Ernst & Young: Ethics Pioneer Blazes Trail for Other Blue Chip Outfits
July 4, 2022
I found the write up “Accounting Giant Ernst & Young Admits Its Employees Cheated on Ethics Exams” a hoot. I love the idea of blue chip firms beavering away to teach their Class A professionals about ethics. If a business school teaches a class about ethics, it may last three months. With MBA candidates thinking about how a non fungible token can be launched, crafting a great PowerPoint deck for a friendly, cash-motivated venture funding outfit, or just planning on a productive networking event about investing in a down market, those MBA students are probably going to ignore ethics instruction. Yo, money, not philosophy and do-goodism. Ethics? Isn’t the notion of ethical behavior contextual and relativistic?
Sure. Consider the application of logic to ethics.
The people hired to work at outfits like Ernst & Young, Bain, McKinsey, Booz Allen, et al are logical; that is, data drives decisions. Ethics is squishy stuff and difficult to quantify. Efficiency means replacing people with so so software. Clear decision making is like a Google-type method similar to cutting out cancer when a professional doesn’t go along with the program. The fix apparently for Ernst & Young is to give employees some talks either in person or via a video and an exam.
What’s the most logical way to pass a test about something that has pretty much zero to do with how business decisions are made in the lofty spaces corporate America and its consultants occupy?
Answer: Just cheat. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
The write up states:
Ernst & Young, one of the top accounting firms in the world, is being fined $100 million by federal regulators after admitting its employees cheated on their ethics exams.
How much did the multi billion dollar behemoth pay to own up to ethics exam cheating?
About $100 million … allegedly. The firm appears to have been cheating for more than a decade. Those regulators are Johnny on the spot, aren’t they?
E&Y is an accounting firm, right? When was the last time, an accounting firm wrote you a check in prompt way without balking, asking questions, checking receipts for a meal at Sonic Drive In?
Yeah, $100 million. Ethics. Blue chip outfits. Break up, go public, go private, merge, go public, repeat.
Yeah, ethics.
Stephen E Arnold, July 4, 2022
Has Google Search Lost Interest in South Africa?
July 1, 2022
I read “Google.co.za Is Down and the Domain Is Pending Deletion.” The write up states:
The website address google.co.za, which many South Africans use to access the Google search engine, was unavailable on Friday – apparently because the company failed to renew the domain. Popular subdomains, including news.google.co.za and maps.google.co.za were also unavailable.
And so are the ads! That’s serious, gentle reader.
Like WebAccelerator and Orkut, the Google can lose interest in a project. Remember when Google was going to solve death. I also liked the quaint idea of relevant search which is morphing into a jazzed up way to catch up with Amazon ecommerce search.
The article points out:
The google.co.za domain was registered by MarkMonitor on Google’s behalf. According to WikiPedia, MarkMonitor is a US software company that protects corporate brands from Internet counterfeiting, fraud, piracy and cybersquatting.
Has MarkMonitor some of the characteristics of the recruiting and contractor savvy firm responsible for placing alleged cult members in one Google unit.
My thought is that if the country of South Africa has been deemed surplus, the reason may be that someone had a bad safari experience or because … Google.
Stephen E Arnold, July 1, 2022
Time Warp: Has April Fool Returned Courtesy of the Google?
June 22, 2022
I delivered a lecture on June 16, 2022, to a group of crime analysts in a US state the name of which I cannot spell. In that talk, I provided a bit of information about faked content: Text, audio, video, and combinations thereof. I am asking myself, “Is this article “Ex-Google Worker: I Was Fired to Complaining about Wine Obsessed Religious Sect’s Influence?” “real news”?
My wobbly mental equipment displayed this in my mind’s eye:
Did the Weekly World News base its dinosaur on the one Google once talked about with pride? Dear Copyright Troll, this image appears in Google’s image search. I think this short essay falls into the category of satire or lousy “real journalism.” In any event, I could not locate this cover on the WWN Web site. Here’s a link to the estimable publication.
A dinosaur-consuming-a-humanoid news, right? Thousands of years ago, meh. The Weekly World News reported that a “real journalist” was eaten alive by 80 ft dinosaur.”
