AI data will be skewed if we don’t speak up
AI – Artificial Intelligence is being built as we speak. It is based on voices it hears.
Are you ensuring your voice is part of the global data sets, and if not, start today.
It’s not too late to ensure you are heard.
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By Joanna Penn
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Episode, 29, which is about diverse voices, and why our diverse voices are more important than ever right now.
My intro:
I’m in the UK and it’s spring coming, it’s not quite arrived, it’s been beautiful at the weekend, and a bit chilly, but it’s getting up to gardening weather. It’s lovely to be able to get out in the fresh air.
Always boosts us doesn’t it.
I’ve also had my first COVID jab, which really hurt my arm, but luckily I’ve not had any other side effects. I think eventually the jab will just become another part of life. Obviously we’re not over the main COVID thing now, so I hope that everything’s all right in your world, but there is light at the end of that long tunnel.
I’ve just recorded my Patreon podcast because I give an exclusive episode for them on the beginning of the month.
If you want to join in and support me on Patreon, the link will be in the show notes, from ‘less than the price of a coffee a month’
The episode over on Patreon this month was,
‘What do you want to be when you grow up,’
and it’s all about just reassessing life in midlife, and giving you a few tips as to how you can just give yourself a little bit of a boost, and get on the right path if you’re struggling.
The other things I’ve been getting up to this week.
I’ve published a short story every day in two different pen names, that’s two short stories a day. I’ve been editing two novels at the same time, I’m writing a business planning book so it’s been a really busy week.
I am now keeping a word count log of the time of day that I write, and how many words I write, and also how many words I edit.
I think that’s relevant as well because sometimes you can spend the whole day editing. And because you haven’t produced a new word, it doesn’t feel as if you’ve got anywhere.
So I’m keeping a record of all that now to find out when I’m most productive so that might be something that you want to do.
If you want my template let me know and I’ll send it over.
Why our diverse voices are more important than ever.
It’s all to do with artificial intelligence – AI.
Because, as far back as 2019, The Guardian reported about white male bias in artificial intelligence and AI.
You might think oh science I’m not interested. I’m not bothered.
But this is really really important. This is our future and you can’t get away from it.
It’s not something that you can stop. It’s important for us to be involved in it and to know what’s going on. You don’t have to be a scientist but I want you to just be aware. This is a little invite from me to join me on my journey of learning all about it because I’m no expert, but I know that this is the future.
I’m very much somebody who believes that if technology can help, then I’m gonna let it help me. If it can cause damage, I want to know what that damage is. So it’s very much a case of awareness.
3:34
First of all, I’ll give you a little definition of what AI artificial intelligence is. It’s a simulation of human intelligence.
There’s four types, in general, reactive – limited memory – theory of mind and self awareness.
I’m going to give you a really really basic guide because I am no expert in this and I’m not claiming to be. And this is the whole point that I want us to go on a journey together, to learn about what is going to be in charge of our lives and future.
4:10
Reactive AI is things like Deep Blue, the machine that beat Kasparov at chess.
Limited memory. That looks at the past, obviously memory suggests that, it looks at what’s happened and things like self driving cars that look that data, how many crashes, the traffic lights.
Then theory of mind. This is a psychology terminology. I don’t know who came up
4:45
with it. I should really know that, but anyway, It’ll be in the back of my mind somewhere.
[Note from Christie: It might be Simon Baron-Cohen]
That’s accepting that things that have emotions can have different behaviour dependent on that emotion. And that is, if you think about it, quite a deep thought isn’t it? Can a robot have a mind and kind it accept that we might do something that was not logical. If you’ve ever watched Star Trek and Spock then you’ll understand the argument about logic.
And then the final one is self awareness, and that’s what people consider the scary stage of AI, that robots have a mind of their own and take over the world and will be leaders.
As daft as it sounds, we need to really be aware of this because there have been cases where artificial intelligence programmes have been halted because the language that the machines were talking to each other, even the programmers didn’t know what was happening, didn’t know what they were saying, so this is something really close and it’s gonna happen at some point soon.
We need to be aware of it, understand it, not be frightened and pretend it’s not happening because it will run away without us.
5:56
So that’s the definitely the brief definition of AI.
Now think about it, why I’ve called this episode, why are our diverse voices important. AI uses data, which is numbers, letters, words, stuff that’s written down within the machines, in websites.
6:22
Just think of Google, how much data is going into
Facebook, in
Google Chrome – search engines, in blog posts, in emails, just think of all that data!
It’s automatically skewed isn’t it?
iPhone users – maybe generally a little bit better off if you’ve got an iPhone.
