AI Weekly: Facebook, Google, and the tension between profits and fairness

This week, we learned a lot more about the inner workings of AI fairness and ethics operations at Facebook and Google and how things have gone wrong. On Monday, a Google employee group wrote a letter asking Congress and state lawmakers to pass legislation to protect AI ethics whistleblowers. That letter cites VentureBeat reporting about the potential policy outcomes of Google firing former Ethical AI team co-lead Timnit Gebru. It also cites research by UC Berkeley law professor Sonia Katyal, who told VentureBeat, "What we should be concerned about is a world where all of the most talented researchers like [Gebru] get hired at these places and then effectively muzzled from speaking. And when that happens, whistleblower protections become essential."