What to expect from the LatinX Workshop at NeurIPS this year?
As you may know already, the Neural Information Processing (NeurIPS) conference (http://nips.cc) is taking place in Montreal, Canada this week. This is an event in which researchers and engineers discuss the algorithms that push the limits of Artificial Intelligence every year.
As these technological advances nurture our imagination y make our smartphones, cars, and robots more intelligent, there is a strong desire in the community to promote diversity among their members. The outcome of this process is amazing: we are able to solve complex problems taking into account different points of view, values, and culture making our products and research more aligned to the community we want to improve their lives with technology.
For this reason, there are concrete efforts to support the presence of researchers from diverse backgrounds such as Women (Women in ML) and Afro American (Black in AI). This year the LatinX in AI workshop (http://latinxinai.org/nips-2018) will gather for the first time students and professionals from LatinX backgrounds working in teaching computers to learn from examples and evidence. This event is an exciting opportunity to discuss how to implement fairness, simplicity, and humanity to make our algorithms more natural and able to provide experiences without regard to sex, race, color, age, or other protected status.
We really hope this effort inspires the next generation of LatinX professionals in Artificial Intelligence and stresses the importance of building fair intelligence for everyone. We will love you to see you at NeurIPS 2018 and connect you with the amazing talent that will attend the event.
Omar U. Florez, PhD
Research Committee Lead at LatinX in AI
