‘This is bigger than just Timnit’: How Google tried to silence a critic and ignited a movement

Illustration: Simone Noronha. Article by Katharine Schwab. Fast Company – February 26, 2021.

Big Tech has used its power to control the field of AI ethics and avoid accountability. Now, the ouster of Timnit Gebru is putting the movement for equitable tech in the spotlight.

Timnit Gebru—a giant in the world of AI and then co-lead of Google’s AI ethics team—was pushed out of her job in December.

Gebru had been fighting with the company over a research paper that she’d coauthored, which explored the risks of the AI models that the search giant uses to power its core products—the models are involved in almost every English query on Google, for instance. The paper called out the potential biases (racial, gender, Western, and more) of these language models, as well as the outsize carbon emissions required to compute them. Google wanted the paper retracted, or any Google-affiliated authors’ names taken off; Gebru said she would do so if Google would engage in a conversation about the decision. Instead, her team was told that she had resigned. After the company abruptly announced Gebru’s departure, Google AI chief Jeff Dean insinuated that her work was not up to snuff—despite Gebru’s credentials and history of groundbreaking research.

The backlash was immediate. […]

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