It would be nice to have some specific examples of these things. This particular criticism, in my view, is just an attempt to associate EA with Bad Things so that people also think of EA as a Bad Thing. There’s no actual arguments in this statement—there are no specific claims to oppose. (Except that EA is incredibly well-funded—which is true, but also not inherently good or bad, and therefore does not need to be defended.)
If I’m being charitable—many arguments are like this, especially when you only have 140 characters. This is a bad argument, but it’s far from a uniquely bad argument. The burden of proof is on Timnit to provide evidence for these accusations, but they may have done this somewhere else, just not in this tweet. (I assume it’s a tweet because of its length, and, let’s face it, its dismissiveness. Twitter is known for such things.)
If I’m not being charitable—the point of a vague argument such as the above is that it places the burden of proof on the accused. The defense being asked for is for EA’s to present specific examples of actions that EA is taking that prove they aren’t “colonial” or “white savior”-esque. This is a losing game from the start, because the terms are vague enough that you can always argue that a given action proves nothing or isn’t good enough, and that someone could be doing more to decolonise their thoughts and actions. The only winning game is not to play.
Which interpretation is correct? I don’t know enough about Timnit Gebru to say. I’d say that if Timnit is known for presenting nuanced, concrete arguments on other mediums or on other topics, this argument is probably a casualty of Twitter, and the charitable approach is appropriate here.
It would be nice to have some specific examples of these things. This particular criticism, in my view, is just an attempt to associate EA with Bad Things so that people also think of EA as a Bad Thing. There’s no actual arguments in this statement—there are no specific claims to oppose. (Except that EA is incredibly well-funded—which is true, but also not inherently good or bad, and therefore does not need to be defended.)
If I’m being charitable—many arguments are like this, especially when you only have 140 characters. This is a bad argument, but it’s far from a uniquely bad argument. The burden of proof is on Timnit to provide evidence for these accusations, but they may have done this somewhere else, just not in this tweet. (I assume it’s a tweet because of its length, and, let’s face it, its dismissiveness. Twitter is known for such things.)
If I’m not being charitable—the point of a vague argument such as the above is that it places the burden of proof on the accused. The defense being asked for is for EA’s to present specific examples of actions that EA is taking that prove they aren’t “colonial” or “white savior”-esque. This is a losing game from the start, because the terms are vague enough that you can always argue that a given action proves nothing or isn’t good enough, and that someone could be doing more to decolonise their thoughts and actions. The only winning game is not to play.
Which interpretation is correct? I don’t know enough about Timnit Gebru to say. I’d say that if Timnit is known for presenting nuanced, concrete arguments on other mediums or on other topics, this argument is probably a casualty of Twitter, and the charitable approach is appropriate here.