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Comment by pwinnski | Hacker News Reader

It is literally the job of an AI ethicist to highlight ethical issues, so if they're publicly criticizing you, then you're likely doing something unethical.

If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the lack of change is within reason.

If they cared less, they'd just shut up, but employees seem to have a higher opinion of Google than Google does of them.

Firing them in the middle of that suggests an unwillingness to deal with the previous issues, doubling down on unethical behavior.

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I might be speaking from ignorance here, but I highly doubt their job description said anything about making accusations via tweet.

> If your team of ethicists has repeatedly highlighted issues and you continue to not address them, what should they do then? In the case of a company whose self-image is of openness and directness and benevolence, it seems reasonable that publicly highlight the lack of change is within reason.

if they strongly disagree with the direction the company is taking, they ought to refuse to be part of it and resign. public criticism can wait until they stop collecting the (quite fat, I imagine) checks.

edit: I guess I'm not really objecting to the public criticism before leaving the company. I'm objecting to the incredible feeling of entitlement it must take to expect to keep getting paid while actively damaging your employer.

And how exactly is your suggestion going to play out in the long term?

All the critical employees resign, until they are all eventually replaced yes-men who just care about the money or are too afraid to speak out.

And if a company is doing something unethical, then why is it inherently _bad_ to damage that company until it changes direction? Acting in unethical ways has to hurt the bottomline, otherwise what incentive is there for a company to change?

This is a false dichotomy. You can be critical and do so respectfully and within the company.

Damaging your employer should be the last resort.

Cutting off your limb to stop an infection isn't inherently _bad_. But it is if other treatments are not even considered.

I don't understand why people seem so confused about the notion of employment.

If a company hires a security researcher, and that security researcher finds that the company is not listening to their advice, is it their responsibility to publicly expose the security flaws of the company?

What if you hire a plumber, and the plumber doesn't find that you're taking his advice regarding your toilet. Is it the plumbers responsibility to publicly comment on that?

Well, what she is doing is called performative acitvism. She is doing staged martyrdom in front of Twitter mob and activist media. She can try to do the job well, if she felt like she was being hired as a PR move and not for any actual impact, she should've quit and told her story. I guess she didn't feel she will get any media attention if she has taken the high road. Instead she created all these drama including blatantly violating company policy. I am not sure whether she has done all these things in good faith.

Unfortuantely the amount media attention (including this very thread) these people get, it will encourage more staged martyrdoms. Soon, we will have our own tech industry reality TV show. Sadly, that's the reality we are heading into right now.

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