Google fires researcher Meg Mitchell, escalating AI saga

Alex Hanna, a researcher on Google’s Ethical AI team, wrote that there’s a double standard for conduct at the internet giant; alluding to allegations of sexual misconduct against former executives.

“Google is a breeding ground to abusers, opportunity hoarders, and people only concerned with ego and prestige;” Hanna wrote on Twitter. “But anyone who is willing to defend friends against discrimination, who lift up voices who need to be heard, are shown the door.”

Dean, in his email to staff, said Google’s behavior toward Gebru hurt some female and Black employees; and led them to question whether they belonged at the company, but he didn’t apologize directly to Gebru.

The company announced a new organization for the responsible use of AI on Thursday, led by Marian Croak; a respected Black executive who had previously handled site reliability. But some members of the Ethical AI team, who will report to Croak, felt blindsided by the news.

Later, at the staff meeting, Dean said wasn’t seeking to “punish anyone” by orchestrating the reorganization of the company’s responsible AI efforts.

Mitchell joined Google in November 2016 after a stint at Microsoft Corp.’s research lab where she worked on the company’s Seeing AI project; a technology to help blind users “visualize” the world around them that was heavily promoted by Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella.

At Google, she founded the Ethical AI team in 2017 and worked on projects including a way to explain what machine-learning models do; and their limitations, and how to make machine-learning datasets more accountable and transparent.