Behind the Paper That Led to a Google Researcher's Firing

Earlier this year, Google artificial intelligence researcher Timnit Gebru sent a Twitter message to University of Washington professor Emily Bender. Gebru asked Bender if she had written about the ethical questions raised by recent advances in AI that processes text. Bender hadn't, but the pair fell into a conversation about the limitations of such technology, such as evidence it can replicate biased language found online. Bender found the DM discussion enlivening and suggested building it into an academic paper. "I hoped to provoke the next turn in the conversation," Bender says.