Google to reorganise AI teams in wake of researcher’s departure

Croak will oversee the Ethical AI team that’s become the focus of intense scrutiny as well as employees on other fairness teams. These include people working on machine learning, computer-vision systems, natural language processing and those who engineer fairness products, one of the people said. — Dreamstime/TNS

Google will restructure its responsible artificial intelligence efforts to centralise teams under a single executive, according to people familiar with the situation, as the Internet giant tries to stabilise groups working on ethics research and products after months of chaos.

The Alphabet Inc unit is expected to announce the changes as soon as Feb 18, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing the private information. Google has sought to diffuse employee rancor stemming from the acrimonious departure of a prominent Black researcher, Timnit Gebru. The responsible AI teams will roll up to Marian Croak, a Black Google executive who currently serves as a vice president of engineering focused on site-reliability matters. Croak will report to Jeff Dean, the senior vice president of Google AI.