Google’s newly established Alphabet Workers Union employee said it was concerned about Google’s decision to ban senior AI ethics researcher Margaret Mitchell from her account.
Google shut her out after it found she was downloading material related to Timnit Gebru, another AI ethics researcher who was forced to leave the company last month.
The news was first reported on Wednesday by Axios, who said Google was investigating Mitchell’s recent actions. Mitchell reportedly used automated scripts to search her messages to find examples of discriminatory treatment of Gebru.
“The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) is concerned about the suspension of business access for Margaret Mitchell, AWU member and leader of the Ethical AI team,” the union said in a statement. “This suspension follows the firing of former co-lead Timnit Gebru by Google. Together, these are an attack on the people trying to make Google’s technology more ethical.”
Google did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment, but a spokesperson told Axios, “Our security systems automatically lock an employee’s company account when they detect that the account is at risk of being compromised due to login issues or when an automated rule regarding the handling of sensitive data is activated. “
The spokesperson added, “In this case, yesterday our systems detected that an account had exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts. We explained this to the employee earlier today.”
Gebru’s departure
Gebru, who had been the technical co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, tweeted on December 3 that Google fired her over a disagreement over a research report examining bias in artificial intelligence. The researcher, who had been candid about the company’s treatment of black workers, claimed the treatment was indicative of a broader pattern at Google. It sparked a wave of support from across the industry, including a petition signed by thousands of Google employees and peers.
Alphabet’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, sent an email to employees, apologizing for the mistrust that had been sown in the company and industry during Gebru’s departure, while promising the company would initiate an “evaluation” of what went wrong.
About a week later, Google’s Ethical AI team sent Google executives a list of demands to “restore trust” after Gebru was removed from the company.
The team, which says it advises on research, products and policy, wrote a six-page letter to Pichai, AI chief Jeff Dean, and technical vice president Megan Kacholia. The letter, titled “The Future of Ethical AI at Google Research” and seen by CNBC, contains demands from executives including removing Kacholia from the group’s reporting structure, withholding retaliation, and restoring Gebru to a higher level.
Who is Margaret Mitchell?
Mitchell founded Google’s Ethical AI team and is one of the co-leads. The AWU described her as a “critical member” of academic and industrial communities around the ethical production of AI. She has been with Google for just over four years and is based in Seattle, according to LinkedIn.
“Regardless of the outcome of the company’s research, the continued focus on leaders in this organization calls into question Google’s commitment to ethics – in AI and their business practices,” said the AWU. “Many members of the AI ethics team are AWU members and our union membership recognizes the critical work they are doing and is in solidarity with them today.”
Referring to Google’s statement to Axios, the AWU said it was a “remarkable departure from Google’s typical practice of refusing to comment on staff matters.”
The AWU announced the launch on January 4. Executive Chairman Parul Koul and Vice Chairman Chewy Shaw co-authored one piece in The New York Times entitled, “We Built Google. This is not the company we want to work for.”
It made its first position on Jan. 7, calling on YouTube executives to take more vigorous action against former President Donald Trump.
The union criticized Google-owned YouTube for not banning Trump’s account from the platform after the pro-Trump riots in Washington in which five people were killed and injured. The group called the company’s decision to reactively delete its videos “lame” and said the company should ban its account.
– Additional reporting by CNBC’s Jennifer Elias.