To secure a safer future for AI, we need the benefit of a female perspective – The Guardian

Everybody knows (or should know) by now that machine learning (which is what most current artificial intelligence actually amounts to) is subject to bias. Last week, the New York Times had the idea of asking three prominent experts in the field to talk about the bias problem, in particular the ways that social bias can be reflected and amplified in dangerous ways by the technology to discriminate against, or otherwise damage, certain social groups.

At first sight, the resulting article looked like a run-of-the-mill review of what has become a common topic except for one thing: the three experts were all women. One, Daphne Koller, is a co-founder of the online education company Coursera; another, Olga Russakovsky, is a Princeton professor who is working to reduce bias in ImageNet, the data set that powered the current machine-learning boom; the third, Timnit Gebru, is a research scientist at Google in the companys ethical AI team.

Reading the observations of these three women brought to the surface a thought thats been lurking at the back of my mind for years. It is that the most trenchant and perceptive critiques of digital technology and particularly of the ways in which it has been exploited by tech companies have come from female commentators. The thought originated ages ago as a vague impression, then morphed into an intuitive correlation and eventually surfaced as a conjecture that could be examined.

Perhaps female acuity towards tech might be a reflection of the fact that toys for boys have less attraction for women

So I spent a few hours going through a decades-worth of electronic records reprints, notes and links. What I found is an impressive history of female commentary and a gallery of more than 20 formidable critics. In alphabetical order, they are Emily Bell, danah boyd, Joy Buolamwini, Robyn Caplan, Kate Crawford, Renee DiResta, Joan Donovan, Rana Foroohar, Megan E Garcia, Seda Grses, Mireille Hildebrandt, Alice E Marwick, Helen Nissenbaum, Cathy ONeil, Julia Powles, Margaret Roberts, Sarah T Roberts, Kara Swisher, Astra Taylor, Zeynep Tufekci, Sherry Turkle, Judy Wajcman, Meredith Whittaker, and Shoshana Zuboff. If any of them are new to you, any good search engine will find them and their work.

I make no claims for the statistical representativeness of this sample. It might simply be the result of confirmation bias. Because of this column, I read more tech commentary than is good for anyone and it could be that the stuff that sticks in my memory happens to resonate with my views.

It also goes without saying that there are plenty of trenchant male critics out there too: one thinks of Franklin Foer, Farhad Manjoo and Nicholas Carr, to name just three. In recent times, we have seen prominent industry males such as Sean Parker and Roger McNamee suffering from investors remorse and confessing their horror at how things have turned out. And new organisations such as the Center for Humane Technology have appeared, dedicated to using the technology to create a world where technology supports our shared wellbeing, sense-making, democracy, and ability to tackle complex global challenges rather than undermining them.

Suppose for a moment, though, that my hunch is correct that the most powerful critiques of the technology, and of the industry based on it, come from female commentators. Why might that be? Could it be, for example, a reflection of the fact that that industry is demographically skewed and pathologically male-dominated and that its products, services and executives tend to reflect that?

It may also be no accident that in one area of digital technology machine learning women are likely to be more critical than men.

AI researchers are primarily people who are male, observed Olga Russakovsky in the New York Times piece, who come from certain racial demographics, who grew up in high socioeconomic areas, primarily people without disabilities so its a challenge to think broadly about world issues. There are a lot of opportunities to diversify this pool and as diversity grows, the AI systems themselves will become less biased. Yeah, maybe.

Or perhaps female acuity towards technology might be a reflection of the fact that toys for boys have less attraction for women.

Years ago, Dave Barry, the great Miami Herald columnist, was lent a new Humvee when the vehicle was launched. He took his wife out for a spin. What can this thing do? she asked. Barry replied smugly that it could do cool stuff like inflating or deflating the tyres while going along at 70mph. She looked at him, open-mouthed, and then asked why in the name of God anyone would want to do that. Er, he replied, stumped.

Which only goes to show that there are no such things as awkward questions, only awkward answers. And, currently, those are the only kind machine learning evangelists have.

Look back to the futureDoes human history move in predictable cycles? The subject of a fascinating Guardian long read by Laura Spinney.

Lost in a mental fogWhats the cognitive impact of air pollution? Read the results of an alarming survey by Patrick Collison, co-founder of online payments platform Stripe and perhaps the most cerebral techie in Silicon Valley.

Dark age 2.0In 2029, the internet will make us act like medieval peasants. The title of a lovely acerbic essay in New York magazine by Max Read on what technology is doing to us.

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To secure a safer future for AI, we need the benefit of a female perspective - The Guardian