A former Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) scientist Samy Bengio, who had resigned in protest of the firing of two employees, has joined Apple to lead a new AI team.
Bengio is expected to lead a new AI research unit at Apple. The new team will report to John Giannandrea, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.
Bengio’s reported arrival at Apple follows the firings of the co-leaders of Google’s AI ethics team, reports Apple Insider.
On April 6, Bengio announced his resignation from Google after nearly 14 years at the company, saying he was pursuing “other exciting opportunities.”
His last day at the search engine giant was April 28.
In December, the Mountain View firm fired Timnit Gebru, co-founder of the company’s ethical AI team. In February, Google fired Margaret Mitchell, the co-lead and co-founder of the same team. Following the firings, Google announced a restructuring of its AI teams.
Before they departed from Google, Gebru and Mitchell had expressed concerns about the company’s workplace diversity and research review approach.
Bengio voiced support for his two former colleagues and was the highest-ranking Googler to exit the company amidst the fallout.
