Michael Shellenberger Profile picture
Feb 28, 2024 3 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Google says it's politically neutral, but it's not. It got out the vote for Clinton, donated 90% to Democrats, and fired an engineer for criticizing DEI. And now we've discovered that its CEO promised to use AI to counter "fake news," racism, and populism in response to Trump. Image
Google CEO Pledged To Use AI To Counter “Fake News,” Racism, And Populism After Trump Victory

Tech giant supported a get-out-the-vote effort to help Hillary Clinton, donated 90% to Democrats, and fired an employee for questioning DEI
Alphabet Inc. and Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks during the inauguration of a Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) hub in Paris on February 15, 2024. (Photo by ALAIN JOCARD / AFP) (Photo by ALAIN JOCARD/AFP via Getty Images)

Google CEO Sundar Pichai today addressed public upset with its AI chatbot, Gemini, for its political bias. “I want to address the recent issues with problematic text and image responses in the Gemini app (formerly Bard),” he wrote. “I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias – to be clear, that’s completely unacceptable and we got it wrong.”

But Google’s bias has been on public display since August 2017, when Pichai fired a Google employee named James Damore for writing a ten-page memo criticizing the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, particularly its “Bias-Busting” training.

And the partisan bias of Google was expressed a few days after voters elected Donald Trump as president during an “all hands” employee meeting. “It’s been an extraordinarily stressful time for many of you,” Pichai said to Google employees. “I certainly find this election deeply offensive,” said Google cofounder Sergey Brin, “and I know many of you do too.”

One Google executive nearly started crying when recounting that Trump won. “It was this massive kick in the gut that we were gonna lose,” she said. “And it was really painful.”

Pichai struck a more neutral political tone in comparison to his colleagues. “We are in a democratic system,” he said. “I think part of the reason the outcome ended up the way it is is [because] people don't feel heard across both sides.”

But after a Google employee suggested that Trump won due to “misinformation” and “fake news coming from fake news websites being shared by millions of low-information voters on social media,” Pichai specifically pointed to the use of artificial intelligence to achieve the aim of countering “misinformation.”

“I think our investments in machine learning and AI is a big opportunity here,” he said. Machine learning is a form of AI.

Pichai then suggested that Google was already manipulating search results.Image
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More from @shellenberger

Mar 20
Free Speech Diplomacy, R.I.P.

March 3, 2025 - March 19, 2025
“We must stop censorship and suppression of information.” @SecRubio 💯🎯

I miss that guy
Read 10 tweets
Mar 18
Every single Trump advisor, including and especially @StephenM, knows perfectly well that what they did is unconstitutional.
It's up to the courts not the Administration to determine whether it is non-justiciable. The administration must comply with the order until a higher court reverses it or sets it aside. That's how our system works.
If the Trump administration continues with these obviously unconstitutional actions, then it will lose the legitimacy, public support, and power it needs to pursue free speech diplomacy, which would be a very disappointing outcome @SecRubio @marcorubio

Read 6 tweets
Mar 17
There's no proof of major waste, fraud, or abuse in govt spending, say the media. But there is. And now Public has obtained invoices revealing that a major contractor overcharged the Ed. Dept, paid its CEO $2M/year, and promoted debunked research as student performance declined. Image
US Education Department Contractor Overcharged Taxpayers While Spending Millions On Executive Salaries

As student math and reading scores declined, the American Institute of Research charged 50% in indirect costs and paid its CEO over $2 million

by @galexybrane and @shellenberger

Over the last few weeks, the media and Democrats have been lambasting President Donald Trump for cutting the Department of Education’s research budget. In particular, the media criticized the Trump administration for cutting a contractor’s research into support services for students with disabilities who are nearing graduation.

But it’s not clear that the research was necessary or successful, and there is already both state and federal funding aimed at helping students with disabilities to develop life skills and plans for the future.

And now Public has obtained invoices showing that the Department’s contractor for the research in question, American Institute for Research (AIR), had significantly overcharged the Department in so-called indirect costs.

