Google is poisoning its reputation with AI researchers

Google has worked for years to position itself as a responsible steward of AI. Its research lab hires respected academics, publishes groundbreaking papers, and steers the agenda at the field's biggest conferences. But now its reputation has been badly, perhaps irreversibly damaged, just as the company is struggling to put a politically palatable face on its empire of data. The company's decision to fire Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell -- two of its top AI ethics researchers, who happened to be examining the downsides of technology integral to Google's search products -- has triggered waves of protest. Academics have registered their discontent in various ways.