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This is happening now!!! With @/timnitGebru @/mer__edith @/safiyanoble @/adrienneandgo @/cmcilwain and @/alexhanna. I know this panel is gonna be so good, I'm debating if I wanna do a tweet thread or not for it 
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/269-the-fight-for-the-future-organizing-the-tech-industry
https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/269-the-fight-for-the-future-organizing-the-tech-industry
And also to livetweet some things for folks who can't make it right now... but at the cost of flooding the feeds of everyone who follows me, oop 
I think I'll tweet sparingly and see how that works out
I think I'll tweet sparingly and see how that works out
First, a *huge* shout-out to Haymarket Books (@/haymarketbooks) for making this panel possible. They're an *incredible* non-profit publisher that's had some of my *favorite* books released in the last few years.
Support em, check out some of their books! https://www.haymarketbooks.org/
Support em, check out some of their books! https://www.haymarketbooks.org/
Phew, loving the Haymarket Books intro already... There's about 350 people here so far, and more and more joining by the second. Some great stuff right now making it clear about their chat moderation and accessibility / captioning. This is what it's all about!!
Starting off with @/alexhanna talking about Google's firing of @/timnitGebru last December. If you haven't heard about it yet, you definitely gotta know about what happened & how egregious this whole thing was. And it's still been getting worse every day. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/16/1014634/google-ai-ethics-lead-timnit-gebru-tells-story/
Btw, you can learn more about all of the people in this panel by following their @'s that I'm including (but also not fully tagging cause I don't wanna spam them). They're *all* incredible folks who you should definitely get to know, esp in the AI / Tech Ethics/Justice space.
@/timnitGebru is talking about what happened last Dec & the "Stochastic Parrots" paper that talks about the ethical & environmental concerns with large language models Google is using. @/JeffDean and others have tried to block this paper from coming out. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/12/04/1013294/google-ai-ethics-research-paper-forced-out-timnit-gebru/
This hasn't been mentioned on the panel, but so @/timnitGebru and @/mmitchell_ai are the Ethical AI co-leads at Google. Dr. Gebru was fired in Dec, and this week, Google locked Dr. Mitchell out from her accounts as well. This is still developing. https://venturebeat.com/2021/01/20/google-targets-ai-ethics-lead-margaret-mitchell-after-firing-timnit-gebru/
@/timnitGebru now talking about how scary it is for folks showing solidarity for her, how so many folks are contractors putting their jobs on the line, or even full-time folks might have the threat of losing work visas by speaking up. lots of concerns for folks' safety right now
@/adrienneandgo is talking about her experience as an Amazon driver and the horrible conditions for workers and their inability to have any say or power in their situations, such as needing to take pay off for PTO they've earned or not having control over their hours.
Sounds like a lot of gaslighting and exploitation of the workers!! @/adrienneandgo talking now about how these companies say things like "But we're paying you and keeping you fed!!" to try to justify what they demand on workers. And how powerless workers feel
@/adrienneandgo: As a driver, it feels like "Who am I to ask for more? Who am I to demand for more?"
"I demand enough to pay my rent, when I'm carrying [80-90 lbs] barbeques onto your porch."
"Amazon's good at hiring people cause they know they can't go anywhere else."
"I demand enough to pay my rent, when I'm carrying [80-90 lbs] barbeques onto your porch."
"Amazon's good at hiring people cause they know they can't go anywhere else."
Amazon apparently has their own "CIA" that's in the rooms all the time watching folks and surveilling folks constantly, and it terrorizes folks!! And folks are unable to speak up cause they need to get paid to live where they do & they're afraid to lose their jobs.
Related: many eyes are on the Amazon warehouse workers union in Alabama, the first union at Amazon in the States. This *just* happened last week, and a lot of us are watching to see what happens with it. https://www.npr.org/2021/01/15/948819324/amazon-warehouse-workers-to-decide-whether-to-form-companys-first-u-s-union
Related: it was *huge* news this month about the forming of Google's union (@/AlphabetWorkers) which was years in the making. We're at a point where we're seeing more unionizing in the tech space, but these are all still *extremely* new. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/technology/google-employees-union.html
@/safiyanoble talking about how even the exploited labor of Black & Indigenous folks was normalized in the time of the slave trade, and how it was the work of the abolitionists that got us where we are now. And we're sitting in that tradition & that's what we're facing today.
