- OpenAI’s new board has drawn criticism for only consisting of white men.
- One name that’s been floated to join it is ex-Google researcher and AI ethics expert Timnit Gebru.
- However, Gebru told Wired she found the idea “repulsive.”
The new OpenAI board has drawn criticism for its lack of diversity, as it’s currently comprised of three white men. One name that’s been floated to join the board is prominent AI researcher Timnit Gebru.
The only problem is, it’s a hard pass from her.
Gebru, who was fired from Google in 2020 after writing a paper that pointed out biases in AI, shared her thoughts about joining OpenAI’s board with Wired on Tuesday: “It’s repulsive to me.”
“I honestly think there’s more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won’t have me and I won’t have them—than me going to OpenAI,” she added.
“I just feel like the person on the board would have a horrible time because they will constantly be fighting an uphill battle,” Gebru said.
Following Sam Altman’s dramatic ousting and return to OpenAI, the company announced that its new board would consist of former treasury secretary Larry Summers, former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor, and Quora cofounder Adam D’Angelo. The new board will consider candidates to fill an expanded board of nine members, according to The Verge.
Since her departure from Google in 2020, the 40-year-old has led the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. In March, she and other AI experts wrote a letter criticizing AI companies for being overly focused on the hypothetical threat of advanced AI, instead of curbing real issues caused by the technology, like misinformation and nonconsensual use of data.
