Google announces new executive for AI research after Timnit Gebru firing

Google is restructuring its artificial intelligence branch by having teams under just one executive. This information was divulged by someone who has knowledge of the matter.

This change has been planned after months of internal chaos after Google’s former AI researcher Timnit Gebru has been fired. Part of the change is assigning a new executive, and Alphabet Inc., which owns Google, already made a formal announcement about it.

The new executive to manage Google’s AI research

Alphabet Inc. introduced Marian Croak as Google’s new leader who will supervise research on responsible artificial intelligence. Reuters reported that she is one of the company’s few Black executives and has now been assigned to another post.

Her appointment followed after weeks of anger in the company as many employees believe that Black researcher Gebru has been unfairly ousted. Some say that Croak’s assignment is also an effort to diffuse the tension in the workplace brought about by the sudden firing.

In any case, Google was said to have confirmed that Marian Croak will be handling 10 teams, and this includes a dozen scientists who are researching the ethical considerations of automated technologies (AI). This was the team that was co-led by Gebru before she left the company.

“I’m excited to be able to galvanize the brilliant talent that we have at Google working on this,” Croak told Sepi Hejazi Moghadam, Google Research’s senior program manager, via an interview that was posted on the company’s blog.

She added, “We have to make sure we have the frameworks and the software and the best practices designed by the researchers and the applied engineers so we can proudly say that our systems are behaving in responsible ways.”

About Marian Croak

Marian Croak has been working on groundbreaking technology for years and boasts of more than 200 patents, as per CNN Business. She has been Google’s VP for six years, and with her new post, she will be reporting to Jeff Dean, Google's AI chief.

One of her innovative technologies allowed people to communicate via video or audio using the internet. It was said that this is the same technology that is currently being used in Skype, Zoom, MagicJack, and more.

Finally, Marian Croak holds a Ph.D. in quantitative analysis from the University of Southern California and has managed more than 2,000 engineers and scientists for her tech works. Prior to joining Google, she has worked at AT&T for over 30 years.