We are all fascinated by artificial intelligence (AI). We are excited to have AI as a part of our lives but also worried about what will happen. We agree that we are in a new industrial era which is changing how the world is growing right now. Some people are worried about losing their jobs and they are looking for alternatives to continue to be relevant before AI takes all over the industries.
We all were seeing examples where AI is becoming more competent like IBM Watson winning the popular game “Jeopardy” and Google AlphaGo winning the best human GO master. But also, we have the not so pleasant cases when AI is being biased against minorities and women.
Examples like Microsoft AI bot called Tay that was shut down after 16 hours because it sent tweets with inflammatory and offensive language through its Twitter account.
Amazon AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women because it taught itself that male was preferable as a candidate by penalizing resumes with the word “women”.
The community noticed this problematic situation and they are creating very interesting initiatives to include minorities and women into the AI discussion. In the last few years organizations like Women in AI that is working in making AI more gender-inclusive, LatinX in AI and Black in AI that are working on increasing the community representation in AI are very good examples of these initiatives.
I think it is time to ask ourselves how these changes will affect us and how we can take part in the AI industry also how we can contribute on these tools and how we can prevent those bias behaviors against women and minorities.
Important links:
- Women in AI www.womeninai.co/
- LatinX in AI www.latinxinai.org/
- Black in AI blackinai.github.io/
Until next time…
Leo Martinez