In the chat:
@/kingavriel mentioning how we wish we could have lines of communication across workers not dependent on the companies exploiting them.
@/ruha9 reminding us "WE ALL WE GOT"
So many poignant and powerful things being shared in the chat rn.
@/kingavriel mentioning how we wish we could have lines of communication across workers not dependent on the companies exploiting them.
@/ruha9 reminding us "WE ALL WE GOT"
So many poignant and powerful things being shared in the chat rn.
@/safiyanoble lays it out incredibly, talking about the genealogies of the work that we're doing, talking about the exploitation of the workers happening in front of our eyes, reminding us that *harm* is happening across class lines, across industries, across all laborers.
@/safiyanoble has highlighted the work of so many others and that lineage and how we need to connect in order to collectively work against that harm happening. For those who don't know, Dr. Noble's work is a must-follow (her book a must-read) on all this: https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/
@/safiyanoble: "The algorithms of oppression came for the workers, and we did nothing."
@/cmcilwain talking about much of this from a historical standpoint, and how so many historical thinkers have laid the groundwork to name the things that we're facing today, esp with organizing and labor movements. Mentions A. Philip Randolph first.
APR: "On one hand, you cannot destroy the machine...technology is the collective creation of the people...the people should share in the fruits of the technology"
CM: "Technology is something that's supposed to work for all of us... what we have seen is something very different"
CM: "Technology is something that's supposed to work for all of us... what we have seen is something very different"
CM mentions another historical thinker's words: "he shall not quote statistics ... we *know* that the Afro-American is the first hired, first fired ... we *know* he is quarantined regardless of his education ... we know the new era of automation does not include him"
CM talking about the pervasive anti-Blackness at the root of the technology industry today and throughout history: "it was not made for us, it was not made with us in mind"
Noting that it's about tokenism, not about diversity and inclusion. Same today as was in 1968.
Noting that it's about tokenism, not about diversity and inclusion. Same today as was in 1968.
CM talking about how yes, representation matters, but while it is a step towards power, it is *not* power itself. "True power lies in ownership, true power lies in influence, true power lies in the ability to say what decisions will be made." & we must push for *that*
@/mer__edith says that Dr. Gebru being fired from Google is like COVID hitting the US, in the sense that it lays bare the self-interests of the system, and how it's so focused only on what is profitable and what can generate it capital. "This is a real inflection point."
@/mer__edith "what AI allowed these companies was their incursion into other industries" ... talking about how AI allows a *very* small few to make decisions in health care, education, in just about everything that affects all of us
@/mer__edith: these are "tools of capital and social control" that "expand tech into different fields" and they don't need to follow up on their promises of what they're making; it just allows them to obfuscate their responsibilities. & of course, these are racist, biased, etc.
Now @/mer__edith is talking about organizing when she was a part of Google, and how this grew out of Google's working with the Department of Defense. For those who don't remember, @/mer__edith was *also* forced out by Google in 2019 due to her organizing. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/16/20695964/google-protest-leader-meredith-whittaker-leaves-company
@/mer__edith reminding us that people need to be fighting against these companies on the ground, centering and by the people who are being harmed and often excluded. "We're not just trying to make Google woke"; it's about demanding justice.
Going to Q&A now. @/adrienneandgo is mentioning how she's seen AWS workers and coders standing together more than the drivers have, citing how AWS workers if they're fired can just jump to Google or wherever, but this mobility doesn't exist as much for the warehouse workers, etc.
AW: The more affluent workers seem to have more of an ability to unionize, and they have put their jobs on the lie. Even between the warehouse workers and the drivers, there hasn't been agreement, but there's so much to lose, and we can't blame them.
@/safiyanoble now talks about how part of the work at
@/C2i2_UCLA is strengthening democratic institutions and public governance. Tech companies are making us disoriented in what public goods are and what private ordinances are & they're obfuscating the priv with the pub.
@/C2i2_UCLA is strengthening democratic institutions and public governance. Tech companies are making us disoriented in what public goods are and what private ordinances are & they're obfuscating the priv with the pub.
