Google is reorganizing its responsible AI teams following the firing of Timnit Bridge. The ethical AI team will now perform under Marian Croak, a prominent black manager in the engineering department. According to Croak, employees will also oversee employees focused on engineering products Bloomberg. She will report to Jeff Dean, who is leading the company’s AI efforts.
The ethical AI team was not aware of the reorganization before the news became known Wednesday night.
The change is an attempt to stabilize the department, which has been in turmoil for months. Bloomberg reports. In December, Timnit Gebru, co-leader of the ethics AI team, announced that she had been abruptly fired. The following month, the company investigated her counterpart Margaret Mitchell, who used a text to go through her email to look for examples of discrimination against Gebru. Mitchell now says she was locked out of her corporate accounts for more than five weeks.
Before her dismissal, Gebru tried to publish an article on the dangers of large language processing models. Megan Kacholia, vice president of Google Research, asked her to withdraw the article. Gebru pushed back, saying the company needs to be more transparent about the publishing process. Shortly afterwards, she was fired.
The ethical AI team published a six-page letter in the wake of Gebru’s termination asking them to replace Kacholia. “We have lost confidence in Megan Kacholia and we ask that she be removed from our reporting chain,” the letter read.
Now the team can get its wish. As part of the reorganization, according to ethical AI researchers, Kacholia will no longer lead Bloomberg. It is not clear what this means for Margaret Mitchell, who is still being investigated by the company.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment The edge.