Apple Machine Learning Director Who Left Over Office Return Policy Joins Google

Ian Goodfellow, the former Apple director of machine learning, resigned from his position due to Apple's refusal to allow employees to work remotely full time. Goodfellow is now working for DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet, according to the report.

DeepMind is a machine learning company that was purchased by the internet giant, and this week the company announced the launch of a multi-modal multi- task artificial intelligence system called Gato. It is not yet clear what Goodfellow's role will be at DeepMind, but prior to Apple, he worked as a research scientist. This could be a big loss for Apple since Goodfellow is one of the foremost machine learning researchers.

Goodfellow wrote a letter to his Apple coworkers explaining that he was leaving the company because of Apple's plan to return to in person work.

In May, Apple required employees to work two days a week in the office, up from one day a week in April. The plan to have employees work in the office three days a week has been pushed back due to a rising number of infections. Employees at Apple are required to work at least two days per week.

A number of Apple employees, including Goodfellow, have been against returning to in-person work, despite the fact that Apple plans to allow them to stay at home two days per week when work schedules are able to get back to normal. In May, a group of employees calling themselves Apple Together wrote a letter to Apple's executive team arguing that the hybrid work plan does not recognize flexible work and is only driven by fear.

Apple employees who are not interested in in-office working policies could be attracted to other technology companies that offer more flexible working options. For example, if you want to work from home, you can, but if you want to work from the office, you have to return to the office.

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