In graduate school, Gebru used Google image data to infer political positions from populations based on simple items for example, the breakdown of types of vehicles people owned. After completing her PhD at the Stanford AI Lab, Gebru worked at Microsoft in its Fairness, Accountability, Transparency and Ethics in AI (FATE) lab and later at Google, where she researched items such as bias in facial-recognition software.
Most recently, Gebru left Google; she claims she was fired for a critical email. Google counters that she made demands to stay employed that it chose not to meet. Because all this happened in December 2020, her Twitter feed is currently consumed by it.