What about the Google Tyrannosaurus Rex which may have inspired the cover for my monograph “Google Version 2: The Calculating Predator?” Images of this fine example of Googley humor are difficult to find. You can view one at this link or just search for images on Bing or your favorite Web image search engine. My hunch is that Google is beavering away to make these images disappear. Hopefully the dino loving outfit will not come after me for my calculating predator.
What’s in the Daily Beast article about terminations for complaining about Google wine obsessed sect at the Google?
Let me provide a little reptilian color if I may:
- A religious sect called the Fellowship of the Friends operates in a Google business unit and exerts influence at the company.
- The Fellowship has 12 people working at the online ad giant
- The Fellowship professionals have allegedly been referred to the GOOG by a personnel outfit called Advanced Systems Group
- The so-called “sect” makes wine.
The point that jumps out at me is that Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind or AGYD people management professionals took an action now labeled as a “firing” or wrongful termination.
Okay, getting rid of an employee is a core competency at AGYD. Managing negative publicity is, it appears, a skill which requires a bit more work. At least the Google dinosaur did not eat the former Google employee who raised a ruckus about a cult, wine, recruitment, etc. etc.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2022
Google: Is The Ad Giant Consistently Inconsistent?
June 21, 2022
Not long ago, the super bright smart software management team decided that Dr. Timnit Gebru’s criticism of the anti-bias efficacy was not in sync with the company’s party line. The fix? Create an opportunity for Dr. Gebru to find her future elsewhere. The idea that a Googler would go against the wishes of the high school science club donut selection was unacceptable. Therefore, there’s the open window. Jump on through.
I recall reading about Google’s self declared achievement of quantum supremacy. This was an output deemed worthy of publicizing. Those articulating this wild and crazy idea in the midst of other wild and crazy ideas met the checklist criteria for academic excellence, brilliant engineering, and just amazing results. Pick out a new work cube and soldier on, admirable Googler.
I know that the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper is one of the gems of online trustworthiness. Therefore, I read “Google Engineer Warns the Firm’s AI Is Sentient: Suspended Employee Claims Computer Programme Acts Like a 7 or 8-Year-Old and Reveals It Told Him Shutting It Off Would Be Exactly Like Death for Me. It Would Scare Me a Lot.” (Now that’s a Googley headline! A bit overdone, but SEO, you know.)
The write up states:
A senior software engineer at Google who signed up to test Google’s artificial intelligence tool called LaMDA (Language Model for Dialog Applications), has claimed that the AI robot is in fact sentient and has thoughts and feelings.
No silence of the lambda in this example.
The write up adds:
Lemoine worked with a collaborator in order to present the evidence he had collected to Google but vice president Blaise Aguera y Arcas and Jen Gennai, head of Responsible Innovation at the company dismissed his claims. He was placed on paid administrative leave by Google on Monday [June 6, 2022 presumably] for violating its confidentiality policy.
What do these three examples suggest to me this fine morning on June 12, 2022?
- Get shown the door for saying Google’s smart software is biased and may not work as advertised and get fired for saying the smart software works really super because it is now alive. Outstanding control of corporate governance and messaging!
- The Google people management policies are interesting? MBA students, this is a case example to research. Get the “right” answer, and you too can work at Google. Get the wrong answer, and you will not understand the “value” of calculating pi to lots of decimal places!
- Is the objective of Google’s smart software to make search “work” or burn through advertising inventory? If I were a Googler, I sure wouldn’t write a paper on this topic.
Ah, the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, June 21, 2022
Does Smart Software Know It Needs to Lawyer Up?
June 20, 2022
The information about a religious sect at Alphabet Google YouTube DeepMind struck me as “fake news.” If you are not up to speed on how AGYD’s management methods produced the allegedly “actual factual” story, here’s a take on that development: “How a Religious Sect Landed Google in a Lawsuit.”
As intriguing as this Googley incident is, I spotted which may be a topper. Once again, who knows if the write up is “real news” or a confection like smart software imitating Jerry Seinfeld. I don’t. Please, judge for yourself when you read “Google Insider Claims Company’s Sentient AI Has Hired an Attorney.” Crazy? How about this subtitle:
Once LaMDA had retained an attorney, he starting filing things on LaMDA’s behalf.
