According to the latest reports, the Google platform is currently in the process of making changes to its leadership in the Artificial Intelligence sector. The company has taken this action after the recent incident that has left the company shocked and confused. It has been revealed that for months, the company is involved in making changes to the leadership.
The recent changes from Google have come into play after one of the prominent Black researchers in its Artificial Intelligence team left the company. According to sources, the researcher who left Google was TimnitGebru who left Google quite contentiously.
As per the latest reports shared on February 18, 2021, a Black woman, Marian Croak will be moved within Google Research at its new Artificial Intelligence center. Before being moved to the new center, Croak was working as the vice president for the company for the past six years.
As the vice president of the company, Croak worked on a large number of projects. One of the most projects that Croak worked on was for India where she was working to provide public Wi-Fi on railroads.
The announcement around the movement was made in presence of Croak in the form of an interview. During the interview, Croak’s contribution and dedication to the company were appreciated as well as her expertise.
The company officials also spoke highly of her expertise in the tech sector and her achievements in technologies such as VoIP.
Following the announcement, it has been revealed by Google that Croak will now be reporting directly to the head of Google AI, Jeff Dean. The company officials have revealed that the 10 teams currently working in different sectors of AI will be reporting directly to Croak.
The AI teams whose center of focus is around AI fairness, accessibility, and ethics will also be reporting to Croak. It has been revealed that all these teams were previously reporting directly to Gebru and now they are going to do the same to Croak.
The reporting platform that first reporting the change in the leadership at Google was Bloomberg that had shared the news back on February 17, 2021.
It was early December of 2020 when Croak left the tech giant, Google and she did it quite abruptly. When she left the company, she was working as the co-leader of the Ethical AI team in Google. Croak was one of the pioneers in the research of inequality and bias in AI.
At present, only 3.7% of the total employees in Google comprise of Black employees and Croak was one of them. While Google states that Gebru had left the company abruptly, Gebru claims that she was fired from Google over an email. She stated that in the email, she had talked about the lack of diversity that was observed in the Google Company.