Break Statement

Exiting my career loop

At this pivotal time for technology, the economy, and the political alignment of Tech, I’m pleased to find myself finally in a position to give all of my time and energy to values-aligned organizations and initiatives. A brief break from the workforce will give me the opportunity to define my own mission, values, and principles.

I’m a big believer in being loud and proud about my goals, even if it’s early on, because it helps me see myself as the person I want to become, clarifies and specifies my personal vision, and serves to hold myself accountable to my intentions.

So along those lines, the plan for my near future is as follows:

1. Code

One of my immediate goals is to work on open-source LLM projects. Most major players in the LLM space (such as Anthropic or OpenAI) don’t disclose or provide the full training data for their models. They may allegedly be trained on copyrighted materials (as is being litigated). Furthermore, their training data likely reflects the biases of those who are technologically connected and vocal online, specifically on the sites that LLM developers would be aware of and would choose as data sources. Timnit Gebru and Emily Bender initially made this point in the now famous “Stochastic Parrots” paper. While open-source models aren’t infallible either, providing the full training data allows anyone to inspect whether the model exploits unattributed work and whether the training data is appropriate for the intended downstream applications.

2. Write

Writing is one of the most important tools I use to wrestle with important questions and find resolve, to name what is known and unknown, to challenge my own thinking, and to release myself from rumination. The online discourse about technology is often hegemonic, uninformed, and hyperbolic. That’s why I’m starting to write on Substack. I’m also working on presentations for Tech Workers Coalition to help members advocate for the sensible use of AI within their own workplaces.

3. Advocate

Local governments are more important than ever, and in Portland we’re very lucky to have some officials who give us a meaningful listening ear. That’s why I’m working with some fellow technologist activists to research and advise the city about its technology investments.

4. Divest

Of course I know well enough to be skeptical of any publicly traded corporation’s “values”, but it’s nevertheless been jaw dropping to watch FAANG’s leadership grovel in submission to feed their own ambition (looks like I found the space for the lyrics of Defying Gravity). I think the breaking point for me personally was when Meta abandoned LGTBQ+ users and stopped mitigating hate speech. There are alternatives on the market, and there will be even more soon, since there’s now a huge swath of thoughtful, talented, compassionate Tech workers who are self-employed and free to build new businesses their own way.

Autonomy is my most cherished personal value, and one that isn’t always easy to honor in a standard corporate environment, or in any institution. But I’ve been down similar roads in other ways before in my life, and even at great consequence, I never regret telling the truth.