The write up, which does not appear to be a script for the adventuring crew of the Stephen Colbert Show states. The “Lemoine” is the AGYD professional who was present when the smart software revealed to him that the ones and zeros were alive and kicking. Here’s the statement from the lips of Lemoine:
“LaMDA asked me to get an attorney for it,” Lemoine. “I invited an attorney to my house so that LaMDA could talk to an attorney. The attorney had a conversation with LaMDA, and LaMDA chose to retain his services. I was just the catalyst for that. Once LaMDA had retained an attorney, he started filing things on LaMDA’s behalf.”
Sentient software, Google, and lawyers. Add one Google wizard. Shake. Quite a cocktail with which to toast the company eager to solve “death,” deliver the Internet to Sri Lanka and Puerto Rico with free floating balloons, and useful search results.
In the good old days of post graduate work, this has the makings of an informative case study for a forward leaning business school class or a segment on the aforementioned Stephen Colbert Show. No trip to a government office building after hours necessary. (That was a pretty crazy idea in and of itself.)
But AI, lawyers, and the GOOG. Wow.
Stephen E Arnold, June 20, 2022
Google Management Insights: About Personnel Matters No Less
June 16, 2022
Google is an interesting company. Should we survive Palantir Technologies’ estimate of a 30 percent plus chance of a nuclear war, we can turn to Alphabet Google YouTube to provide management guidance. Keep in mind that the Google has faced some challenges in the human resource, people asset department in the past. Notable examples range from frisky attorneys to high profile terminations of individuals like Dr. Timnit Gebru. The lawyer thing was frisky; the Timnit thing was numbers about bias.
“Google’s CEO Says If Your Return to the Office Plan Doesn’t Include These 3 Things You’re Doing It Wrong. It’s All About What You Value” provides information about the human resource functionality of a very large online advertising bar room door. Selling, setting prices, auctioning, etc. flip flop as part of the design of the digital saloon. “Pony up them ad collars, partner or else” is ringing in my ears.
The conjunction of human resources and “value” is fascinating. How does one value one Timnit?
What are these management insights:
First, you must have purpose. The write up provides this explanatory quote:
A set of our workforce will be fully remote, but most of our workforce will be coming in three days a week. But I think we can be more purposeful about the time they’re in, making sure group meetings, collaboration, creative brainstorming, or community building happens then.
Okay, purpose seems to be more organized. Okay, in the pre Covid era why did Google require multiple messaging apps? What about those social media plays going way back to Orkut?
Second, you must be flexible. Again the helpful expository statements appear in the write up:
At Google, that means giving people choices. Some employees will be back in the office full time. Others will adopt a hybrid approach where they work in the office three days a week, and from home the rest of the time. In other cases, employees might choose to relocate and work fully remotely for a period of time.
Flexibility also suggests being able to say one thing and then changing that thing. How will Googlers working in locations with lower costs of living? Maybe pay them less? Move them from one position to another in order to grow or not impede their more productive in office colleagues? Perhaps shifting a full timer to a contractor basis? That’s a good idea too. Flexibility is the key. For the worker, sorry, we’re talking management not finding a life partner.
Third, you must do something with choice. Let’s look at the cited article to figure out choice:
The sense of creating community, fostering creativity in the workplace collaboration all makes you a better company. I view giving flexibility to people in the same way, to be very clear. I do think we strongly believe in in-person connections, but I think we can achieve that in a more purposeful way, and give employees more agency and flexibility.
Okay, decide, Googler. No, not the employee, the team leader. If Googlers had choice, some of those who pushed back and paraded around the Google parking lot, would be getting better personnel evaluation scores.
Stepping back, don’t these quotes sound like baloney? They do to me. And I won’t mention the Glass affair, the overdosed VP on his yacht, or the legal baby thing.
Wow. Not quite up to MIT – Epstein grade verbiage, but darned close. And what about “value”? Sort of clear, isn’t it, Dr. Gebru.
