org/events/ where you’ll find the speakers’ series🧵 1/x

🗣️ 🔊 July 8th @ 8am PDT/5pm CET, we’re launching the Data Workers’ Inquiry: 15 data workers from 4 continents answer their own research questions in their chosen modality, ranging from comprehensive reports, to animated shorts, documentaries, zines, comic books, podcasts & more. I’ll moderate a panel with founders of the 1st African content moderators union, & @DAIR's Krystal Kauffman, lead organizer of @turkopticon.
Register @ data-workers.org/events/

A flyer of the Launch Event for the Data Workers Inquiry. At 8 am PT / 11 am EST / 5 pm CET there is the firt panel, called "What is the Data Workers' Inquiry +Q&A". 45 minutes later the data workers will be introduces and at last panel 2 called "How to do data workers organize in the face of exploitation + Q&A" will take place at 12 pm EST. It will be held online on zoom on the 8th of July. RSVP  at https://tinyurl.com/data-workers.
A flyer outlining the talk series: - All online. 8 - 10:30 am PT, 11am - 12:30 pm ET, 5-6:30 pm CET. - More info and registration: data-workers.org/events Talk series: - Sept. 23. Online. English with captioning What impact does content moderation have on workers’ mental health? Speakers: Sakine Bozorg, Fasica Gebrekidan, Botlhokwa Ranta, Krystal Kauffman Moderation: Milagros Miceli - Oct. 7. Online. German with simultaneous English translation Data work as a career? Professionalizing content moderation in Germany. Speakers: Anonymous, Data, Worker, Milagros Miceli Moderation: Laurenz Sachenbacher - Nov. 4. Online. English with captioning.  Who else does data work? Speakers: John López (WGA), Tadhg Mac Eoghain (Guerrilla Media Collective), Arte es Ética, Alex Hanna Moderation: Milagros Miceli
A flyer outlining the talk series (part 1): - All online. 8 - 10:30 am PT, 11am - 12:30 pm ET, 5-6:30 pm CET. - More info and registration: data-workers.org/events Talk series: - July 8. Online. English with captioning. How do data workers organize in the face of exploitation? Speakers: Mophat Okinyi, Richard Mathenge, Krystal Kauffman Moderation: Adio Dinika - July 22. Online. English with captioning What does precarity look like for data workers? Speakers: Yasser Alrayes, Roukaya Al Hammada, Wilington Shitawa, Adio Dinika Moderation: Krystal Kauffman - August 26. Online. Spanish with simultaneous English translation What grievances are specific to data work in Latin America? Speakers: Oskarina Fuentes, Alex Chávez, Camilla Salim Wagner Moderation: Milagros Miceli - Sept. 9. Online. English with captioning What training do data workers need and what do they get instead? Speakers: Fasica Gebrekidan, Anonymous Worker, Yasser Alrayes, Laurenz Sachenbacher Moderation: Krystal Kauffman
Timnit Gebru (she/her)

We'll highlight each researcher throughout the week but I'll start with two.

Fasica Gebrekidan worked as a content moderator for Meta via Sama in Nairobi, Kenya for 2 years, until she was laid off for attempting to form a data workers’ union. Her heartbreaking report is on the unimaginable toll of both experiencing #TigrayGenocide AND moderating content related to it. Imagine. She discusses mental health issues and drug abuse.

You can download her report at data-workers.org/fasica/

Content moderation: The harrowing, traumatizing job that leaves many African data workers with mental health issues and drug dependency. 

By Fasica Berhane Gebrekidan. 

With a black and white sketch of a silhouette of what seems like a woman's body.
Timnit Gebru (she/her)

#TigrayGenocide, the worst genocide of the 21st century, has been the single most disturbing event in my lifetime. Not only this genocide, but also seeing the ease with which so many people deny it, with so much anger towards those who have the audacity to even mention the genocide.

newlinesinstitute.org/rules-ba

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The fact that a genocide of this proportion has been executed with such little media coverage & that the likes of Last Week Tonight had ZERO interest in even mentioning it a single time, regardless of how many angles I gave them, is something I will never forget.

Yeshaya Lazarevich

@timnitGebru right now it doesn't feel like the 21st century is turning out any better than the 20th. I still remember hoping that it would

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

❗️Urgent Call to Rebuild Healthcare in War-Torn Tigray.❗️

I'll be matching up to $15k of your donations.

GoFundMe is unreliable for the horn of Africa atm, so I am using TipHub for this campaign.

Please let me know if you have any issues donating.
tiphub.co/urgent-call-to-rebui

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The ongoing genocide in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray has killed more than 700 thousand people, and left at least 100 thousand victims of rape as a weapon of war.
bbc.com/news/world-africa-6329
washingtonpost.com/world/2023/

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

"the...aftermath of their assault continued to plague all three victims. Semret’s heart-wrenching account took a grim turn as she disclosed that they had been diagnosed with HIV & uterine cancer. While the...adult women...followed their prescribed medication regimen, the 15-year-old girl bore the brunt of her afflictions, unable to attend school due to a constant & unrelenting leakage of an unknown fluid from her uterus."

