--- description: Find out why Margaret Mitchell is one of the 100 most influential people of 2023. title: Margaret Mitchell: The 100 Most Influential People of 2023 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb929bda6a3239fa/698a3bedd075333b5de6deb0/Margaret-Mitchell-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Apr 13, 2023 # Margaret Mitchell by Billy Perrigo  Margaret Mitchell, a former lead researcher at Google, in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Monday, April 19, 2021\. The ouster of Mitchell followed years of friction over how Google handled allegations of harassment and bias. Photographer: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty Images Margaret Mitchell, a former lead researcher at Google, in the Phinney Ridge neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Monday, April 19, 2021\. The ouster of Mitchell followed years of friction over how Google handled allegations of harassment and bias. Photographer: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesChona Kasinger—Bloomberg/Getty Images Most AI discourse takes a distinctly utopian or dystopian view of the future. Margaret Mitchell, one of the leading figures in AI ethics, subscribes to a third camp: that [AI](https://time.com/6255952/ai-impact-chatgpt-microsoft-google/ "undefined") is not as powerful as many people claim, and that talk of its hastening the end of the world actually (if perversely) helps the companies promoting it. In 2020, Mitchell co-authored an influential paper that argued AIs like [ChatGPT](https://time.com/6263022/what-to-know-about-chatgpt-4/ "undefined") are little more than high-powered autocomplete tools, which often result in the further entrenchment of societal inequality. Google fired Mitchell and her co-author Timnit Gebru in the fallout from that paper’s publication. Now Mitchell is the chief AI ethics scientist at [Hugging Face, an open-source AI platform](https://time.com/6189865/online-safety-ai-image-tools/ "undefined") where independent researchers—not just the world’s biggest AI companies—can build and launch AI tools. On this potentially risky new frontier, Mitchell is pioneering new forms of AI guardrails, at the same time as acting as a leading critic of unaccountable tech power in the AI debate. _Perrigo is a TIME staff writer_ Margaret Mitchell Is on the 2023 TIME 100 List ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/"},"headline":"Margaret Mitchell","datePublished":"2023-04-13T11:07:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:22:03.369Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/","keywords":["TIME 100","franchise","sponsorshipblock","TIME100 2023","T100Pioneers2023"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb929bda6a3239fa/698a3bedd075333b5de6deb0/Margaret-Mitchell-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"creator":"TIME Staff","articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteb929bda6a3239fa/698a3bedd075333b5de6deb0/Margaret-Mitchell-time-100-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/","name":"Margaret Mitchell"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"TIME100 | The 100 Most Influential People of 2023","description":"See all the people on Time's 2023 Time 100 list","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/P6RIsapV/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2023-04-13T10:30:00.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/P6RIsapV.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/","duration":"PT1M53S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/collections/100-most-influential-people-2023/6270780/margaret-mitchell/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```