How Google’s Switch Transformer Started An Ethical Debate

OpenAI's GPT 3 has more or less taken over the tech world regarding language models, but earlier this year, Google introduced its NLP model Switch Transformers. Along with improved parameters, this model was supplemented by an ethics debate and job firings.  In February, Google's Ethical Team leader Margaret Mitchell was fired from Google just a few months after her co-leader Timnit Gebru exited the company. This is supposedly over a paper about the real-world dangers of large language models that they co-wrote. Considering that this move was right around the corner with the release of the Switch Transformer, the situation gave rise to a significant ethics debate.  Google's ethics in the AI research unit has been under scrutiny since December's dismissal of Gebru. Gebru's e