Will Google double down on ethical AI team?

Will Google double down on ethical AI team?

San Francisco, 5/17/2021

Google plans to double the size of its ethical AI team in the near future, according to Engineering VP Marian Croak, who heads Google’s responsible AI research center. Speaking at the Wall Street Journal’s Future Of Everything Festival, Croak said Google plans to expand its responsible AI team to 200 researchers.

In February, Google announced it was restructuring its responsible AI efforts after firing AI researcher and co-leader of ethical AI Timnit Gebru.

Croak was appointed to lead the AI ethics group, in part to help centralize and stabilize Google’s AI efforts following Gebru’s departure in December, which has caused divisions at the tech giant. Croak, a black Google executive, reports directly to Jeff Dean, the head of Google AI.

In a YouTube video, Croak acknowledged the „divisiveness“ in Google’s ethical AI efforts, which was exacerbated when Gebru, a prominent black researcher, was asked to remove her name from an AI research paper that criticized technologies from Google and others. According to Croak, responsible AI is fundamentally good for business. „It really hurts the brand when things are not done in an ethical way.“