REUTERS: Alphabet Inc's Google will change procedures before July for reviewing its scientists' work, according to a town hall recording heard by Reuters, part of an effort to quell internal tumult over the integrity of its artificial intelligence (AI) research. In remarks at a staff meeting last Friday, Google Research executives said they were working to regain trust after the company ousted two prominent women and rejected their work, according to an hour-long recording, the content of which was confirmed by two sources. Teams are already trialing a questionnaire that will assess projects for risk and help scientists navigate reviews, research unit Chief Operating Officer Maggie Johnson said in the meeting. This initial change will roll out by the end of the second quarter, and the majority of papers will not require extra vetting, she said. Reuters reported in December that Google had introduced a "sensitive topics" review for studies involving dozens of issues, such as China or bias in its services.

Google is making changes to how it reviews papers following an internal revolt over the company's controversial practices. Leading AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru was fired from Google in December last year after sending an email to colleagues which criticised the company's practices. Gebru claims Google blocks the publication of papers that may cause criticism of the company's work; including her most recent which questioned whether language models can be too big, who benefits from them, and whether they can increase prejudice and inequalities. In an email to employees following Gebru's firing, Jeff Dean, Head of Google Research, said: "Papers often require changes during the internal review process (or are even deemed unsuitable for submission). Unfortunately, this particular paper was only shared with a day's notice before its deadline -- we require two weeks for this sort of review -- and then instead of awaiting reviewer feedback, it was approved for submission and submitted. A cross-functional team then reviewed the paper as part of our regular process and the authors were informed that it didn't meet our bar for publication and were given feedback about why."