Google only built the Ethical AI team to placate internal criticism of its attempts to sell AI tech to the Department of Defense and building a search engine for China with censorship built-in. They were supposed to be window-dressing, not actually rock the boat, so when they did they were culled.
Since they are not contributing to the bottom line, directly or indirectly, the disaffection in the team couldn't matter less to management. They cleverly appointed a black woman VP to neuter the group without the bad optics of the initial firing of Ms. Gebru, and I expect the remainder of the team will in the not-so-distant future be reassigned or let go, and replaced by a new cast of ethnically diverse yes-people who will produce lots of impressive-sounding papers but not any criticism of substance.
Since they are not contributing to the bottom line, directly or indirectly, the disaffection in the team couldn't matter less to management. They cleverly appointed a black woman VP to neuter the group without the bad optics of the initial firing of Ms. Gebru, and I expect the remainder of the team will in the not-so-distant future be reassigned or let go, and replaced by a new cast of ethnically diverse yes-people who will produce lots of impressive-sounding papers but not any criticism of substance.