Google AI ethics crisis updates

There are some new developments in Google’s ongoing AI ethics crisis (see DT #54). CEO Sundar Pichai issued a company-wide memo apologizing for the fact that “Dr. [Timnit] Gebru’s departure … seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google.” This doesn’t address the central issue, and it did not land well with the community; see the tweets from Gebru and Jack Clark, as well as Khari Johnson’s interview with Gebru and NPR’s coverage of the story. In response to the memo, a group of Google AI researchers sent the executives a list of demands asking for leadership and policy changes. And meanwhile, someone made a fake Twitter account (complete with a GAN-generated profile picture) that opposed Gebru’s side of the story by pretending to be an ex-researcher from the Google ethics team. I don’t think this’ll be resolved anytime soon.