Google Employees Demand Whistleblower Protections After Retaliation Against
AI Researchers
"The existing legal infrastructure for whistleblowing at corporations
developing technologies is wholly insufficient," according to Google Walkout
For Real Change
Kevin Gosztola
Mar 8
Photo: ben_nutall
"Is there anyone working on regulation protecting Ethical AI researchers,
similar to whistleblower protection?" Timnit Gebru asked on Twitter.
"Because with the amount of censorship and intimidation that goes on towards
people in specific groups, how does anyone trust any real research in this
area can take place?"
Gebru, a Black woman, was the co-lead of Google's "Ethical Artificial
Intelligence (AI)" team. On December 2, two days after posting this message,
Google fired Gebru. It was in response to an ethics research paper that
reportedly included criticism of the environmental impact of AI models.
Now, AI researcher Dr. Margaret Mitchell, who was also involved in leading
the "Ethical AI" team, was fired on March 5 after Google locked her "out of
her work account for five anxious weeks." The retaliation came after she
shared a document with Google's public relations department that questioned
their stated reasons for terminating Gebru.
Google Walkout For Real Change (GWRC), a group of Google employees, have
seized the moment to demand Congress and state legislatures strengthen
whistleblower protections for tech employees like Gebru and Mitchell.
"The existing legal infrastructure for whistleblowing at corporations
developing technologies is wholly insufficient," GWRC declares. "Researchers
and other tech workers need protections, which allow them to call out
harmful technology when they see it, and whistleblower protection can be a
powerful tool for guarding against the worst abuses of the private entities
which create these technologies."
As UC Berkeley Center for Law and Technology co-director Sonia Katyal told
VentureBeat's Khari Johnson in December, "What we should be concerned about
is a world where all of the most talented researchers like [Gebru] get hired
at these places and then effectively muzzled from speaking. And when that
happens, whistleblower protections become essential."
Johnson noted Katyal is "concerned about a clash between the rights of a
business to not disclose information about an algorithm and the civil rights
of an individual to live in a world free of discrimination. This will
increasingly become a problem, she warned, as government agencies take data
or AI service contracts from private companies."
There are a number of examples that show a need for whistleblower protection
to protect AI researchers, who challenge corporations from within their
industries. Like Johnson highlighted, "A fall 2019 study in Nature found
that an algorithm used in hospitals may have been involved in the
discrimination against millions of Black people in the United States. A more
recent story reveals how an algorithm prevented Black people from receiving
kidney transplants."
"Drs. Mitchell and Gebru also built one of the most diverse teams in Google
Research, people who could connect their lived experiences to practices of
power, subjection, and domination which get encoded into AI and other
data-driven systems," according to GWRC.
The group maintains Gebru and Mitchell were "working in the public interest"
and spent time critically examining the "benefits and risks of powerful AI
systems - especially those whose potential harms outside of the Google
workplace were likely to be overlooked or minimized in the name of profit or
efficiency." (Both also complained about workplace conditions to the human
resources department.)
"Google workers have been organizing from within, raising inextricably
linked issues of toxic workplace conditions and unethical and harmful tech
to leadership and to the public," GWRC adds. "With the firing of Drs.
Mitchell and Gebru, Google has made it clear that they believe they are
powerful enough to withstand the public backlash and are not concerned with
publicly damaging their employees' careers and mental health."
"They have also shown that they are willing to crack down hard on anyone who
would perturb the company's quest for growth and profit."
The group concludes, "Google is not committed to making itself better and
has to be held accountable by organized workers with the unwavering support
of social movements, civil society, and the research community beyond."
In addition to a call for whistleblower protections, GWRC urges academic
conferences to "decline sponsorship from organizations, such as Google,
engaged in retaliatory actions towards researchers."
The Association for Computing Machinery's Fairness, Accountability, and
Transparency (FAccT) conference "suspended" Google's sponsorship on March 2.
GWRC encourages "potential recruits to Google" to help "break the tech
talent pipeline" and refuse to work at Google as it creates "harmful and
unethical technology."
"We call on universities, especially those that claim to be human-centered,
such as Stanford's Human Centered AI Institute and MIT's Schwarzman College
of Computing to publicly reject Google funding," they further suggest.
Timnit Gebru (Photo: Techcrunch)
Gebru was previously involved in exposing the "gender and skin-type bias in
commercial AI facial recognition systems." Her work garnered a lot of
praise.
Along with raising concerns about the impact of technology on marginalized
communities, Protocol reported that Gebru supported activism at Google and
spoke up for employees, who faced retaliation for engaging in protests.
The same day that Gebru was terminated by Google the corporation was accused
by the National Labor Relations Board of spying on employees involved in
protest organizing.
It is hard to fathom how Google's retaliation against conscientious
employees with respect and influence in the world of technology will not
prolong a backlash that has already spanned several months.
Ultimately, if Google cannot tolerate employees on their "Ethical AI" team
who raise objections, they should quit using this team as cover for their
business. Simply rename the team "AI," and lean into their corporate culture
with the mantra, "Don't Be Ethical."