Google AI Team Demands Ousted Black Researcher Be Rehired And Promoted
By Bobby Allyn
December 17, 2020
Members of a prestigious research unit at Google have sent a letter to the company’s chief executive demanding that ousted artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru be reinstated.
Gebru, who studies the ethics of AI and was one of the only Black research scientists at Google, says she was unexpectedly fired after a dispute over an academic paper and months of speaking out about the need for more women and people of color at the tech giant.
In a letter sent on Wednesday by members of Google’s Ethical AI team to CEO Sundar Pichai, Gebru’s former colleagues ask that she be rehired and promoted, among a host of other demands, according to a copy of the note obtained by NPR that was first reported by Bloomberg.