Apple hires former Google AI scientist Samy Bengio who resigned after colleagues' firing

Apple on Monday hired Samy Bengio, a former acclaimed AI scientist who had resigned in protest of Google's firing of two employees amid the ethics fallout. Bengio had ended his 14-year career with Google after the tech giant made the controversial decision of firing two women workers who reported under him, namely Timnit Gebru, co-founder of the company's ethical AI team, and Margaret Mitchell, the co-lead and co-founder of the same team. According to multiple reports, Google had said that it was restructuring its AI teams, while the fired employees expressed concerns about Google’s workplace diversity. 

As Bengio exited the firm in defiance of Google’s decision, Gebru tweeted: "Finally thank you to Samy Bengio for creating space and cover for us to do this type of work. He protects me a lot behind the scenes.”

In a statement, cited by Bloomberg, Apple Inc. said that it hired Bengio who will lead the new AI research unit at Apple and will work under former colleague John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy. It added that the Canadian computer scientist has had a pivotal role in advancing the deep-learning algorithms that shape the future of the AI. Bengio’s younger brother Yoshua Bengio is also an AI researcher, who is employed at Universite de Montreal. Apple however declined to reveal Bengio’s new role. 

Worked on Google’s 'deep learning AI'

The key manager of Google Brain, Bengio had departed Google on April 28, 2021, after he announced his formal resignation,  questioning Google’s dismissal of ethics researcher Gebru, whom the firm allegedly asked to leave after she requested details of a retracted paper. The former was employed with technical co-lead of the Ethical AI Team and worked for algorithmic bias and data mining. Meanwhile her co-worker Margaret Mitchell was fired after she allegedly transferred electronic files out of the company database. Bengio had joined Google in 2007. He worked on Google’s deep learning AI and worked on products like search and speech.

“This is one of the most difficult emails I can think of sending to all of you: I have decided to leave Google in order to pursue other exciting opportunities,” read contents of Bengio's email to his Google research team, obtained by CNBC. “There’s no doubt that leaving this wonderful team is really difficult,” the former Google employee had said.