Yesterday was my last day at Google. I left because Google’s mistreatment of @timnitGebru and @RealAbril crossed a personal red line I wrote down when I started the job. I know I gained a lot from Google, but I also gained a lot from both of their work, and they were wronged.
— Vinesh Kannan (@vineshgkannan) February 3, 2021
Timnit Gebru used to co—lead Google’s Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team until her controversial exit. Gebru said she was fired after sending an email to the company’s internal “Brain Women and Allies” list. In a report trying to get to the bottom of what happened, MIT’s Technology Review said Gebru’s departure was a result of a conflict over a paper she co-authored. The paper discussed issues with training language AI, including its environmental impact and its potential to cause a disadvantage to marginalized groups.
Google AI head Jeff Dean reportedly told colleagues in an internal email that the paper “didn’t meet [the company’s] bar for publication.” Gebru apparently pushed back on orders to pull the research and told the tech giant she would resign if her conditions weren’t met. She wrote on Twitter that Google didn’t agree to her conditions and accepted her resignation, ending her employment much earlier than the date she specified and even before she got back from vacation.
I need to be very careful what I say so let me be clear. They can come after me. No one told me that I was fired. You know legal speak, given that we’re seeing who we’re dealing with. This is the exact email I received from Megan who reports to Jeff
— Timnit Gebru (@timnitGebru) December 3, 2020
As for Curley, she was a diversity recruiter who said she was fired for calling Google out “on [its] racist bullshit.” Both Gebru and Curley are Black women. Google told The Verge it doesn’t agree with the “way April describes her termination, but it’s not appropriate for [the company] to provide a commentary about her claims.”
Gebru’s exit caused an uproar, prompting thousands of Googlers, as well as academic, industry and civil society supporters to sign a letter calling on Google Research “to strengthen its commitment to research integrity and to unequivocally commit to supporting research that honors the commitments made in Google’s AI Principles.” The Google Ethics AI team also demanded the removal of Megan Kacholia, vice president of engineering at Google, and for Gebru’s reinstatement at a higher position. Google CEO Sundar Pichai apologized for how the company handled her departure in an internal email and pledged to investigate what happened to “identify all the points where [the company] can learn.”
This article is auto-generated by Algorithm Source: www.engadget.com
