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GRAMGoogle chief Sunday Pichai has promised to investigate the handling of the departure of Timnit Gebru, a prominent AI researcher at the tech giant.
Pichai told staff that he had heard the reaction to Gebru’s departure “loud and clear” in a company-wide email.
“It sowed doubt and led some in our community to question his place on Google,” he said in the widely reported email. “I want to say how sorry I am about that, and I accept the responsibility of working to restore your confidence.”
The now deceased artificial intelligence researcher claimed she was fired last week for sending an email criticizing Google’s lack of progress in hiring women and minorities, the New York Times reported. Bloomberg reported that her firing came after she co-authored a report that mentioned ethical issues related to the technology that underpins services like Google Search.
Gebru is best known for her work on facial recognition biases, as she demonstrated how algorithms are better at detecting white faces than black and brown ones.
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