Google has cracked down on posts by a star AI researcher who made controversial comments about transgender people and accused some colleagues of antisemitism, according to a report.
Noam Shazeer – who became co-lead on development of Google’s flagship AI models after the tech giant bought his startup Character.AI for $2.7 billion – reportedly miffed colleagues with his posts this spring on a thread about International Transgender Day of Visibility.
“I do not believe that humans have an attribute called gender,” Shazeer wrote, news site the Information reported Friday. “I do not believe that G-d puts people in the wrong bodies. I do not believe that it is okay to sterilize children. You have the right to your beliefs. I do not share them.”
The post drew pushback from multiple coworkers, with Shazeer’s manager at the time, Jeff Dean, among those who reportedly called him out.
“Noam, you don’t have to agree with all positions others express, but as leaders, supporting our whole community of employees is something that we should be doing, not creating environments that don’t show this support for everyone,” Dean was quoted as stating to Shazeer.
David Silver, a top employee at Google’s DeepMind division, also took exception, writing: “leadership is a privilege and the words we speak matter.”
Shazeer’s post was later deleted by internal moderators, according to the Infromation. He is not expected to face disciplinary action.
Last year, he reportedly got kicked off an internal communication channel following complaints about his antisemitism allegations against colleagues, according to the Information.
Shazeer reportedly clashed with coworkers who were upset that Google had relaxed its rules against developing AI that could be used for military or surveillance purposes. The employees were concerned that Google’s technology could be used by Israel in its war against Hamas.
Shazeer, who is Jewish, frequently accused coworkers who criticized Google over the policy change of being antisemitic, according to the Information, which cited current and former employees.
Plans for Google workers to hold a lunch meeting at the firm’s London office drew a sarcastic remark from the AI guru, who is said to be friendly with Google’s cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.
“LOL – you have found a way to take your anitsemitic Israel-bashing club offline where I can’t call you out on it,” he was quoted as saying.
Moderators reportedly removed Shazeer from the internal communications channel on which the exchanges had been taking place.
Google declined to comment.
The company has an internal policy barring “discussions that make other Googlers feel like they don’t belong or have no place here” on its message boards, including “making statements that insult, demean, or humiliate (whether individually or by reference to groups) other employees,” according to a document viewed by the Information.
Last year, the tech giant cracked down on posts related to the Israel-Hamas war that some employees considered antisemitic. The move led some Arab and Muslim employees to say their speech was being stifled.
In 2024, Google also fired more than two dozen employees who staged disruptive sit-ins at offices in New York and California.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has warned employees not to discuss politics in the workplace.
In a lengthy memo last year, he said Google “is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts co-workers or makes them feel unsafe, to attempt to use the company as a personal platform, or to fight over disruptive issues or debate politics.”
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