The launch of the AI research institute timed with the anniversary of Timnit Gebru’s ouster from Google.

In a bid to free AI research “from Big Tech’s pervasive influence,” prominent AI research scientist Dr Timnit Gebru has launched an independent research institute on the first anniversary of her tumultous ouster from Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL). The Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (DAIR) seeks to be an independent space where researchers can undo the harm done by AI to minority groups such as through biased technology. (The Washington Post)

At Google, Gebru was the high profile co-head of its Ethical AI group. She was fired a year ago by the tech giant because of a controversial research paper she wrote that put in a negative light the company’s work on AI language models.

The DAIR AI lab will create a “community-rooted” environment that is independent from the structures and systems that incentivize profit over ethics and individual well-being. “Instead of fighting from the inside, I want to show a model for an independent institution with a different set of incentive structures,” said Gebru, who is founder and executive director of DAIR.

The MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Kapor Center, Open Society Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation have funded DAIR to the extent of $3.7 million.

“AI needs to be brought back down to earth,” said Gebru separately in a statement. “It has been elevated to a superhuman level that leads us to believe it is both inevitable and beyond our control. When AI research, development and deployment is rooted in people and communities from the start, we can get in front of these harms and create a future that values equity and humanity.”

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Image of Timnit Gebru by TechCrunch: Flickr