INSIDER Q&A: EX-GOOGLE AI SKEPTIC TIMNIT GEBRU STARTS ANEW

When she co-led Google’s Ethical AI team, Timnit Gebru was a prominent insider voice questioning the tech industry’s approach to artificial intelligence.

That was before Google pushed her out of the company more than a year ago. Now Gebru is trying to make change from the outside as the founder of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, or DAIR.

Born to Eritrean parents in Ethiopia, Gebru spoke recently about how poorly Big Tech’s AI priorities — and its AI-fueled social media platforms — serve Africa and elsewhere. The new institute focuses on AI research from the perspective of the places and people most likely to experience its harms.

She’s also co-founder of the group Black in AI, which promotes Black employment and leadership in the field. And she’s known for coauthoring a landmark 2018 study that found racial and gender bias in facial recognition software. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS FOR DAIR?

A: After I got fired from Google, I knew I’d be blacklisted from a whole bunch of large tech companies. The ones that I wouldn’t be -- it would be just very difficult to work in that kind of environment. I just wasn’t going to do that anymore. When I decided to (start DAIR), the very first thing that came to my mind is that I want it to be distributed. I saw how people in certain places just can’t influence the actions of tech companies and the course that AI development is taking. If there is AI to be built or researched, how do you do it well? You want to involve communities that are usually at the margins so that they can benefit. When there’s cases when it should not be built, we can say, ‘Well, this should not be built.’ We’re not coming at it from a perspective of tech solutionism.