alt Hacker NewsI think part of it is she had excellent PR skills and a dedicated fan base. I was at Google when she quit, working in ML, and hadn't heard of her until the story broke. I remember there were a large number of Memegen posts about it, but no one I spoke with knew about her, so I assumed it was brigading.
I think she's since since lost a lot of her allure, especially when she didn't change her mind when the facts about the AI water usage changed 1000x
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What is interesting about it for me is: why would someone working on AI ethics choose to work for Google at all?
Did she really think Google cares about ethics? Such positions seem purely performative, we all know that ethics go out the window first to make room for more profits.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25324263
She was well known to be toxic and extremely exploitive of victim privilege
What exactly are the facts about AI water usage? I have trouble separating hysteria from reality but most of what I see still claims water usage is enormous