A professor declined a $60K research award from Google

Story: I knew a dude who made a lot of money early in life doing IT for an online gambling company, where keeping the servers up is worth a whole lot of money. And in my twenties I thought that was super cool, was jealous even 'cause he bought a house at a young age. Then years later, I wound up with a routine (details irrelevant) that had me taking the metro past the local casino very frequently, and saw first hand how the ads on the train for said casino, which you and I would find totally absurd, seemed quite reasonable to the some of the ridership who were less educated, or even borderline mentally handicapped (it went through a poor neighbourhood). And it really brought home how happy these companies are to lie to the most vulnerable populations and make addicts out of them. I saw folks frequently enough to realize they were really getting fucked over and our BC government was happy to collect the taxes from casinos whilst closing down mental care institutions. No amount of money would make me work for that sector now. I'm sure others have similar lines in the sand. So good on the prof, a $60k grant is nothing compared to knowing you took money for something you find morally reprehensible, IFF you're already living comfortable above the poverty line (as a prof would be).

This is what is known as a principal-agent problem, where the agent (the professor) has the ability to make decisions for the principal (the university) but their motives are not fully aligned. The university may prefer to have $60,000 and a good relationship with a mega corporation but the professor probably benefits more from having his name out there and known as a crusader.

“Luke Stark declined a $60,000 research award from Google in support of the ousted leaders of its ethical AI group.”<p>Ugh...I’m all for standing up for what you believe in, but I think he was foolish for turning down this money.

Declining a research award due to supporting a toxic employee with a long history of unnecessarily hostile and combative behavior (just look at the yann lecun twitter thread). Sounds fine to me!

Timrit&#x27;s actions are deeply unpleasant on Twitter. I don&#x27;t care what side of the coin you&#x27;re on - vile, contemptful behavior like this must be condemned. These people want to get famous and they&#x27;re thirsty for social-martyr points. In their wake, they coerce people into shame, social media justice and other despicable behavior. She seems to tweet at an alarming frequency - some 10 mins between tweets all day when she isn&#x27;t sleeping.<p>It is asymmetric social warfare. We&#x27;re not listening to the other half of the story, other half being a giant corporation that can&#x27;t go argue on a Twitter thread with her.<p>Seriously, go on her twitter page and see it for yourself. I implore you. It&#x27;s like we&#x27;ve lost our ability to discuss difficult topics, politely present our case and be respectful to everyone.

Personally, I refuse to work for Google no matter how many $100k&#x27;s or flexibility in role design and department choices they throw at me. This is because &quot;don&#x27;t be evil&quot; was only an ostensible mission statement that has long since fell by the wayside since it obviously never was a primary value.<p>Of FAANG, Apple and Netflix aren&#x27;t nearly as evil as the others.

From my understanding of the events, there was not really anything wrong with the way Google handled the AI Ethics researchers it fired. One threatened to quit unless a long list of demands were met. The other was exfiltrating company data.<p>Why would this guy give up real money to defend them?

Equity is not equality.

I respect the gesture but I think it would be more useful if accompanied with some plan of action for improving the current state of ethics in CS. It&#x27;s a field-wide problem, not a Google specific problem.<p>Also, let&#x27;s be clear here on who bears the brunt of these actions - when a lab is short on funding, it&#x27;s the grad students who lose out first. Vijay tweeted as much, saying he&#x27;d rather his grad students need to TA an extra semester or two rather than take Google&#x27;s money.