@/safiyanoble these companies are pretending they're working in the interests of the public, when they're doing anything but. One of the challenges is how we organize ourselves in these spaces ... there is no messiah coming to save us.
@/safiyanoble: While universities are starved for resources, this creates an opportunity for private companies like Google to cherry-pick researchers.
@/safiyanoble We are *not* going to solve this through consumer choice (e.g. just deciding not to use Google, Amazon, etc.); we need to confront, name, and push back the areas where tech is excluding and harming Black people, poor workers, etc. This is where the work is.
@/adrienneandgo talking about the CZI (Chan Zuckerberg Institute) and how they've been in schools and it's all been a front for *data mining* for our kids. & she's spoken up about it, despite NDAs. Talking about how NDAs seem grossly unconstitutional preventing ppl from speaking
@/adrienneandgo making a *huge* point that I completely agree with, which is that we also need to point out the companies like **ORACLE** who're flying under the radar and invisible and enabling what's happening but we're not calling them out enough.
@/mer__edith: "We need whistleblowers in these companies willing to share this information with us." We need legal support. Tech / Amazon infrastructure is everywhere, and the different connections across different movements are intentionally being obscured.
@/cmcilwain echoing the importance of linkages, which is a deep theme today. That we need folks who are researchers, laborers, in corporations, in academic, etc. working together and we need to build connections. "We're weak, all the way around. This building needs to happen."
A lot of this reminds we about the importance of *collective* work, and how I remind folks that *everything* is interconnected. We all need to be coming together across different lines to work together. The work of these companies (and capitalism) is to try to separate us.
@/timnitGebru is talking about the false dichotomy of academy vs industry. Talking about how with her firing, people said if she wanted that freedom, she should look for academia. But it's not much different. The two are deeply intertwined via appointments, racism, etc.
@/timnitGebru mentions that she got her PhD from Stanford, and it's only ever graduated 1 Black woman in CS. The problems we see in industry, we see in academia too. The two are connected and the same, not entirely different and separate.
Btw, I'm tagging a lot of people, but I need to take a moment to shout-out @/alexhanna who's been moderating and doing an *incredible* job posing the questions, connecting what folks are saying, and making this panel flow SO WELL. This is no joke!! Dr. Hanna is KILLING IT!!
@/safiyanoble: we see a huge growth in administrative workers, in adjunct faculty, and a huge defunding of graduate students, a huge loss in full-time faculty. Take the UC grad workers' strike this last year. (Talking about how labor in academia has continuing issues as well.)
@/safiyanoble talking about power and resources, about who still maintains control at the universities who are out of touch. Cites how colleagues bought houses in LA for $90K, who have become impediments to organizing. Concentrations of power are what we gotta watch out for.
@/safiyanoble talks about the generational differences & how so many folks doing the work don't have the resources the more senior colleagues do. And there's this divide.
@/mer__edith mentions how a different Haymarket panel touched on tenure topics: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/261-solidarity-defending-activism-within-and-beyond-the-university
@/mer__edith mentions how a different Haymarket panel touched on tenure topics: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/261-solidarity-defending-activism-within-and-beyond-the-university
It's really hard to keep up with live-tweeting, ya'll!! Sorry for missing some of the deeper details, I keep hitting into the character limit and all that, and I can't live transcribe things as well as I used to, haha
Sorry for missing some of the deeper details, I keep hitting into the character limit and all that, and I can't live transcribe things as well as I used to, haha
@/alexhanna is now talking about the parallels between the organizing of tech workers and the organizing of graduate students and in the academia, citing how organizing with U. Wisconsin helped so much with organizing now. Gotta remember the academic organizing.
@/adrienneandgo is talking about the MEN who are trying to be the SUPERSTARS in organizing spaces. When women are speaking up about their issues (like pay, harassment, etc.), men are shutting them down. Too many men are trying to be glorified saviors on their own.
@/adrienneandgo "We either gotta get it done or we're not. I'm not going to uplift abusers." Talking about how we're not going to just put known abusers at the top, about how we can't just be following these few who are trying to suck up & please everyone to advance themselves.
@/timnitGebru talks about as a Black woman, dealing with the men, mentioning specifically even Black men who are abusers, who are trying to silence you. There are personalities that are fooling people and actually silencing women in these spaces.