Victims of #TigrayGenocide suffering in silence.

thereporterethiopia.com/39511/

"the...aftermath of their assault continued to plague all three victims. Semret’s heart-wrenching account took a grim turn as she disclosed that they had been diagnosed with HIV & uterine cancer. While the...adult women...followed their prescribed medication regimen, the 15-year-old girl bore the brunt of her afflictions, unable to attend school due to a constant & unrelenting leakage of an unknown fluid from her uterus."

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The more than 100 THOUSAND estimated victims of rape as a weapon of war are suffering in silence. Think about that scale, and ask yourself why you haven't constantly been hearing about these victims. #TigrayGenocide

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says it has been leaning on U.S. companies that use open source software to plow resources back into the communities that build and maintain it. CISA adviser Jack Cable told Reuters the burden was on tech companies not just to vet open software but to “contribute back and help build the sustainable open source ecosystem that we get so much value from.”

They don't do that though.

reuters.com/technology/cyberse

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) says it has been leaning on U.S. companies that use open source software to plow resources back into the communities that build and maintain it. CISA adviser Jack Cable told Reuters the burden was on tech companies not just to vet open software but to “contribute back and help build the sustainable open source ecosystem that we get so much value from.”

Camilo

@timnitGebru the government… the one driven by societal pressure… saying it’s the responsibility of companies… the ones driven by profit alone. ideology is a hell of a drug.

Alan

@timnitGebru it’s a specific problem for open source but I see it as a symptom of a more general problem of how corps don’t interact sustainably with society.

Maybe closing that loop for a the specific problem of open source health and sustainability will inform us to approaches for the general problem.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

I can't emphasize enough my disdain for the whole AGI scam. Used to centralize & consolidate power by the already rich & powerful while selling a techno-utopia they promise will come any day now, if we just let them continue to kill the environment, exploit labor & steal data 👍

Show previous comments
Diane 🕵

@timnitGebru

I want the utopia brought about by high top marginal tax rates

Eric McCorkle

@timnitGebru

My current stance is that anyone talking unironically about AGI as if it were a real thing should be regarded the same way that one would regard advocates for Scientology or the Moonies.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

I forgot that I had written this in September. It was published in November. Since the its behind a paywall, I'll paste the text that you can't access in this thread.

economist.com/the-world-ahead/

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The field of artificial intelligence (ai) cycles through what are called AI summers, epochs where every other news headline seems to be about AI and there is ample funding for the field, and AI winters, which come from the disappointment of undelivered overpromises during the summers. We are currently in perhaps the most intense AI summer ever, where just the mere mention of “AI” gets startups 15­50% more funds in investment.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

I wrote this short summary of our @DAIR #NoTechForApartheid event co-hosted with Haymarket Books. I came away from the event thinking that this is even worse than I knew and that we have even more of a responsibility to say #NoTechForApartheid. This is the post: dair-institute.org/blog/NoTech

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

I am incredibly grateful to our speakers & this summary only scratches the surface. There are too many important points that I couldn't fit into this post. I highly, highly recommend that you watch the full recording. youtube.com/watch?v=QVrjA-5Ak0

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

Incredible that such a statement needs to be said, and even more incredible that journalists saying risk the repercussions to their careers.
protect-journalists.com/

sykora :trans_furr_white:

@timnitGebru It's really something that AP made someone remove their name from the list too

ZhiZhu

@timnitGebru

" #Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in #Gaza have been hit in the past month. Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting #journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale suppression of speech."
protect-journalists.com/

#Journalism #Media #Press #News

@timnitGebru

" #Israel has blocked foreign press entry, heavily restricted telecommunications and bombed press offices. Some 50 media headquarters in #Gaza have been hit in the past month. Israeli forces explicitly warned newsrooms they “cannot guarantee” the safety of their employees from airstrikes. Taken with a decades-long pattern of lethally targeting #journalists, Israel’s actions show wide scale suppression of speech."
protect-journalists.com/

Headline of website:

A statement by journalists:

We condemn Israel's killing of journalists in Gaza and urge integrity in Western media coverage of Israel's atrocities against Palestinians.

If you are a current or former journalist or other news worker and would like to sign this letter, please fill out this form.
Timnit Gebru (she/her)

The field of #AI is such junk pseudo science at this point. Which other field has its equivalent of Nobel prize winners going absolutely bonkers? Between him and Hinton and Yoshua Bengio (his brother has the complete opposite view at least) clown town is getting crowded.

Screenshot of twitter, Yann LeCun (@ylecun) saying "Very interesting paper: using generative AI to produce text or images emits 3 to 4 orders of magnitude *less* CO2 than doing it manually with the help of a computer. 

https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.06219

Then shows screenshot of figure 2 from the preprint that shows bar plots of "human" vs midjourney, DALL-e2, laptop, desctop, human from India and human from the US where the human from the US is the most CO2 emission.
Show previous comments
Barry Parr

@timnitGebru Jusult off the top of my head, William Schockley and Linus Pauling were Nobel Prize winning crackpots.

