Internal strife escalates, Google is really in trouble!
From 1,400 employees supporting the company, big names in the AI industry taking the stand, to CEO Pichai personally apologizing, the dismissal crisis triggered by the famous AI ethicist Timnit Gebru continues to ferment.
Yesterday, employees within Google revolted again and jointly sent a letter to senior managers demanding:
Gebru is back, Jeff Dean is sorry!
The letter also emphasized: The company must make structural changes to ensure that Google’s AI ethics research work can continue; they will no longer report to Google Vice President Megan Kacholia because he has lost trust; publicly commit to academic integrity, and Conduct racial literacy training for management.
At present, Google management has not responded to this matter.
Recently, Google can be said to be in dire straits. In addition to the dismissal crisis that has been going on for more than half a month, Google has also been subject to complaints from American labor unions and the most severe anti-monopoly investigation in history.
Having said that, how will Google handle this internal struggle? We need to first understand the whole story.
Gebru triggered a firestorm of dismissals, and AI bosses came to support him
The trigger for the work is an academic paper.
More than two months ago, Gebru wrote a paper titled “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big (Risks of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big?)”.
Until the work was produced, the paper had not been internally reviewed by Google’s superiors.
Gebru sent an email to Jeff Dean, head of the AI department, to inquire about the reason and asked Jeff Dean to provide a list of evaluators, otherwise she would leave Google.
But this request was rejected by Jeff Dean, and then Gebru received an official dismissal email from Google.
On December 2, Gebru posted this news on Twitter, which caused an uproar in the AI community.
She tweeted:
I was fired by Jeff Dean and my company account has been blocked because of the emails I sent to Brain Women and Allies.
The email Gebru mentioned was that his paper had not been approved because it involved negative information about Google’s AI ethics research. Including Google’s unfair treatment of black women, its lack of attention to AI ethics, etc.
Google laid off about 14% of its female employees in the past year. And while laying off 14% of women, Google hired 39% more employees whose talents were not outstanding enough.
But then Jeff Dean issued a statement saying that Gebru resigned voluntarily and that we only respected her own opinions and published Gebru’s initial email.
At the same time, Jeff Dean also published an article pointing out the reasons why Gebru’s paper was not approved:
This paper ignores too many related studies. For example, the paper discusses the impact of large models on the environment, but ignores the superior performance of large models shown by other studies. The paper raises concerns about the bias of language models without considering recent research to reduce environmental burden.
However, Gebru did not cooperate and tweeted six times pointing out the contradictions in his words.
As the confrontation between the two parties gradually intensified, internal Google employees, AI technology tycoons, and more netizens also joined the storm. For example, Gebru’s boss at Google, the famous AI scientist Samy Bengio, has publicly spoken out in support of Gebru.
The “Google Walkout For Real Change” organization co-founded by current and former Google employees also launched a signature campaign on the blog to show support for Timnit Gebru. In addition, 2,278 Google employees have participated in protests and demonstrations.
At the same time, as the calls for Gebru’s support gradually increased, criticism of Jeff Dean and Google also came in the social network.
The CEO came forward to apologize, but Gebru did not cooperate.
As the incident became more and more intense, Google, which was caught in the whirlpool of public opinion, had to respond.
On December 7, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a statement. In an internal email to all employees, he promised to conduct a detailed investigation into the dismissal and apologized to Dr. Gebru. He said,
I heard our reaction to Dr. Gebru’s departure loud and clear: it created a sense of doubt that led some within us to question their place at Google.
I want to say that I am deeply sorry for this and I am willing to take responsibility for restoring our trust.
In addition, Pichai also emphasized the company’s emphasis on black people and women in the disclosure letter.
In fact, the reason why this incident caused such a stir on social media is that, in addition to Gebru being a well-known scholar in the field of AI ethics research, an important reason is her identity as a black woman. Racism and feminism have always been sensitive topics for Americans.
Google has just touched this point, and according to various data provided by the AI Now Institute in 2016, 10% of Google AI researchers are women. Google’s 2020 diversity report data shows that about one-third of Google employees are women, while 3.7% are African American, 5.9% are Latinx, and 0.8% are American Indian.
Thus, Pichai had to reiterate their sentiments about black women. He stated,
Our employees who are Black, women and other underrepresented racial minorities know we care about you.
We launched a racial equity program at the beginning of the year to re-examine all systems from recruitment and promotion to retention.
However, Pichai’s seemingly sincere statement did not calm the anger of the parties involved.
Gebru published a public statement stating that he was not satisfied with this response. “I don’t see a plan to pursue accountability,” she said, a statement that offered no explanation.
Additionally, she highlighted in another tweet:
These words seem to be saying: I am sorry for how things went, but I am not sorry for what we did.
In addition, OpenAI policy director Jack Clark also wrote: “I usually don’t interfere in this kind of work, but this response email is really bad, and he didn’t solve any problems.
Pichai has not responded to this, and until now, he has not made any public statement on the development of the investigation into the dismissal of Gebru.
Just when we thought the matter was over, employees within Google launched another uprising.
From this point of view, if Pichai does not respond positively and provide a clear solution, Google employees will not give up.
In addition, in their uprising letter, they strongly requested two things: first, to reinstate Gebru, and second, to make Jeff Dean feel sorry for him. It seems that the former can be handled through negotiation, but the latter may not be that simple.
At this point, there may be more to come from Google’s dismissal scandal.
In addition, it is important to note that in addition to the reluctance of internal employees, Google has also been having a hard time in the industry recently.
Google faces internal and external troubles
First of all, on the day the dismissal crisis occurred, Google received a lawsuit from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in the United States. It was accused of violating multiple labor laws during the workers’ demonstrations.
According to the NRLB complaint, Google illegally supervised and fired two employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers, for participating in worker activities last year.
At the same time, the company also enforced the right to prevent workers from accessing each other’s calendars without “business intent.” It is understood that the lawsuit will be heard on April 12 next year.
Additionally, Google is also the subject of anti-exclusive inquiries. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice and 10 states, including Texas, formally filed lawsuits against Google, accusing it of illegally maintaining a monopoly through anti-competitive and exclusionary conduct in the search and search advertising markets.
This anti-exclusive investigation can be said to be the most demanding in history. In addition to Google, technology giants such as Apple, Facebook, and Amazon (“GAFA”) are also on the list.
Under multiple attacks, we will wait and see how Google will respond to this matter!