I am reluctant to accuse Jeff Dean of bad faith, but this argument doesn't scan. I've been on the inside of an AI team during a crisis and then seen how senior management spun details to obfuscate critical details to avoid responsibility. Dean is slandering Gebru in a manner that will make it easier to dismiss her work and the work of other AI ethicists (especially women and bipoc) in the future. He and Google are actually themselves guilty of a lacking rigor (i.e. ethical rigor). Worst of all, I expect that racists inside Google and the wider industry will utilize this argumentative structure in the service of neutralizing ethicists and bipoc in the future. This is truly despicable. I used to be a great admirer of Jeff Dean.