A lawsuit is alleging Amazon was so desperate to keep up with the competition in generative AI it was willing to breach its own copyright rules. accusing the tech and retail mega-corp of demoting, and then dismissing, a former high-flying AI scientist after it discovered she was pregnant.
According to Ghaderi's account in the complaint, she returned to work after giving birth in January 2023, inheriting a large language model project. Part of her role was flagging violations of Amazon's internal copyright policies and escalating these concerns to the in-house legal team. In March 2023, the filing claims, her team director, Andrey Styskin, challenged Ghaderi to understand why Amazon was not meeting its goals on Alexa search quality.
According to the complaint, she joined the technology giant as a program manager in 2018 and received glowing appraisals. Although she left to join a startup in February 2021, Ghaderi was rehired by Amazon"based on her strong performance and relationships with colleagues." Ghaderi claims Krishnakumar later pressured her into delaying the start of her maternity leave from the planned date of November 7. Agreeing to the request, she worked until November 15, 2022,"the day she was forced to undergo an emergency C-section," according to the filing.
In March 2023, she complained to HR about the review, and the failure to reinstate her in the role she had been promised. After a meeting with Styskin and Krishnakumar, she again complained to HR that the"work context/dynamic ha completely shifted from just 4.5 months ago when I had been moved… to work under before my maternity leave."