Google investigates another great AI ethicist

Google is investigating artificial intelligence researcher Margaret Mitchell, who co-leads the company’s artificial intelligence team, and has locked her corporate account, Axios reports. The news comes just over a month after another prominent AI ethicist, Timnit Gebru, said she was fired by the company. Mitchell’s account has reportedly been locked for “at least a few days” but she has not been terminated, according to a tweet from Gebru. Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement made to Axios, Google said it was investigating Mitchell after its systems detected that an account had “exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” According to a Axios source, Mitchell had used a script to go through his posts, finding examples of Gebru’s discriminatory treatment. Last week Mitchell tweeted to say she was documenting “Current critical issues of [Gebru’s] shooting, point by point, interior and exterior work.”

Google said its security systems automatically lock the accounts of company employees “when they detect that the account is at risk of being compromised due to identification issues or when an automated rule involving the processing of sensitive data has been triggered. ”

“We explained this to the employee earlier today,” Google said. “We are actively investigating this matter as part of standard procedures to gather further details.”

Mitchell has previously tweeted in favor of Gebru and has criticized Google and other big tech companies for their approaches to diversity and systematic bias. Yesterday she tweeted to criticize Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s approach to diversity in the workplace.

Google faced a lot of criticism after Gebru left the company. Bloomberg reports that thousands of internal staff, academics and external activists sign a petition on behalf of the AI ​​researcher. The company has been constantly criticized for its work on Project Maven, an AI project designed to improve military drone strikes. Opposition to the project was cited as one of the main reasons when Google employees announced their intention to unionize earlier this year.