Twitter’s management has cut the group of artificial intelligence researchers who worked on transparency and fairness of the social network’s algorithms. The story is reported by Wired.
According to Rumana Chaudhuri, the former director of the META Twitter division, she was among those laid off in the mass layoffs carried out by the new leadership.
A week earlier, she said the group had paused work in light of the forthcoming acquisition of the social network by Elon Musk.
“We were told clearly not to rock the boat,” said Chaudhuri.
She also said that her team had conducted new research into political bias that could help Twitter and other social networks prevent unfair punishments for certain viewpoints.
The information about the layoffs of the entire team was confirmed by senior META division manager Joan Deitchman.
Yep, the team is gone. The team that was researching and pushing for algorithmic transparency and algorithmic choice. The team that was studying algorithmic amplification. The team that was inventing and building ethical AI tooling and methodologies. All that is gone.
— Joan Deitchman @jdeitchman@mastodon.social (@JoanDeitchman) November 4, 2022
Former ML engineer Christian Lam noted that the company had laid off “the entire META team minus one”.
Twitter did not comment on the layoffs.
The META team studied the social network’s AI algorithms for bias and regularly published details of the issues found. The department also allowed external developers to analyse AI models for new errors.
In 2021, Twitter users drew attention to the photo-cropping algorithm, which disproportionately highlighted faces of European descent and young women. META subsequently described the model’s bias in detail and recommended avoiding its use, favouring full-size images in the feed.
The group also launched one of the first bias-challenge competitions in history, enabling external researchers to test the algorithm for other tasks.
In October 2021, Chaudhuri’s team published a report on unintended political biases. The researchers found that right-wing news sources were promoted more than left-wing ones.
In total, about 3,700 employees were попали in the layoffs, which amounted to roughly half the workforce. The company offered severance pay equal to three months’ salary to those laid off.
According to Bloomberg, some former employees asked to return. The publication’s sources say that the company’s executives fired some workers “before management realised the irreplaceability of their experience for implementing new features”.
In March, Elon Musk said he intended to acquire Twitter.
In July, the businessman announced the termination of the deal, accusing the social network of withholding data on fake accounts and overstating the platform’s audience metrics.
Twitter shareholders filed a lawsuit against Musk over the “chaotic process” of the takeover.
In October the billionaire closed the deal to buy the social network.
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