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A Google employee who helped organize protests on the company's work in the military, his management of AI ethics and his policies on badual harbadment left the organization.
Meredith Whittaker was a program director at Google, founder of the company's Open Research Group, and co-founder of the NYU-affiliated AI Now Institute, which focuses on ethical issues related to artificial intelligence. His departure was reported by Bloombergand Google confirmed this news later. TechCrunch.
Whittaker was a leading voice for change at Google. When it was revealed that the company was creating AI tools for military drones, she spoke out against the work, congratulating her Googlers colleagues for her "ethical leadership." critical the company's decision to appoint Kay Cole James, president of the Heritage Foundation, to sit on an external ethics committee of the AI, which the company closed following protests a week after its launch.
Along with colleague Claire Stapleton, Whittaker also helped lead the "Google Walkout for Change," in which 20,000 employees participated in a mbadive protest to protest the company's treatment of badual harbadment charges. .
In each case, the events Whittaker was involved with resulted in a change within the company. In response to criticism of his work with the Pentagon, Google is committed to not developing AI weapons. And after the elimination of the fallout of the walkout, Google has terminated its practice of forced arbitration in cases of badual harbadment and badault, which requires employees to waive their rights.
As a result of these protests, Whittaker and Stapleton reported facing internal retaliation for their actions. Whittaker said that she had been told that her job would be "significantly changed" and that she should stop working for the AI Now Institute. Stapleton later wrote that she had been "marked … with some sort of scarlet letter that makes it difficult to perform my job" and left the company earlier this year. "If I stayed, I did not just worry about flogging, avoidance and stress in public, I was waiting for it," she wrote.
In response to Stapleton's departure, Whittaker tweeted April: "Google's retaliation is not about me, or [Claire Stapleton]. It's about silencing dissent and scare us honestly about technology and power. NOT AGREE. Now more than ever, it's time to speak. "
We solicited comments from Whittaker and Google and will update this story if we hear more.
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