Timnit Gebru

Computer scientist who founded the Distributed AI Research Institute after leaving Google in 2020; she warns that large language models cause present harms — bias, worker exploitation, concentrated power — and calls extinction talk a distraction.

Roles

2017 – 2018Postdoctoral researcher, FATE group, Microsoft ResearchSource →
2018 – Dec 2020Co-lead, Ethical Artificial Intelligence team, GoogleDeparture in December 2020 followed Google's refusal to let the "Stochastic Parrots" paper be published under its name.Source →
2 Dec 2021 – presentFounder and Executive Director, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR)Her book "Deep Unlearning" (Atria/One Signal, Simon & Schuster) is scheduled for 16 February 2027.Source →

On the record

13 Aug 2026 · Interview · Democracy Now!
These chatbots, like Claude or ChatGPT, are designed to make you believe that there's some sort of superhuman brain behind whatever is outputting these texts.
Founder and Executive Director, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) at the time
She added that "the path we're on right now was never a preordained path that we had to be on."
"Deep Unlearning": Timnit Gebru on AI Hype, Ethics & Algorithmic Racial Bias →
14 Apr 2024 · Paper · First Monday
the normative framework that motivates much of this goal is rooted in the Anglo-American eugenics tradition of the twentieth century
Founder and Executive Director, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) at the time
With Émile P. Torres; argues the AGI project concentrates power while harming marginalised groups.
The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence →
31 Mar 2023 · Statement · DAIR Institute
It is dangerous to distract ourselves with a fantasized AI-enabled utopia or apocalypse which promises either a "flourishing" or "potentially catastrophic" future. … The harms from so-called AI are real and present and follow from the acts of people and corporations deploying automated systems.
Founder and Executive Director, Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) at the time
Joint statement with Emily M. Bender and Angelina McMillan-Major responding to the Future of Life Institute's pause letter.
Statement from the listed authors of Stochastic Parrots on the "AI pause" letter →
Mar 2021 · Paper · ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (FAccT '21)
A methodology that relies on datasets too large to document is therefore inherently risky.
From "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" (Bender, Gebru, McMillan-Major, Shmitchell); the sentence was quoted from the draft by MIT Technology Review on 4 December 2020, the week Google forced her out.
We read the paper that forced Timnit Gebru out of Google. Here's what it says. →