Hacker News Reader

Comment by ageek123 | Hacker News Reader

The article says he "left Google to protest the company's firings of its own AI ethics researchers" but there's no evidence of that -- for example, his farewell email did not mention that at all, and AFAIK he hasn't made any public statement indicating that that was the reason he left.

View on HN

Samy said he was stunned by what happened to Timnit Gebru. Given that Google locked Margaret Mitchell out of her own email, I would expect that Samy's ability to email had been restricted as well: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3469738016467233...

He does not need access to corporate email to say that he left in protest. He can post such a statement on Facebook, Twitter, or email reporters from his personal account.

If this is the primary reason, it's kind of strange to choose Apple, a company with a notoriously secretive and authoritarian internal culture.

But arguably fewer ethical problems around their technology itself (setting aside supply chain and business dealings)

Apple cares about ethics though, it's even part of their brand image. Google destroyed that aspect of their brand image with the destruction of "don't be evil".

Apple does not care about ethics. Apple cares about what you think of their ethics depending on which part of the world you live in.

Are there places that leave email open to former employees? Seems like standard practice and the link doesn't say anything about email. What is the story there?

Margaret Mitchell's email was restricted because she was exfiltrating confidential documents en masse

https://www.axios.com/scoop-google-is-investigating-the-acti...

> his farewell email did not mention that at all, and AFAIK he hasn't made any public statement indicating that that was the reason he left.

Why burn bridges?

So he didn't want to burn bridges, and told Reuters?

Edit: this is a legitimate question, sorry haters

You can't both protest something and not burn bridges at the same time. You have to choose one or the other.

One can protest something without going scorched-earth. The act of leaving, which deprives Google of his talent and experience, may have been protest enough.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com