Google fires second AI ethics researcher amid diversity dispute

Axios, which originally broke the news, cites a source claiming that Mitchell was locked out of her official email account since last month. This was ostensibly done to prevent her from checking official correspondence for evidence backing up Gebru's claim of discrimination and harassment.

Google, however, counters that Mitchell's violations "included the exfiltration of confidential business-sensitive documents and private data of other employees".

Google's director for AI research, Zoubin Ghahramani, informed Mitchell's team of her firing on Friday. The meeting was called in short notice and scarce explanation was provided about the decision.

Meanwhile, speaking to media, Google revealed that an internal investigation against Mitchell was ongoing since January 19. The findings of a team of investigators were adjudicated by a review committee leading to the dismissal.

There was discontent brewing in Google's Ethical AI arm following the firing of Gebru, who was in the headlines for exposing bias in facial recognition systems.

Gebru claimed her firing was punishment for questioning Google's decision to censor papers critical of its AI systems, one of which was a paper authored by Mitchell and Gebru underlining how AI mimicking language could hurt marginalized individuals.

Google's Ethical AI arm looks like a PR campaign gone awry. The company had hired scientists promising research freedom, but the honeymoon period ended when the researchers began submitting papers critical of Google's own products.

Google responded by introducing "sensitive topics" review, seemingly to guard against legal and regulatory trouble stemming from such research papers. Mitchell had raised censorship concerns about the policy.