The withering email that got an ethical AI researcher fired at Google

Gebru, an alumni of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, is one of the leading voices in the ethical use of artificial intelligence. She is well-known for her work on a landmark study in 2018 that showed how facial recognition software misidentified dark-skinned women as much as 35% of the time, whereas the technology worked with near precision on white men. She has also been an outspoken critic of the lack of diversity and unequal treatment of Black workers at tech companies, particularly at Alphabet Inc.'s Google, and said she believed her dismissal was meant to send a message to the rest of Google's employees not to speak up. Platformer received the email Gebru sent; she herself did not have access to her account after Google terminated her. It is published in full below.