Machine learning chief leaves Apple in protest

Apple’s chief executive for machine learning, scientist Ian Goodfellow, is said to have left Apple. That reports a reporter from tech site The Verge. Goodfellow would disagree with policies requiring staff to return to the office.

Goodfellow works at Apple in the Special Projects group and is said to have announced his departure in an internal email, reports The Verge reporter. Goodfellow is a well-known scientist in the field of machine learning and was one of the founders of Generative Adversarial Network, a machine learning technique in which two neural networks compete against each other. He previously worked at Google on, among other things, processing photos in Google Street View.

The scientist has resigned, according to Schiffer, because of Apple’s policy that employees must return to the office three days a week. “I strongly believe that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team,” he said in an internal email announcing his resignation. Goodfellow and Apple have not confirmed the departure.

Apple’s US headquarters staff have largely been working from home since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The company’s policy is that staff must work in the office three days a week for a five-day work week. The company says it does this to enable physical collaboration between colleagues. By requiring employees to be in the office, they are more likely to meet each other by chance and thus give each other better ideas. In addition, some employees would miss each other when working from home. Apple employees united in an organization called the management in an open letter to waive the policy. According to them, office duty is bad for Apple, for employees and ultimately for customers.