AI leader Margaret Mitchell tweeted “I’m fired” after being locked out of her Google work accounts. Last year December, the multinational company pushed out AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, sparking a response from the team calling for her to be reinstated at a higher level.
Instead, Google announced Dr. Marian croak as lead for the AI research and engineering center of expertise, According to reports by Axios and Bloomberg told employees on Thursday it would adjust policies around diversity and research.
It fulfilled those moves by evicting the former co-lead and co-founder of the AI ethical team, researcher Margaret Mitchell, who had reported her accounts remained suspended for weeks while the company investigated her.
Google claimed Mitchell failed to observe its code of conduct and security policies, “which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees.”
Mitchell had conveyed her concern about Gebru’s firing publicly, saying it created a “domino effect of trauma,” and condemned google execs and AI leader Jeff Dean.
According to Dr. Alex Hanna, another member of the team, the company’s “reorganization” has also pushed out manager Samy Bengio.
Google:
“After conducting a review of this manager’s conduct, we confirmed that there were multiple violations of our code of conduct, as well as of our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees”.