Microsoft – a massive influence in AI. Microsoft products are often paid products. So the people who use those, are they business, or are they people with a little more spare cash, a little bit more affluent
Data barriers,
people might not be able to afford phones,
certain global communities don’t have phones, or they’ll only have a particular brand. Think of the political arguments between China and America and Russia and places that have switched off the internet. All those things affect the amount of data, the quality of the data, the type of data, the source of the data.
So it is all skewed already.
The main reason I wanted to discuss this is because of books, blogs and things that in midlife you can contribute to.
You’re not too old – I keep telling people this!
There was somebody on the internet, the other day at 27yrs old, asking if he was too old to do a law degree and of course I had to say ‘Definitely not.’ BUT our voices will not be heard, if we’re not careful.
You don’t have to be a young geek and I’m not using the word geek in a derogatory sense because I consider myself a little bit of a self taught geek but a lot of engineers and a lot of AI techs and things like that are by definition, younger.
I don’t know about you, but when I was at school, we didn’t have a computer. So, our voices are automatically not there. They’re probably missing from certain datasets and it’s really important that we catch up on that, and make sure our voices are heard.
Think about the Bible. King James Bible, and to check what date this was, but the translation was commissioned for the Church of England in 1604, and it was sponsored by the king. We’re talking about an era 1600s and I’m not a historian, so don’t quote me, but it’s an era of witch trials, civil wars and Gunpowder Plot things like that, it wasn’t peaceful times. And it wasn’t tolerant times.
It’s fairly certain that the translation is again a white man’s version of that Bible.
We need to ensure that the datasets that are being used for all this AI, and the data sets that exist are diverse.
How many people of colour do you think were involved in that translation, if any?
How many people of colour’s books are sat on your bookcase or in your Kindle?
How many times do you Google them and actually download them?
Do you understand what I’m saying, that we really need to get diverse voices out in the world.
My call to action for you this week is a really important one, it’s something I’m really passionate about, please please please write your story, get involved with technology, write a blog post.
If you don’t want to write a book, you know, get vocal, use your voice, and use voice technology. How many times have you spoken to your computer?
The older we get, the less sort of open we can be to new ideas. I’m not casting aspersions everybody because I’m open to new ideas and I’m older, probably older than a lot of my listeners, but people start using voice controls.
Be aware of what you can do with your voice. Make sure that your voice is recognised and the words you use.
There was a criticism of voice technology recently that hit the headlines where it was blocking the word Asia, because of porn, which is so bizarre, but it was. So people who were searching on the machine for something to do with Asia, it was blocking certain responses and certain things.
The power is already there and it’s really important that we make sure that these voice technologies, that we use, that we do use them, and that our voices contribute to them.
The more voices they hear, and the more diverse voices they hear, and age is a diverse aspect as well as colour and gender, we’ve got to get as many voices as we possibly can, heard.
So, get educated. Come on this education journey with me, contribute. Educate other people, get involved.
Do blog posts, write, promote diversity, help people. If you have got a blog or you’ve got Facebook or whatever, give someone else a voice.
Have a conversation with somebody from the other side of the world, get your words onto a machine, because the data is being trawled as we speak.
Big brother is out there there’s no getting away from it. We can’t go back on it. There’s huge court cases and moments about privacy in America and things like that online. I’m not going to go into all the politics of it but please please please know that we can contribute to this, be part of this adventure and it is going to be exciting.
I love that I can just talk to my phone and it can make a note for me and that I can dictate.
When I transcribe these notes for this podcast. It’s artificial intelligence that’s interpreting it so that data set will be somewhere, my voice will be being heard somewhere within Apple technology, and within Google’s because the software that I use is Otter.ai that is owned by Google. That data will contribute to the bigger picture. I’ll put a link again in the show notes.
Please come on this journey with me, don’t think it’s just for the geeks and the youngsters because that’s why we end up with all the problems. Where people don’t feel that their voice is heard, and we need to help people get their voice out.
I’ve got a book recommendation as always and this one again is something I’ve not read yet and I’m going to buy it today.
It’s a short essay book by Joanna Penn, whose podcast is really good as well I’ll put a link to that in the show notes, and the essay book is called Artificial Intelligence Blockchain and Virtual Worlds, it’s relating to authors and writers. In plain English, she doesn’t talk in jargon so I wanted you to start your journey on a very basic book, and I will be looking at further books in this artificial intelligence world.
13:53
So let me know what you think. Is it too late, is Pandora’s box open, and did you know Pandora didn’t have a box she had a bag! That’s something I learned from Stephen Fry.
Let me know what you think about datasets.
How are you going to contribute this week to get your voice into a machine, because it’s listening.
Alright, so stay safe.
Do what you need to do to stay happy, and do something that lights will this week. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Edited quickly by me