Google fired one of its top artificial intelligence researchers, Margaret Mitchell, adding to the internal turmoil at the company after the departure of Timnit Gebru, another major figure on Google’s AI ethics team.
Mitchell, who announced her resignation on Twitter, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In a statement to Reuters, Google said the dismissal followed a weeks-long investigation that found it was moving electronic files outside the company. Google said Mitchell violated the company’s code of conduct and security policies.
Google’s ethics in the artificial intelligence research unit has come under scrutiny since the resignation of Gebru, a prominent black researcher in Silicon Valley, in December. Gebru’s departure prompted thousands of Google employees to protest. Mitchell and Gebru co-led the ethics team in artificial intelligence for about two years.
Gebru and Mitchell, who is white, called for more diversity among the Google research team and expressed concern that the company was beginning to censor critical searches for its products.
Gebru said Google fired her after she questioned the order not to publish an article on the grounds that language-imitating AI could harm marginalized populations.
Google’s director of AI research, Zoubin Ghahramani, and a legal representative of the company informed Mitchell’s team about his resignation on Friday at a meeting called shortly, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. The person said that little explanation was given for the dismissal. Alex Hanna, a Google employee, said on Twitter that the company was running a “smear campaign” against Mitchell and Gebru, with whom he worked closely.
Google did not immediately comment on these claims. His statement said of Mitchell: “We confirm that there have been several violations of our code of conduct, as well as our security policies, which included the exfiltration of confidential business documents and private data from other employees.”
Google has recruited leading scientists with promises of research freedom, but the limits are tested as researchers write more and more about the negative effects of technology and offer unflattering perspectives on their employers’ products.
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