A Google research manager has resigned following the controversial dismissal of two female leaders in his organization. Samy Bengio, who oversaw the ethics AI team ahead of a reorganization in February, is leaving to take advantage of other opportunities, according to Bloomberg. His last day is April 28th.
Bengio was a strong supporter of star AI ethics researchers Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, who previously led with the ethics AI team. Gebru was fired in December while working on a paper on the dangers of large language models. Mitchell was terminated in February after using a text to search her email for evidence of discrimination against Gebru.
In a statement on Facebook following the shooting, Bengio said he was “stunned” by what happened to Gebru.
The terminations sparked outrage in the technology industry, which led to several researchers funding or other opportunities from Google. Two Google engineers also left the company in protest, citing Gebr’s dismissal as the primary reason for their resignations.
After Gebru’s departure, Google reorganized its research division and stopped the ethical AI team under Marian Croak, a leader in the engineering division. According to the move, Bengio’s responsibilities have diminished Bloomberg.
In his farewell letter to staff, Bengio reportedly said that while he was looking forward to his next challenge, it was difficult to leave Google Brain. “I have learned so much from all of you, of course in terms of research on machine learning, but also how difficult and yet important it is to organize a large team of researchers to achieve long-term ambitious research, exploration, accuracy, diversity and inclusion,” he said. he wrote. He did not mention the dismissals of Gebru or Mitchell.