Google

8 safety-motivated departures tracked

Google's safety departures center on the dismantling of its Ethical AI team. In late 2020, co-lead Timnit Gebru was forced out after co-authoring a paper on the harms of large language models. Months later, co-lead Margaret Mitchell was fired after searching for evidence of discrimination in the case. Their departures triggered a wave of protest resignations, including Engineering Director David Baker, who said Gebru's firing 'extinguished my desire to continue as a Googler.' Researchers Alex Hanna and Dylan Baker later left to join Gebru's independent DAIR Institute. Meredith Whittaker had already departed in 2019 citing retaliation for organizing the Google Walkout. In 2023, Geoffrey Hinton — a foundational figure in deep learning — resigned from Google to speak freely about existential AI risk, saying he regretted his life's work. The common thread is research suppression and retaliation against researchers who raised uncomfortable findings about the company's own products.