Google Fires Another AI Researcher — Here’s Why

Google has fired another one of its AI or artificial intelligence researchers, making it the third high-profile termination in the past two years in the AI department of the tech giant.

Google Fires Another AI Researcher

As per a news story by CNET, Google reportedly fired the machine learning scientist of the search engine giant, Satrajit Chatterjee, last March.

It comes after the former Google AI researcher questioned some of the findings of a previous paper that the tech giant published.

According to a recent report by The New York Times, the news outlet learned that the former researcher, Chatterjee, along with his team challenged the claims of a Google research paper, which focused on how artificial intelligence can produce computer chips.

After challenging the claims of the previous research paper published by Google, the tech giant reportedly fired its AI researcher.

Google AI Researcher Question Paper Findings

As per the latest report by Engadget, Chatterjee and his team challenged the previous findings of Google, which claims that computers could create chip components faster and more efficiently than how humans do it.

Since then, Google reportedly let Chatterjee together with his team of researchers to create a paper that disputes the earlier claims that were published by Google regarding computers and chipmaking.

However, the paper that challenges the earlier findings was later on rejected by a resolution committee.

Engadget also noted that Chatterjee and his team wanted to bring up the matter to the top brass of the parent firm of Google, Alphabet, including its CEO, Sundar Pichai, as well as its board of directors.

Google vs. AI Researchers

It is not the first instance that Google firing AI researchers made it to the headlines. In fact, CNET noted that it is the third high-profile firing in the last two years or so.

To be more precise, Google previously fired Timnit Gebru, who was one of the leads of the Ethical AI team of the tech giant. It comes after she published a paper regarding the bias in AI language models.

Afterward, or roughly two months since Gebru bid farewell to Google, the tech giant fired the co-led of the Ethical AI team, Margaret Mitchell.

Google's Response

On the other hand, Google said in a statement to the New York Times that the original paper that Chatterjee and his team were challenging was peer-reviewed and "thoroughly vetted."

On top of that, the search engine giant further claimed that the paper that was challenging the earlier claims "did not meet" the standard of Google. Thus, it rejected the paper that questioned its previous findings.

However, it is worth noting that the tech giant did not disclose specific details of why Chatterjee had to say goodbye to Google AI. But the tech giant said in a statement that the machine learning scientist has been "terminated with cause."

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Teejay Boris