According to the Financial Times, a former employee of DeepMind, Google’s AI research division, accuses the company’s human resources department of purposely delaying its reaction to her complaints about sexual misconduct in the workplace.
The former employee (who goes by Julia to protect her identity) claims she was sexually harassed by a senior researcher for months while working at the London-based company in an open letter published on Medium. She was allegedly subjected to a slew of sexual offers and improper communications throughout this period, including ones that detailed past sexual crimes against women and threats of self-harm.
Julia contacted the company’s HR and grievance staff in August 2019 to describe her meetings with the senior researcher, and she filed a formal complaint in December. According to reports, the researcher in question would not be fired until October 2020. During the course of HR’s investigation into Julia’s allegation, he received no disciplinary action and was even granted a company award, leaving Julia fearful for her — and her other female coworkers’ — safety.
Despite the fact that the Financial Times reported that Julia’s case was not fully handled until seven months after she first reported the wrongdoing, Julia told The Verge that the entire procedure took her ten months. She alleges that DeepMind’s public relations staff utilized “semantics” to “push back” on the Financial Times report and cut the time it took to publish.
Julia claims two distinct HR supervisors told her she would risk “disciplinary action” if she spoke out about her case, in addition to believing it was “deliberately dragged out.” Despite being “partially” aware of her report, her manager allegedly asked her to attend meetings with the senior researcher as well, according to the Financial Times. Julia did not sign a non-disclosure agreement, but many other DeepMind personnel did.
The responses to the letter published was not very favourable and the employee believes that the company is trying discredit her and salvage their own reputation.
DeepMind has been criticized in the past for its treatment of staff. According to a Bloomberg story from 2019, Mustafa Suleyman, popularly known as “Moose,” the co-founder of DeepMind, was placed on administrative leave due to the controversy surrounding some of his initiatives. Later that year, Suleyman departed the company to join Google. Suleyman was stripped of his management responsibilities in 2019 for allegedly intimidating employees, according to a Wall Street Journal report from 2021. At the time, Google also started an investigation into his actions, but the results were never made public.