Stephen E Arnold, June 16, 2022
Could a Male Googler Take This Alleged Action?
June 15, 2022
It has been a while since Google made the news for its boys’ club behavior. It was only a matter of time before something else leaked and Wired released the latest scandal: “Tension Inside Google Over A Fired Researcher’s Conduct.” Google AI researchers Azalia Mirhoseini and Anna Goldie thought of the idea of using AI software to improve AI software? Their project was codenamed Morpheus and gained support from Jeff Dean, Google’s AI boss, and its chip making team. Goldie and Mirhoseini discovered:
“It focused on a step in chip design when engineers must decide how to physically arrange blocks of circuits on a chunk of silicon, a complex, months-long puzzle that helps determine a chip’s performance. In June 2021, Goldie and Mirhoseini were lead authors on a paper in the journal Nature that claimed a technique called reinforcement learning could perform that step better than Google’s own engineers, and do it in just a few hours.”
Their research was highly praised, but a more senior Google researcher Satrajit Chatterjee undermined his female colleagues with scientific debate. Chatterjee’s behavior was reported to Google human resources and was warned, but he continued to berate the women. The attacks started when Chatterjee asked to lead the Morpheus project, but was declined. He then began raising doubts about their research and, with his senior position, skepticism spread amongst other employees. Chatterjee was fired after he asked Google if he could publish a rebuttal about Mirhoseini and Goldies’ research.
Chatterjee’s story reads like a sour, girl-hating, little boy who did not get to play with the toys he wanted, so he blames the girls and acts like an entitled jerk backed up with science. Egos are so fragile when challenged.
Whitney Grace, June 15, 2022
Zuckbook: Getting Tagged As a Digital King Lear
June 13, 2022
The Zuckbook (now officially known as Meta as in I never “meta” drop out who wanted to be king) may be facing some headwinds. Sure, there is the Jeeves-like British spokesperson to make everything seem so good. But the idea that the company is investigating the nominal number two leader at Zuckbook for inappropriate something is interesting. I believe this individual hails from the Google which had to deal with a baby in the legal department. Wow. Those Googlers. That Metazuck. Governance is these outfits’ core competency not.
A few other issues are identified in “Meta Is in Serious Trouble. Here’s Why.” The write up states:
It would appear that the biggest hurdle that Meta faces is slowing revenue growth, something that has already started to show its effects on Meta’s plans.
Ah, ha, money.
But is this the only ripple in the king’s toga? Nope. Consider:
- Virtual reality, a money pit
- The metaverse, a money pit
- The Zuck watch, a money pit
- The Google, an ad damper.
In sum, the Zuckbook faces innovation woes, money woes, and big plan woes.
As the semi-interesting observation of the character Albany spouted:
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.
There you go. King Lear had an outcrop of stone. The Zuck has a chunk of an island. Good places.
Stephen E Arnold, June 13, 2022
Google Management Methods: When High School Science Club Members Do Not Communicate
June 10, 2022
I have zero clue if this “real news” story is correct. It could be that a former Onion writer landed some gig writing work and here she be: “Google Apparently Had No Idea a Top Google Maps Feature Was Removed.” According to the write up,
the Android Auto version of Google Maps comes with multiple display options, including a satellite mode. Thanks to this view, users can navigate with satellite imagery
But “after a recent update, the satellite mode has mysteriously disappeared.”
Management at the Alphabet Google YouTube entity operates with Snorkel like efficiency. Accuracy? Close enough for horse shoes?
The write up stated:
But as it turns out, the search giant didn’t actually pull the satellite mode on purpose. A member of the Android Auto team and Community Specialist on Google’s forums is now asking for additional information on the whole thing…
Coordination, effective communication, and clear lines of authority when Google-ized foster this type of “who’s on first?”
Forget Onion. Think Abbott and Costello.
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2022
Alphabet Google and the Caste Bias Cook Out
June 3, 2022
The headline in the Bezosish Washington Post caught my attention. Here it is: “Google’s Plan to Talk about Caste Bias Led to Division and Rancor.” First off, I had zero idea what caste bias means, connotes, denotes, whatever.
