Google fires top tech ethics researcher for critical email, 2,000 industry insiders join petition backing her
The company’s motto used to be “don’t be evil,” but Google’s been accused of plenty of evil recently.
The tech giant fired a renowned artificial intelligence researcher Wednesday after she criticized the company in an email and questioned its review process for academic papers.
Timnit Gebru is one of the world’s top researchers into the ethics of AI, having published papers demonstrating its racial and gender biases. In a low Q-rating job, Gebru is famous enough to have her own Wikipedia page.
Yet Google, despite its massive investment into AI, has decided it’s better off without her.
The Gebru-Google split has mobilized people across fields because of its wide-ranging impact. Gebru is one of very few high-ranking Black women in the industry; Google is facing increased criticism for its treatment of employees; and ethical AI researchers have run into conflict at companies seeking to make bank from the advanced tech.
Gebru announced Wednesday afternoon in a tweet that she’d been abruptly fired. She said her corporate email account was cut off and she actually learned about her departure from someone she previously managed.
According to Gebru, she was on vacation and had been debating with her superiors after they surprised her by rejecting a study she co-authored with four other Google employees and multiple outside researchers.
Gebru said if Google could explain why the paper was rejected, she’d take her name off it. Otherwise, she’d be willing to talk about a resignation timeline.
Then, she fired off an email to a corporate chain tagged “Women and Allies,” which was published by tech newsletter Platformer. In the email, she sharply criticized Google’s attempts at diversity and inclusion, saying such efforts were hollow.
Wednesday, Gebru said she got an email from Google’s AI leader Jeff Dean saying her message was “behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager” and that her “resignation” had been immediately accepted.
After sharing her story, Gebru received an outpouring of support from people inside the industry and outsiders who knew of her research.
“Instead of being embraced by Google as an exceptionally talented and prolific contributor, Dr. Gebru has faced defensiveness, racism, gaslighting, research censorship, and now a retaliatory firing,” reads a petition backing Gebru, which has been signed by more than 1,200 Google employees and 1,500 other supporters.
Gebru was one of just 2.4% of Google employees who are Black before she was canned.
Dean has responded to the firestorm in a Google Doc (naturally). He partially explained the internal review process for Gebru’s paper but notably glossed over the critical email and any diversity concerns.
“I understand the frustration about the pace of progress, but we have important work ahead and we need to keep at it,” he wrote.
Dean did not directly address the petition or its demands.
Others in the industry have said Gebru’s firing makes them question the legitimacy of Google’s AI ethics research.
“People would think, ‘Timnit’s there, so it’s evidence that there’s an openness I’d have to work with people there on these issues,’” Inioluwa Deborah Raji told the Washington Post. “Firing her in such a disrespectful way reveals that perhaps Google’s commitment to some of these issues was not as legitimate as previously believed.”
