VentureBeat’s Transform 2020: Confidently Talks AI and Ethics with Tech Giants & Beyond
By Dr. Joan Palmiter Bajorek, Head of Conversational Research & Strategy, VERSA Agency, and CEO and Founder, Women in Voice
When the white, male, CEO of the organization attends and actively engages in an event held especially for Women in AI — you definitely know that VentureBeat is actively participating in the future of inclusive tech. Congrats to the team, especially Matt Marshall, Christie Liu, and Lauren O’Brien.
VentureBeat’s Transform 2020 was transformed to a virtual event this year and had double the registrations of last year. If you missed the conference, you can watch the keynotes and mainstage events here where you can get inspired by speakers from Google, Amazon, Adobe, Twitter, Yelp, Salesforce, Ebay, Visa, Slack, PayPal, and many many more. As I work at VERSA on the future of conversational AI platforms, it was inspiring to be part of this event.
Key Takeaway: Topics of ethics, bias in AI, and diversity of teams were not shied away from. Breakfasts around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Women in AI were held before Day 1 and Day 2, but the topics of inclusion and ethics were also infused into the main programming. Adeptly, VentureBeat brought tech giants and rising startups to the table and gave them a platform to discuss their directions in exceptionally fruitful ways.
Google Translate Talks AI and Gender in Language Data
Keynote Speaker, Barak Turovsky, Head of Product and NLU at Google AI, spoke about the challenges in correcting Google Translate’s system to not perpetuate sexist norms like “men are doctors” and “women are nurses” that can come with data sets that are centuries-old.
In Turovsky’s talk, “Can we trust a Machine to be fair? How to address the challenge of bias in conversational AI algorithms,” he outlined several steps his team has taken to improve biases in Google Translate, which translates 140 billion words daily. Turnovsky and his team turned significantly negative press about the product into thoughtful iterations. Asking savvy follow-up questions to this keynote was Noelle Silver, the 2019 Women in AI Mentorship Award Winner, formerly of Amazon, Microsoft, and NPR.
Let’s Talk Amazon Alexa and User Feedback
Amazon Alexa AI’s Janet Slifka, Director of Research Science, spoke with me about conversational AI and strategically aligning goals by listening to your users [here’s that 20 min Fireside Chat].
While Amazon’s conversational solutions are improving daily, teams there are fully aware that “AI can’t solve every conversational problem.” During Slifka’s 8 years at the Alexa organization, she has had an instrumental role in the evolution of the product and how manual and statistical fixes to the AI are made. If problems are found and are left to fester in systems, then “that word intelligence just goes out the window” says Slifka. By making changes to the system, Slifka and her team continue to learn from customers and continuously improve the product.
Women in Tech, AI, and Voice
At the Women in AI breakfast on Day 1 of the conference, Dr. Timnit Gebru, the international powerhouse in AI ethics, spoke about who is in the decision room and the “underrepresented majority” who are often outside those spaces. Alongside Dr. Gebru were speakers Kay Firth-Butterfield of the World Economic Forum and Francesca Rossi, IBM Fellow and AI Ethics Global Leader, IBM Research, who rounded out the star-studded Women in AI panel this year.
All of this reminded me of last year’s conference in person in San Francisco. The cinnamon rolls, enthusiastic discussions around tables at 7 am, and the panel of Women in AI where I spoke on to an audience of over 200 people (photo above). I deeply wish we could have safely held it in person this year. The atmosphere and community felt in that room were enlivening.
A big thanks to all the media partners that helped make Venture Beat’s Transform 2020 happen. Women in Voice (WiV), the nonprofit organization I started to support women and gender diversity in voice tech, was proud to be a media partner in this event for the second year in a row. WiV was among many organizations working towards making tech more inclusive.
Last words: A final acknowledgment to the amazing team at VentureBeat, who not only transformed their conference this year due to circumstance, but also actively worked to provide a platform to create constructive, positive, and informed discussion about how AI is transforming our future. It’s a joy to be included and represent the future of conversational AI solutions and community at VERSA and Women in Voice.