The invoice is from November 18, 2024, and shows AIR billing the Department $411,961.35 for the month of October 2024. Of that money, $214,952.74 was in “total indirects.” AIR charged an additional $26,950.74 as a 7% fee.

The invoice shows that the cumulative amount that AIR had billed the Department of Education was $10,957,275.73, of which $4,993,376.12 was total indirects and $716,831.18 was total additional fees.

A second invoice is from January 15, 2025, and shows AIR billing the Department $60,913.72 for the month of December 2024. Of that money, $29,685.23 was in total indirects. AIR charged an additional $3,985.01 as a 7% fee.

The invoice shows that the cumulative amount that AIR had billed the Department of Education was $11,076,493.79, of which $5,028,446.77 was total indirects and $724,630.48 was total additional fees.

In response to questions from Public, an AIR spokesperson said, “AIR’s indirect rates are similar to those of other social and behavioral research organizations and we have always abided by our approved rates. For government contractors, indirect costs include such costs as information technology, data security, and compliance and reporting.”

However, 50% in indirect fees is widely considered excessive. The National Institutes of Health recently required that its contractors lower indirect costs to 15% to reduce widespread overcharging.

Indeed, when asked about the invoice, a spokesperson for the Department of Education condemned the high fees. “Contracts with indirect rates over 50% take gross advantage of taxpayer dollars, perverting the reason the contracts exist — our students,” said Department spokesperson Madison Biedermann. “Incoming leadership will no longer allow these unacceptable terms.”

According to AIR’s IRS 990 form, the total compensation of AIR’s chief executive, David Myers, in the most recent year available, 2023, was $2,241,374.

“At the end of 2023, David Myers finished a 14-year tenure as AIR’s President and Chief Executive Officer,” said the AIR spokesperson. “His compensation for his final year included a retention payment. The salary for our current President and CEO is lower and in line with what other non-profit organizations of our size and type pay their chief executives.”

However, AIR’s tax forms showed that Myers earned $2,294,637 in 2022 and $1,145,400 in 2021.

Jessica Heppen is the current president and CEO. In 2023, she earned $685,060 as president. Neither Heppen nor Myers responded to Public’s request for comment.

AIR’s 990 form shows other high salaries for staff and fees for board members. AIR’s Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer, earned $931,610 in 2023, and its CFO earned $1,145,400 in 2022. A member of the AIR Board, Robert Boruch, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, received $80,250 in 2023 for just 2 hours of work per week, which is $772 per hour.

While nonprofit board members typically donate their time, 14 of AIR’s board members received hundreds of dollars per hour for their service. None responded to requests by Public for comment.

AIR’s fees should be considered in the broader context of declining student performance and AIR’s role to provide research that improves student performance.

Today, only 31% of fourth graders and only 30% of eighth graders are reading at or above proficiency levels, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). In eighth grade reading, 33% of students scored “below basic,” the highest percentage recorded in the NAEP’s history.

Congress established the Education Department in 1979 “to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”

Student performance has declined across the board over the last 10 years. While Covid school closures significantly worsened them, math and reading scores declined for fourth- and eighth-graders nationwide from 2014 to 2024.

AIR appears to be partly responsible. It gave a favorable evaluation to Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study curriculum, which used elements of the now-debunked “whole language” approach to reading instead of systematic phonics instruction.

Under the whole language approach, teachers taught children to memorize whole words and use guessing strategies instead of sounding out individual sounds in unfamiliar words.

The failure of the whole language approach was precisely why the Department of Education hires groups like AIR. The goal of research is to discover which teaching methods work and which don’t before schools adopt them. That didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite did. The result was a whole generation of children robbed of fundamental literacy.

“It is absolutely inaccurate to say we ‘gave a favorable evaluation’ to Units of Study,” said AIR.

But the evaluation was clearly positive. Implementation of the curriculum, AIR’s report stated, “is associated with improvements in ELA [English Language Arts] achievement starting in the second year of implementation, and in schools that opt to continue with the approach long term, the magnitude of the effects grow larger over time.”

