Google's DeepMind research lab took nearly a year for firing researcher accused of sexual misconduct

(Image Courtesy: DeepMind/Google)

An ex-employee from Google's DeepMind AI research lab posted an open letter on Medium, where she accused the company of waiting months before firing a researcher she had filed a formal complaint against.

As reported by Financial Times, the letter details her complaint against the researcher, who she says sexually harassed her for months. She says she was subject to lewd messages and several inappropriate advances from the senior researcher.

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The employee had formally reported the researcher to the HR in December 2019 but it took till October 2020, before the senior researcher was dismissed. In the interim, the researcher faced no suspensions and received an award leaving the employee fearing for her safety.

Speaking with The Verge, the ex-employee said that the case took ten months to resolve. In a statement given to the publication, she said that DeepMind argued that the case was closed in seven months but, "that’s when the appeal finished, though the disciplinary hearing took another 2 months, and involved more rounds of interviews for me.”

She said that regardless of it was seven months or ten, "it was far, far too long."

Google's DeepMind also had a non-disclosure policy, which prevented the employee from talking to colleagues or managers. She said the HR managers told her that she would face disciplinary action if she spoke to anyone else. Her manager also required her to attend meetings with the senior researcher in the interim.

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“DeepMind takes all allegations of workplace misconduct extremely seriously and we place our employees’ safety at the core of any actions we take,” said DeepMind's Laura Anderson in a statement to The Verge.

“The allegations were investigated thoroughly, and the individual who was investigated for misconduct was dismissed without any severance payments... We’re sorry that our former employee experienced what they did and we recognise that they found the process difficult.”