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OAKLAND, California: A top Google scientist on ethical artificial intelligence says she was fired after criticizing the company’s diversity efforts, a claim that the Alphabet unit disputed on Thursday (December 3), in the last review between the internet giant and labor activists.
Timnit Gebru, who is black, said on Twitter that she was fired on Wednesday after emailing colleagues expressing frustration at gender diversity within Google’s artificial intelligence unit and questioning whether company leaders reviewed their work more strictly than that of people of different origins. Gebru co-founded the nonprofit Black in AI that aims to increase the representation of people of color in artificial intelligence and co-authored a landmark paper on bias in facial analysis technology.
Jeff Dean, head of Google’s artificial intelligence unit, told staff in an email reviewed by Reuters that Gebru had threatened to resign unless they told him which colleagues considered a draft of the document he wrote to be unpublished, a lawsuit. which Dean rejected.
“We accept and respect your decision to resign from Google,” Dean wrote in the email, adding, “We all genuinely share Timnit’s passion for making AI more equitable and inclusive.”
Gebru said in a series of posts on Twitter that Google disconnected her from its systems without notice or without speaking to her about her concerns.
Gebru’s abrupt departure adds to years of heartache, including multiple resignations and layoffs, at Google’s artificial intelligence department and other organizations over diversity and whether the company’s efforts to minimize the potential damage to its services are sufficient. Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, wrote on Twitter that Gebru’s firing was “absolutely infuriating” and “a disaster.”
Just on Wednesday, the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint accusing Google of illegally monitoring and questioning several workers who were later fired for protesting company policies and attempting to organize a union.
Gebru’s article argued that tech companies could do more to ensure that artificial intelligence systems designed to mimic human writing and speech do not exacerbate historical gender biases and the use of offensive language, according to a draft seen by Reuters. .
In his email to staff, Dean said the document had not been released to the company for timely review and was sent to a conference without Google’s permission.
He also disagreed with some of his conclusions, which he said were based on outdated concerns, including the environmental impact of a large number of computers that process data.
Responding to the company’s rejection of his work, Gebru wrote on Twitter last week: “Nothing like a group of privileged white men trying to crush research from underserved communities for underserved communities by ordering them to STOP the conversation ZERO. The amount of lack respect is incredible. “
Google declined to comment on his departure beyond Dean’s email, which was first reported by technology news site Platformer.
Gebru previously worked at Microsoft Research and was the co-author of a widely cited 2018 article that found higher error rates in facial analysis technology for women with darker skin tones.
His new paper, co-authored with people outside of Google, is expected to be presented at a computer science conference in March, according to a person familiar with the matter.
