Timnit Gebru
@timnitgebru.bsky.social
Personal Account
Founder: The Distributed AI Research Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social.
Author: The View from Somewhere, a memoir & manifesto arguing for a technological future that serves our communities (to be published by One Signal / Atria
Founder: The Distributed AI Research Institute @dairinstitute.bsky.social.
Author: The View from Somewhere, a memoir & manifesto arguing for a technological future that serves our communities (to be published by One Signal / Atria
About being hired at OpenAI though, I stand by my words 😂
“It’s repulsive to me,” says Gebru. “I honestly think there’s more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won’t have me and I won’t have them—than me going to OpenAI.”
www.wired.com/story/women-...
“It’s repulsive to me,” says Gebru. “I honestly think there’s more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won’t have me and I won’t have them—than me going to OpenAI.”
www.wired.com/story/women-...
Prominent Women in Tech Say They Don't Want to Join OpenAI's All-Male Board
After internal chaos earlier this month, OpenAI replaced the women on its board with men. As it plans to add more seats, Timnit Gebru, Sasha Luccioni, and other AI luminaries tell WIRED why they would...
www.wired.com
November 26, 2025 at 10:58 PM
About being hired at OpenAI though, I stand by my words 😂
“It’s repulsive to me,” says Gebru. “I honestly think there’s more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won’t have me and I won’t have them—than me going to OpenAI.”
www.wired.com/story/women-...
“It’s repulsive to me,” says Gebru. “I honestly think there’s more of a chance that I would go back to Google—I mean, they won’t have me and I won’t have them—than me going to OpenAI.”
www.wired.com/story/women-...
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
I think there's an interesting study of media to be done looking at who gets labeled an "expert" and who gets labeled a "skeptic". Certainly for coverage of "AI", but I wonder if there are other topics that would make interesting comparisons.
November 25, 2025 at 1:41 PM
"Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something" 🙄 lol but you're a "skeptic" not the scientist. They're so insidious
November 25, 2025 at 10:08 PM
"Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something" 🙄 lol but you're a "skeptic" not the scientist. They're so insidious
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
In sum, this work is not only a methodological account but a proposal for reorienting AI research toward worker-led knowledge rather than extraction.
Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Methodological Considerations for Centering Workers’ Epistemic Authority in AI Research
| Proceedings of the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society
ojs.aaai.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
In sum, this work is not only a methodological account but a proposal for reorienting AI research toward worker-led knowledge rather than extraction.
Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Read the full article here: ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AI...
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
Finally, WIRM fosters what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" embedded in the material conditions and collective struggles of their class. It cultivates networks of solidarity and tools for analysis generated from within worker communities.
See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/
See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/
Organizing Across Borders, by Joan Kinyua
The Data Labelers Association is developing mutual support structures and fighting for better working conditions. This inquiry recounts our path to founding it and acknowledges our ongoing partnership...
data-workers.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Finally, WIRM fosters what Gramsci called "organic intellectuals" embedded in the material conditions and collective struggles of their class. It cultivates networks of solidarity and tools for analysis generated from within worker communities.
See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/
See for instance: data-workers.org/DLA/
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
Second, we bring this approach into the AI domain. WIRM provides a way to illuminate the human labor underpinning AI systems while allowing workers to define the terms of that illumination.
Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries
Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries
Data Workers' Inquiry - Data Workers' Inquiry
Data Workers' Inquiry
data-workers.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Second, we bring this approach into the AI domain. WIRM provides a way to illuminate the human labor underpinning AI systems while allowing workers to define the terms of that illumination.
Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries
Our repository is proof of that: data-workers.org#Inquiries
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
First, we systematize Workers’ Inquiry as a Research Methodology (WIRM). We focus on its political grounding, its architecture, and its operationalization, offering a step-by-step guide, examples, and a discussion of challenges and tensions.
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
First, we systematize Workers’ Inquiry as a Research Methodology (WIRM). We focus on its political grounding, its architecture, and its operationalization, offering a step-by-step guide, examples, and a discussion of challenges and tensions.
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
Workers’ inquiry operates both as a research strategy and a political practice: a way to produce situated knowledge, reveal structures of exploitation, create space for workers to theorize their own conditions, and, crucially, to organize.
Our contributions are several:
Our contributions are several:
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Workers’ inquiry operates both as a research strategy and a political practice: a way to produce situated knowledge, reveal structures of exploitation, create space for workers to theorize their own conditions, and, crucially, to organize.
Our contributions are several:
Our contributions are several:
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
To address this challenge, we turned to the long tradition of workers’ inquiry: from Marx’s 1880 questionnaire, through Italian workerism and the mid-century autonomist movements, to contemporary scholars such as @karengregory.bsky.social and @jamiewoodcock.com.
www.marxists.org/history/etol...
www.marxists.org/history/etol...
Karl Marx: A Workers' Inquiry (1880)
Karl Marx: A Workers' Inquiry (1880)
www.marxists.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
To address this challenge, we turned to the long tradition of workers’ inquiry: from Marx’s 1880 questionnaire, through Italian workerism and the mid-century autonomist movements, to contemporary scholars such as @karengregory.bsky.social and @jamiewoodcock.com.
www.marxists.org/history/etol...
www.marxists.org/history/etol...
Reposted by Timnit Gebru
My aim with DWI was to develop a research process in which data workers could shape research agendas, interpretive frameworks, and conceptual categories.
The challenge was how to do this methodologically, beyond extractive social science conventions.
data-workers.org/about/how-to...
The challenge was how to do this methodologically, beyond extractive social science conventions.
data-workers.org/about/how-to...
How We Made Data Workers' Inquiry, by Milagros Miceli
This piece traces how Data Workers‘ Inquiry came to life: not as a project with clear answers, but as a messy, stubborn attempt to put research in the hands of the people living the realities research...
data-workers.org
November 25, 2025 at 3:37 PM
My aim with DWI was to develop a research process in which data workers could shape research agendas, interpretive frameworks, and conceptual categories.
The challenge was how to do this methodologically, beyond extractive social science conventions.
data-workers.org/about/how-to...
The challenge was how to do this methodologically, beyond extractive social science conventions.
data-workers.org/about/how-to...