Read the Email That Led to the Exit of Google A.I. Ethicist Timnit Gebru

‘Your life gets worse when you start advocating for underrepresented people’

Photo: Kimberly White/Stringer/Getty Images

Timnit Gebru, one of Google’s most prominent researchers on ethics and computer vision, says she was fired this week after sending an email to Google Brain Women and Allies, an internal resource group at the company.

The email alludes to Google censoring one of Gebru’s research papers without talking to her about it, as well as the poor treatment of those who advocate for underrepresented people at the company. The email was published in full on the outlet Platformer.

After sending the email, Gebru had an exchange with managers and privately threatened to quit unless certain undisclosed conditions were met. Instead, Gebru says she was immediately fired, she told OneZero’s Will Oremus.

Noted A.I. Ethicist Timnit Gebru Let Go From Google Following Tense Email Exchange

Gebru’s contributions to the field have shaped modern understanding of how artificial intelligence fails and the technical underpinnings of how algorithms treat underrepresented…