https://www.wired.com/story/behind-paper-led-google-researchers-firing/ https://www.wired.com/story/behind-paper-led-google-research... The odd thing is the pa

https://www.wired.com/story/behind-paper-led-google-researchers-firing/ https://www.wired.com/story/behind-paper-led-google-research... The odd thing is the paper itself is rather innocuous. Fairly standard stuff really. It seems clear to me that it was a pretext to force her out. Many other Brain researchers (including on here) have indicated that it's quite common (perhaps ~40%) to submit for approval a day before conference submission, or even after submission. Given how many papers Google researchers submit, the intent was to give papers a once-over and make sure no IP was being disclosed. The fact that this paper went through an elaborate and secretive review process delivered by HR should tell us that this is, ultimately, not about the paper itself. This has to do with a long-standing desire within some in the org to get rid of Gebru. Notably, this does not include Samy Bengio (research director, and her direct manager) who posted on Facebook his support and that he was kept out of the loop - I think there are tensions between the research teams and management also here. However, by making it about the paper and the publication process, Google is certainly making it seem like they want to hide something (and perhaps they do..). Really goofed up on this. To the extent that Sundar Pichai had to write an email to all of Google about it today.