A.J. Fish

@timnitGebru This "AI helps fight wildfires now" is getting a lot of traction but I'm suspicious. Human forest lookouts were replaced with automation in 2012 slate.com/technology/2013/06/f. And out-of-control wildfires don't rage for days because people can't see them. Finally, automated cameras and alerts are mere algorithms, not really AI. Maybe the system uses an AI classifier. reuters.com/world/us/californi

@timnitGebru This "AI helps fight wildfires now" is getting a lot of traction but I'm suspicious. Human forest lookouts were replaced with automation in 2012 slate.com/technology/2013/06/f. And out-of-control wildfires don't rage for days because people can't see them. Finally, automated cameras and alerts are mere algorithms, not really AI. Maybe the system uses an AI classifier. reuters.com/world/us/californi

FeralRobots

@timnitGebru
I glanced at it & the factors they're not accounting for could fill volumes.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

So, the other "godfather" of AI, Turing Award Winner Yoshua Bengio has decided to FULLY align himself with the #TESCREAL bundle, writing a thing about "rogue AI" and prominently citing people like Nick Bostrom.

Take a good look at this text here. This is written by non other than Nick Bostrom, prominently featured by so many of these fathers and godfathers and sons and brothers and nephews of "AI" (given that its all men you know).

David Musick:
I have always liked the uncompromisingly objective way of
thinking and speaking: the more counterintuitive and
repugnant a formulation, the more it appeals to me given
that it is logically correct. Take for example the following
sentence:

Blacks are more stupid than whites.

I like that sentence and think it is true. But recently I
have begun to believe that I won't have much success with
most people if I speak like that. They would think that I
were a "racist": that I _disliked_ black people and thought
that it is fair if blacks are treated badly. I don't. It's
just that based on what I have read, I think it is probable
that black people have a lower average IQ than mankind in
general, and I think that IQ is highly correlated with what
we normally mean by "smart" and stupid". I may be wrong
about the facts, but that is what the sentence means for me.
For most people, however, the sentence seems to be
synonymous with:

I hate those bloody niggers!!!!

My point is that while speaking with the provocativness of
unabashed objectivity would be appreciated by me and many
other persons on this list, it may be a less effective
strategy in communicating with some of the people "out
there". I think it is laudable if you accustom people to the
offensiveness of truth, but be prepared that you may suffer
some personal damage.

Niklas Bostrom n.bostrom@lse.ac.uk
Timnit Gebru (she/her)

That's right "Blacks are more stupid than whites" and then he proceeds to call us the N word. That's not even the worst of it, because his entire career has been "raising awareness" about "dysgenic pressures" (the opposite of eugenic pressures), as existential risks to humanity. That is, those of us who are "stupider than mankind as a whole" reproducing too much and creating an inferior race.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

"Word of the guilty pleas and cooperation agreements came after Bankman-Fried took off from the Bahamas aboard a U.S. government plane flying to New York, where he is expected to be arraigned Thursday on an eight-count indictment that charges him with orchestrating one of the biggest financial frauds in American history."

#EffectiveAltruism.

abcnews.go.com/US/sam-bankman-

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

This is great news but also it should be done everywhere.

"Brown University has added a new provision to its nondiscrimination policy that “explicitly prohibits caste oppression, to underscore protections for members of the university community and to call attention to a subtle, often misunderstood form of structural inequality,” the Ivy League institution announced earlier this month."

americankahani.com/community/c

This is great news but also it should be done everywhere.

"Brown University has added a new provision to its nondiscrimination policy that “explicitly prohibits caste oppression, to underscore protections for members of the university community and to call attention to a subtle, often misunderstood form of structural inequality,” the Ivy League institution announced earlier this month."

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

"On Monday, a video footage showing two decapitated heads put on pikes and paraded by members of “Fano militia” was widely shared on social media."

I just saw a few seconds of a video showing this and I truly have no words. Truly.

addisstandard.com/news-protest

Verveonica

@timnitGebru oh my goodness. wtf.

Timnit Gebru (she/her)

Lets support people on here who've been cleaning up for a while. Ones I've learned about are @Are0h and @CaribenxMarciaX.

Ro has a patreon you can donate to here: patreon.com/Are0h

Marcia has a gofundme here: gofundme.com/f/help-marcia-get

If you know of any more please comment in the replies so I can learn about them and support.

Show previous comments
Änn Euing 📜

@timnitGebru We may also need better structures to speed up and improve reporting and sharing of blocklists across instances. The recent growth has been overwhelming, a lot of admins are still struggling to keep things online. At the same time there are more hate servers being created all the time. We gotta figure out how to get better at dealing with those, ideally not just resorting to playing whackamole using a hashtag.

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