Will Google’s Final Legacy Be Defined by the Millions That They Have Killed?
American history is littered with companies that intentionally misled the public and silenced employees for profit. Google is at the center of a self-inflicted firestorm today for firing AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, who spoke out against bias in Google’s artificial intelligence language project. Many in the business community have argued Google is within its rights to terminate an employee for speaking out, but something much more sinister is in motion.
Fully understanding the magnitude of this emergency starts with the technology and the dilemma that Gebru made public The artificial intelligence project Google is building has the power to communicate and influence human behavior. The project’s technology works on a neural network designed like the human brain — actually, an infinite number of human brains. As technology advances, the neural network will continue to expand and advance. Gebru’s primary concern is the discovery that the powerful “brain” running this language project has left out a significant number of languages resulting in a built-in bias. If entire cultures are left out, the program will fail to represent the true diversity of humanity. Ignoring her claim perpetuates an unwillingness to understand cultural inclusivity and a perpetuation of White Supremacy that plagues workplace cultures.
Some question whether this even matters. Consider our own human DNA. Leaving out just a small piece of the genetic code would create an incomplete picture of humanity. Being left out is reminiscent of our historical architectural foundation for creation that excludes the voices of women, especially Black and Indigenous Women of Color. We may find that we’ve eliminated the genes for red hair, white skin, or green eyes. Gone. As if they never even existed. This is parallel to what happens when artificial intelligence is built with a brain that has no memory of languages, cultural significance, or historical context.
Is Google destined to be doomed by this firing?
Countless business examples over the last 50 years demonstrate the perils of companies protecting their product and profits at any cost. One of the main costs is preserving marginalized voices and bodies. Today’s environment requires the top .01% of mega-corporations to spend millions on reputation-management firms and employee-rating programs. Mega brands will pay a steep price to keep public opinion on their side. Best Practice Institute founder Louis Carter studied what factors contribute to a transparent and most-loved workplace and found there’s a clear need for small and mid-sized businesses to have their own evaluation systems. Big brand rating systems are not fully representative of whether employees really believe their workplace is inclusive.
The extreme measures that Google is willing to take in order to protect this program are reminiscent of catastrophic business and regulatory failures from our past. Their effort can even be compared to the now notorious studies completed by special interests like tobacco, sugar, and major environmental polluters. The tobacco industry went to the extent of publishing reports to convince the American public that cigarettes were completely safe, perpetuating a lie that has killed 100 million people around the world.
Gebru’s claim and Google’s flawed response could set the stage for a failure on par with historic atrocities. Proliferation of technology has the power to define and shape language and culture. Google’s intentional effort to silence any news of that bias is at risk of launching the world into a full-scale digital culture genocide.
If you thought “cancel culture” was bad, just imagine having your entire identity, language, and history omitted from the future of humanity because a computer application canceled you. Typeface and font experts have been warning this has been underway for years — entire cultures are being erased because the symbols required to communicate in their language doesn’t even exist.
The worldview of a privileged few has shaped the neural network brain that will decide the future of which cultures survive in our new digital reality. Exposing this dilemma was important enough for Gebru to risk everything. If we all want to eat the same food, speak only one language, dress in one universal uniform, and do virtually everything in robotic form, then we should just roll over and hand Google our individualism now.
Google’s leadership is complicit in helping the machine to eliminate anyone that stands in its way, demonstrating that speed and greed are more important than eliminating bias. The machine may even begin to further marginalize cultures it determines to be irrelevant. Maybe that future is already here, but it’s time for leaders to speak out against Google’s practices before it’s too late.
Dr. Cheryl Ingram is a diversity, equity, and inclusion strategist and founder and CEO of Inclusology and Diverse City LLC.