And even AIR noted, in its email to Public, “We found no positive effect in the first year of implementation, then saw positive effects in subsequent years for some schools.”

Other Department contractors had much lower indirect rates. Why was AIR able to charge so much?

If you're not already a subscriber, please subscribe now to support Public's award-winning investigative reporting, read the rest of the article, and watch the full video!

x.com/shellenberger/…
RECEIPTSImage
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Read 4 tweets
Mar 16
The former head of the UK's foreign intelligence agency, MI6, told Boris Johnson in early 2020 that the Covid virus escaped from the Wuhan lab. That means that the US, UK, Chinese, & German governments all knew the truth, covered it up, and spread disinformation. Case closed. Image
"It is now beyond reasonable doubt that Covid-19 was engineered in Wuhan Institute of Virology... [China] is now engaged in an information & influence operation (IO) to deflect responsibility....the Journal Nature was used to promulgate the narrative..."

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…
The newly released memo coauthored by the former head of MI6 is focused on how the Nature "Proximal Origin" paper was used to promote China's natural spillover narrative.

We reported in 2023 on hundreds of previously unreleased email and Slack direct messages which cover the period when Kristian Andersen and his colleagues collaborated to write “Proximal Origin."

They show that Andersen and his colleagues clearly thought it was indeed possible not only that the virus that causes Covid-19 had leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but specifically that it had been cultured in the laboratory.

The documents make clear that pressure from “higher ups” — not “additional data, analyses, learning more about coronaviruses, and discussions with colleagues and collaborators” — led Andersen, Garry, and two of their coauthors to abandon the lab leak theory as implausible.

What’s more, the messages reveal that Andersen still suspected that a lab leak was possible in mid-April, a month after Nature Medicine officially published “Proximal Origin,” and two months after the authors published a preprint.

If the paper’s authors weren’t fully convinced that no culturing was possible, why did they rule out “any type of laboratory-based scenario” in their paper?

If the consensus opinion of the scientists across dozens of their initial emails and messages had to be summarized in a single phrase, it would be the name of the Slack channel: “project-wuhan_engineering.”

The name showed just how probable they felt it was that the virus came from a lab.

Then, on February 6, something strange happened. Andersen changed the name of the Slack channel from “project-wuhan_engineering” to “project-wuhan_pangolin.”

x.com/shellenberger/…
Read 4 tweets
Mar 3
Zelensky says he wants the war to end, but he’s not acting like it. Friday he dismissed the US ceasefire as unworkable. Saturday he had European leaders affirm his position. And now he says the end of the war is “very, very far away.” Feels like we’re being played. Image
If Zelensky’s strategy is to alienate the American people, and the president they just elected, one day before he addresses Congress, it’s working. Image
Even The Guardian now gets it:

“On Friday, in the Oval Office, Zelenskyy contested Trump’s stance. The Ukrainian president stated flatly: “We will never accept just [a] ceasefire. It will not work without security guarantees.” Zelenskyy maintained that strong security guarantees had to come from the US, not just Europe. A European military force, he said, would not work unless the US provided a significant backstop: ‘They need USA.’

“In short, Zelenskyy insisted he would not agree to a ceasefire, because Russia would not honor it, unless the US provided precisely what Trump had seemingly already ruled out.Image
Read 4 tweets
Mar 1
Zelenskyy says he’s grateful for US support but he acts entitled to it. He still hasn’t apologized for his behavior. And now he’s demanding the US do more. Zelensky, like Europe, doesn’t respect us. And relationships without mutual respect can’t last. Image
People say The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in 1994 provided security assurances, but it did not include a binding defense commitment. Even pro-war voices admit the US is not legally obligated to defend Ukraine militarily under the Budapest Memorandum. Image
Image
Image
To the people defending Zelenskyy: watch the full video. His behavior perfectly encapsulates the disrespect, dislike, and even contempt the majority of Europeans hold toward Americans.
Read 5 tweets

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