Google has come under fire this week after a leading AI scientist revealed she was fired from the tech giant following an internal message she wrote, in which she tried to step up against pressure she was facing from her managers in the company. They had tried to block a paper she wrote about Google's need to consider AI ethics in its projects. Dr. Timnit Gebru's letter was backed with an op-ed written by 1200 other Google employees who expressed their support for her and revealed even more grievances in the company.
For those of you that don't know Timnit, @math_rachel gives a very brief summary of her accomplishments. She is the one that maneuvers the whole field to think responsibly about our ML models. https://t.co/BPVpOd0DG7 (2/n)
— İlke Demir (@ilkedemir) December 7, 2020
Despite being promoted as one of the world's best workplaces, Google is now facing a flood of criticism following letters that highlighted how ethical AI co-lead Dr. Timnit Gebru was forced to resign after she refused to retract a research paper; in which she detailed why she thinks Google should reconsider some of its AI practices for ethical reasons.
Following her forced-resignation, 1200 other Google employees have also supported Gebru's letter, writing an op-ed published in Medium in which they accused the company of " misogyny, racism, unethical decision making, and systemic inequity."
The point @timnitGebru makes in the paper is very real and has already been found to happen in google’s own products. When I was doing comms a few yrs ago a reporter @VICE noticed the word “gay” was found to have a negative sentiment. 1/x pic.twitter.com/l2Zn2YXms9
— William Fitzgerald (@william_fitz) December 6, 2020
I'm deeply disappointed and frustrated at my employer for forcing the departure of Dr. @timnitGebru (or "moving up her resignation date", as they put it). #ISupportTimnit https://t.co/M1qpSJFHvg
— Jonathan Schuster (@SchuCodes) December 7, 2020
In response, social media platforms exploded in anger and shock over the accounts of Google staffers, which uncovered a bitter truth that might have been "sugarcoated for very long," in a world that has repeatedly celebrated the work environment in Google and other leading unicorn tech companies.
I wrote about an internal analysis of Google Research that showed almost nobody submits papers for review two weeks in advance — even though Jeff Dean says that’s “required."
— Casey Newton (@CaseyNewton) December 8, 2020
So why did Timnit Gebru get treated differently?https://t.co/eBAKvNkhJf pic.twitter.com/p2IPfdJImk
Besides questions of diversity in Google, Reuters reported that Gebru's research findings included warnings of "mimicking human writing and speech do not exacerbate historical gender biases and use of offensive language."
