Sexism in technology exposed at TEDxSydney by AI CEO
Women in the technology sector are still blatantly being excluded from crucial, future-shaping conversations.
Doors being thrust open for men in the technology sector are still being slammed shut for women, leading AI evolutionist Liesl Yearsley has revealed.
The founder and CEO of generative AI company aKin told TEDxSydney on Friday that despite her expertise spanning 20 years, she – along with other women in her field – were pushing 50 times harder for a seat at the table.
In a fortnight, a group of “billionaire white males”, including Elon Musk, would be meeting in Washington to decide on the future of AI regulation in a “closed door listening session”.
Not one seat at the table has been reserved for a woman, Ms Yearsley told the audience.
“I’m not there. And the reason I’m not ... it’s not that I just have to work 50 times harder, it’s that if a male pitches for one year to get funded for something, I have to pitch for 50 years,” she said.
“So I’m here because I want to have a voice and I want you to have voices in your future.”
Ms Yearsley warned while artificial intelligence had limitless capacity to benefit society, it was being optimised – in many ways – for the “wrong things”.
Her company was one of a “handful” working for the benefit of the broader public – currently in the research phase of developing technology encouraging people to live more engaged, healthy lives.
Akin – a robotics startup – uses tablet-based systems to streamline household tasks for easier completion for people with disabilities.
It has also been hired by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab to design robots that will ultimately be used to support the crew’s mental wellbeing on future deep space missions.
Big problem with AI
AI, as Ms Yearsley explained, is evident in just about every element of modern life, and its influence over decision making has become essentially immeasurable.
“AI is everywhere,” she said, adding that in 10 years it has dramatically shifted human behaviour.
“If you sit and watch news for an hour at night instead of turning and just talking to someone you care about, that’s AI,” she said.
Ms Yearsley highlighted it was nearly impossible to distinguish what decisions had been made without influence from any form of AI.
It was an inescapable feature of life, she said, pointing out that simply “turning it off” would never be an option.
Instead, focus needed to be poured into harnessing it for good, Ms Yearsley said.
“We must optimise the goodness. We must think about what we are amplifying. Are we amplifying the best of human life or the worst?
“We are optimising, we are just optimising for the wrong things. It is harder to go out for good, but it is possible.”
She encouraged Australians to give serious consideration to areas of their life impacted by AI and “be fully aware” of what sort of companies were behind rewarded by their behaviour.
“Are we rewarding companies who are doing good or are we rewarding consumption at any cost?” she said, urging users to make full use of the power of their voice.
“That is the most important tool we have.”
Keep the conversation going, email brooke.rolfe@news.com.au
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