Top AI ethics researcher says Google fired her over critical e-mail to colleagues; company denies it
- Timnit Gebru said in a series of Twitter posts that Google cut her off from its systems without warning or conversation with her about her concerns
- Google says Timnit Gebru had threatened to resign unless she was told which colleagues deemed a draft paper she wrote was unpublishable
A top Google scientist on ethical artificial intelligence says she was fired after criticising the company’s diversity efforts, a claim the Alphabet Inc unit disputed on Thursday, in the latest brush-up between the internet giant and worker activists.
Timnit Gebru, who is Black, said on Twitter she was fired on Wednesday after sending an email to colleagues expressing frustration over gender diversity within Google’s AI unit and questioning whether company leaders reviewed her work more stringently than that of people from different backgrounds.
Gebru co-founded the nonprofit Black in AI that aims to increase representation of people of colour in artificial intelligence and co-authored a landmark paper on bias in facial analysis technology.
Jeff Dean, head of Google’s AI unit, told staff in an email reviewed by Reuters that Gebru had threatened to resign unless she was told which colleagues deemed a draft paper she wrote was unpublishable, a demand Dean rejected.
“We accept and respect her decision to resign from Google,” Dean wrote in the email, adding, “we all genuinely share Timnit’s passion to make AI more equitable and inclusive.”
Gebru said in a series of Twitter posts that Google cut her off from its systems without warning or conversation with her about her concerns.
Gebru’s abrupt departure adds to years of angst, including several resignations and firings, in the AI department and other organisations at Google over diversity and whether the company’s efforts to minimise the potential harms of its services are sufficient.