We need to emphasize Diversity while developing AI
When you look at AI in 2017, we are in the short era of pattern recognition. AI is very task-focused, it lacks contextual awareness, and it lacks contextual awareness, and it lacks the kind of flexible learning that humans enjoy and developed over generations.
We have many dreams and hopes for utilizing AI in the future: Technology that makes humans’ lives better, our world safer, our lives more productive and better. All this requires a human-layer of human-level communication and collaboration.
Early signs of such communication and collaboration can already be seen, though their true impact has yet to be seen; in July, for example, Google’s DeepMind revealed it began developing AI with imagination, enabling it to think through decisions and plan for the future without human input.
Earlier this month, DeepMind stated its new AI is on the verge of being able to perfectly mimic human speech, while the recently unveiled Google Clips camera — powered by AI — is capable of taking pictures for you, eliminating the need to wait for the “perfect” moment.
It’s clear: If algorithms are to develop equally sophisticated behaviors, they too must have the capability to ‘imagine’ and reason about the future. And, looking beyond this capability, they need to be able to construct a plan using knowledge.
The need for Diversity
It’s not going be enough to add new features and capabilities to truly advance artificial intelligence. Diversity is required. Numerous studies show that a diverse team leads to more creative, innovative solutions. AI also cannot be biased or influenced by the morally questionable parts of humanity, otherwise its adoption and incorporation could hinder some groups of people over others.
AI will be a pervasive force and technology and it’s imperative for humanity that it carries the values of the entire humanity, not only the serving the needs of a privileged few. AI needs to serve the entire humanity. This means, AI should developed by people from all walks of life, representing all races, genders and income levels. Look no further than this soap dispenser being incapable of identifying darker skin colors as an indicator of how certain tech sectors are lacking in diversity.
Look no further than this panel discussion at the World Economic Forum:
“I think that people who are very focused on computer science and AI do not like the messiness of the real world,” said Ito. “You do not get the traditional liberal arts types or philosophy types.”
According to Ito, this is because of the way people generally get into the computer industry. “If you look at the demographic of Silicon Valley, it is generally white men,” he said.
As an example of the risks this could present, Ito said: “One of our researchers, an African American woman, discovered that in the core libraries for face recognition, dark faces don’t show up. And these libraries are used in many of the products you have.”
This means that if an African American person were to stand in front of a facial recognition system, the AI would be unable to identify his or her face.
Ito suggested that a lack of diversity in the location where the AI was being built and tested had led to this oversight.
“One of the risks in the lack of diversity among the engineers is that it is non-intuitive about which questions you should be asking,” he said.
AI is only as good as the programmers. Diversity is not a characteristic of life; it is a condition necessary for life…like air and water. And it should be the ethical underpinning of any AI development.
