Google Protest Leader Meredith Whittaker Leaves, Warns of Company's Unchecked Power

By Mark Bergen
and Joshua Brustein
July 15, 2019, 9:53 PM EDT Updated on July 16, 2019, 5:23 PM EDT

▶ Meredith Whittaker sparked worker uprisings across tech sector
▶ Google gaining power to impact world in ‘dangerous ways’: blog

Meredith Whittaker, who helped lead employee protests at Google over the search giant’s military work, artificial intelligence and policies, is leaving the company.

In a blog, she warned that the internet giant’s AI software and huge computing resources are helping it expand in unsettling ways.

"Google, in the conventional pursuit of quarterly earnings, is gaining significant and largely unchecked power to impact our world (including in profoundly dangerous ways, such as accelerating the extraction of fossil fuels and the deployment of surveillance technology)," she wrote in a blog on Tuesday. "How this vast power is used — who benefits and who bears the risk — is one of the most urgent social and political (and yes, technical) questions of our time."

Whittaker helped spark a broader uprising among workers at some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc. They are concerned these corporations are gaining too much power through AI-powered, machine-based decision making that has flaws and little or no accountability.

Over the past year, some staff at Google erupted in protest, prompting the company to drop a Pentagon AI contract and a censored search project in China. Whittaker, who led Google’s Open Research group, was one of the most outspoken voices. She was one of six women who organized massive walkouts after reports that Google paid handsome sums to executives accused of sexual harassment.

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Meredith Whittaker, AI researcher and an organizer of last year’s Google walkout, is leaving the company

Catherine Shu @catherineshu / 2 days ago

Meredith Whittaker, founder of Google’s Open Research Group and one of the leaders of last year’s employee walkouts, is leaving the company. Google confirmed her departure, which was first disclosed on Twitter by a Google engineer and reported by Bloomberg, but had no additional comment. TechCrunch has also contacted Whittaker for comment.

Update 9:09 am PT: Whittaker has since posted on Medium about her departure.

“The reasons I’m leaving aren’t a mystery,” she wrote. “I’m committed to the AI Now Institute, to my AI ethics work, and to organizing for an accountable tech industry — and it’s clear Google isn’t a place where I can continue this work.”

Whittaker and another one of the walkout’s organizers, Claire Stapleton, said they had faced retaliation from Google after the protest. Other employees also claimed that they had experienced fallout as a result of their participation, which Google denied.

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