“I
understand we could have and should have handled the situation with more
sensitivity,” Dean wrote. “And for that, I am sorry.” Dean said Google's
behavior toward Gebru hurt some female and Black employees and led them to
question whether they belonged at the company. He did not apologize directly to
Gebru in the email to staff.
Executives'
performance evaluations will now be partly tied to diversity, equity and
inclusion goals, and Google will double the amount of human resources staff
working on employee retention, according to the memo.
A spokesman
for Google declined to comment. The changes were reported earlier Friday by
news website Axios.
Several
large companies have made diversity a factor in executive performance and
compensation. They include McDonald's and Microsoft.
At Google,
the changes came after turmoil stemming from Gebru's departure. She said she
was fired in December after refusing to retract a research paper critical of a
key Google technology or remove the Google authors from it. Google has said
that Gebru, the former co-head of ethical AI, resigned. Still, former
colleagues expressed outrage over the company's handling of the matter.
On
Thursday, the company appointed Marian Croak as vice president of engineering,
elevating an experienced Black woman to lead a new, centralized organization to
develop AI responsibly. The further changes outlined Friday marked the
conclusion of an internal investigation into the handling of Gebru's departure.
Dean also
detailed a plan to clarify the process for approving research papers by Google
authors for outside publication. The current process has too many intersecting
parts, particularly for “sensitive” research, he said, and what's considered
sensitive isn't always clear.
“We're
building a more unified, start-to-finish process with clearer guidance along
the way on what steps are needed, who is accountable at each step and Google's
research goals and priorities,” Dean wrote.
Dean did
not address the questions raised by the Gebru example as to whether Google's AI
ethics team will be allowed to critically examine the very technologies the
search and advertising giant uses in its commercial products.
© Bloomberg
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