A Google researcher – who said she was fired after pointing out biases in AI – says companies won't 'self-regulate' because of the AI 'gold rush'

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Abstraction: Timnit Gebru warns AI gold rush prevents corporate self-regulation on bias

Key points:

Timnit Gebru, former co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, was ousted in 2020 after co-authoring a paper on biases in large language models; Google asked her to retract it or remove names, she refused
Google claims she resigned; Gebru says she was fired — the paper, per an internal reviewer, "makes what Google's doing look bad"
Gebru warns that AI's "gold rush" dynamic means companies have no incentive to self-regulate without external pressure and real regulation
Calls for regulation beyond the profit motive: "We need something better than just a profit motive"
ChatGPT (launched November 2022) became the fastest-growing consumer app in history; Google responded with Bard in March 2023
Gebru previously worked at Apple and Microsoft before her Google role

Connections: Timnit Gebru · Google · Chatgpt · AI Bias · AI Ethics · AI Regulation