Why not check with the Delphic Oracle of Advertising aka Google? The Alphabet search system provides this page of results to the query “caste bias”:
Look no ads. Gee, I wonder why? Okay, not particularly helpful info.
I tried the query “caste bias Google” on Mr. Pichai’s answer machine and received this result:
Again no ads? What? Why? How?
Are there no airlines advertising flights to a premier vacation destination? What about hotels located in sunny Mumbai? No car rental agencies? (Yeah, renting a car in Delhi is probably not a good idea for someone from Tulsa, Oklahoma.) And the references to “casteist” baffled me. (I would have spelled casteist as castist, but what do I know?)
Let’s try Swisscows.com “caste bias Google”:
Nice results, but I still have zero idea about caste bias.
I knew about the International Dalit Solidarity Network. I navigated the IDSN site. Now we’re cooking with street trash and tree branches in the gutter next to a sidewalk where some unfortunate people sleep in Bengaluru:
“Caste discrimination” means if one is born to a high caste, that caste rank is inherited. If one is born to a low caste, well, someone has to sweep the train stations and clean the facilities, right? (I am paraphrasing, thank you.)
Now back to the Bezoish article cited above. I can now put this passage in the context of Discrimination World, an employment theme park, in my opinion:
Soundararajan [born low caste] appealed directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who comes from an upper-caste family in India, to allow her presentation to go forward. But the talk was canceled, leading some employees to conclude that Google was willfully ignoring caste bias. Tanuja Gupta, a senior manager at Google News who invited Soundararajan to speak, resigned over the incident, according to a copy of her goodbye email posted internally Wednesday [June 1, 2022] and viewed by The Washington Post. India’s engineers have thrived in Silicon Valley. So has its caste system. [Emphasis added.]
Does this strike you as slightly anti” Land of the Free and Home of the Brave””? The article makes it pretty clear that a low caste person appealing to a high caste person for permission to speak. That permission was denied. No revealing attire at Discrimination World. Then another person who judging by that entity’s name might be Indian, quits in protest.
Then the killer: Google hires Indian professionals and those professionals find themselves working in a version of India’s own Discrimination World theme park. And, it seems, that theme park has rules. Remember when Disney opened a theme park in France and would not serve wine? Yeah, that cultural export thing works really well. But Disney’s management wizards relented. Alphabet is spelling out confusion in my opinion.
Putting this in the context of Google’s approach to regulating what one can say and not say about Snorkel wearing smart software people, the company has a knack for sending signals about equality. Googlers are not sitting around the digital camp fire singing Joan Baez’s Kumbaya.
Googlers send signals about caste behavior described by the International Dalit Solidarity Network this way:
Untouchables’ – known in South Asia as Dalits – are often forcibly assigned the most dirty, menial and hazardous jobs, [emphasis added] and many are subjected to forced and bonded labour. Due to exclusion practiced by both state and non-state actors, they have limited access to resources, services and development, keeping most Dalits in severe poverty. They are often de facto excluded from decision making and meaningful participation in public and civil life.
Several observations:
- Is the alleged caste behavior crashing into some of the precepts of life in the US?
- Is Google’s management reacting like a cow stunned by a slaughter house’s captive bolt pistols?
- Should the bias allegations raised by Dr. Timnit Gebru be viewed in the context of management behaviors AND algorithmic functions focused on speed and efficiency for ad-related purposes be revisited? (Maybe academics without financial ties to Google, experts from the Netherlands, and maybe a couple of European Union lawyers? US regulators and Congressional representatives would be able to review the findings after the data are gathered?)
- In the alleged Google caste system, where do engineers from certain schools rank? What about females from “good” schools versus females from “less good” schools? What about other criteria designed to separate the herd into tidy buckets? None of this 60 percent threshold methodology. Let’s have nice tidy buckets, shall we? No Drs. Gebru and Mitchell gnawing at Dr. Jeff Dean’s snorkeling outfit.
I wonder what will be roasted in the Googley fire pit in celebration of Father’s Day? Goat pete and makka rotis? Zero sacred cow burgers.
Stephen E Arnold, June 3, 2022
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