The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google

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This post is free for all to read thanks to the investment Platformer subscribers have made in independent journalism. If this work is meaningful to you, I invite you to become a subscriber today. Last week, a prominent a co-leader of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence team at Google sent an email to her colleagues. Timnit Gebru had been working on a research paper that she hoped to publish, but ran into resistance from her superiors at Google. And so she sent a letter expressing her frustration to the internal listserv Google Brain Women and Allies. A few days later, Gebru was fired — Google reportedly found the email “inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.” It details the struggles Gebru experienced as a Black leader working on ethics research within the company, and presents a bleak view of the path forward for underrepresented minorities at the company. Gebru is well known and respected in the AI ethics community; here are Shelly Banjo and Mark Bergen on her backg

Timnit Gebru, speaking at TechCrunch disrupt in 2018 (Kimberly White/Getty Images) This post is free for all to read thanks to the investment Platformer subscribers have made in independent journalism. If this work is meaningful to you, I invite you to become a subscriber today. Last week, a prominent a co-leader of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence team at Google sent an email to her colleagues. Timnit Gebru had been working on a research paper that she hoped to publish, but ran into resistance from her superiors at Google. And so she sent a letter expressing her frustration to the…

The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google

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