Janeen Uzzell: Chapter 3: How the Bias in our Code Influences the Bias in our Culture

It's Machine Yearning from Assist. It's a podcast where we think and dream about the future of AI, the talking internet, and how we're reshaping our culture. This chapter is an excerpt from our interview with Janine Yuzel at the 2018 VOICE Summit, the largest single gathering of the conversational design ecosystem. While we were at VOICE, we met people who are living at the front edge of creating a more inclusive culture in technology product design. Enter Janine Yoozelle. Most recently, Janine was the head of women in technology for GE. There she worked across the 300,000 employee community, leading a culture shift to accelerate the number of women within GE's technical female workforce. Janine spoke with conference organizer and friend of the pod, Janice Mandel. In this conversation, they talk about how the bias we inadvertently bake into our code reinforces and amplifies the bias in our culture. This is just a taste, so make sure you grab the full episode and subscribe so you never miss a single Machine Yearning. Janine Yoozelle.

So what's at stake here? I mean, entering into an era where AI's involved, does this have a multiplier effect? Are we at risk of rolling back civil rights? What I will say to that is we certainly believe that the bias in coding and in technology can have an influence on racism. And so we could certainly be shining a brighter light in areas that we want to dim down. We definitely want them to go away, but we are starting to shine a brighter light on that. And we're seeing some of that now because technology is everywhere and AI is going to happen. It's happening now. The question just becomes, will we be the responsible community of people to ensure that it's a fair practice for everyone. And when we don't do that, then the end user, or even a person that is not an end user, but just is on the other end of that bias, receives the penalty for the arrogance, the ignorance, the lack of knowledge of other people, or the programmers, the coders that are in the room. So we're going to, we will experience that. We'll experience it when certain things in life require us to have access to a technology that I may not have access to. We'll experience it when a technology is responding based on a bias in the way that it's been coded. We'll experience it in things like facial recognition and not having a broad enough bandwidth of diversity for faces, and facial recognition will presume that I look exactly like someone else that has done something inappropriate, and then I am the one that's blamed for it. So there's, there's so many ways that it will have an influence on us in a negative way, but that doesn't have to be the case. This technology technology is being built and designed in advance for the good of our society. And there's so many great things that we can do to make it better. We just need to ensure that that's the practice. Well, we learned something from the last go-round, did we not? As we started to— True, true. —get our stuff together. And we also learned that there is no digital divide. You know, there's a presumption that, particularly in the world of minorities, that there's a digital divide and that we are not able to code or understand we understand technology, so therefore, the world doesn't have to design for us. And that's not true. We hosted a hackathon about a year ago where we had students just from historically Black colleges and universities. And this is when I worked for GE. We hosted this hackathon and the goal was to prove that there was no digital divide in diverse communities and that we could have these students come in. Half of the students were actual coders and the other half were technology students like engineers that may not be coders, like a mechanical engineer or someone. And in 36 hours, learning how to use our technology platform that you coded on, they came up with the most amazing solutions. 3 solutions, one in health, one in phone technology, and the other one was working with air trafficking and control. But the uniqueness of all of these 3 solutions were that they were all for adjudicated environments because that was the way that those students thought. Because they come from those types of spaces. So they were designing solutions around Black Lives Matter and things like that because that's what their experience was. So we need people like that in the room. Right. And that's why it matters. So we learned the hard way, but what we know is that there is no digital divide. Technology is at the hands of everyone. My mom is 86 years old and she knows how to use her phone, her smartphone. She knows how to take a photo and send it. She knows how to use her Bible app. And you know, There's a few things she really doesn't know how to use. But you know, you give her a sheet of paper and a pen and she'll write it down and she's teaching herself. She knows how to use her smart TV and, you know, her Apple TV. So she's learning and she's like, "I just want to know how to watch Netflix." So she wants to learn how to do that. So there's no dividing. That's how we got you, I think. Just raised your right hand. Right. Right. I have 11 nieces and nephews. The youngest ones are 3 and 4. So they don't even understand that you can't swipe on the television to move things around. You know, Jace, he stands there swishing the TV and he just says, "Broke, broke," 'cause he thinks the TV's broken. My great-niece Kennedy thinks Alexa is her friend. "Hi Alexa, how are we? I'm sad." Or if Alexa doesn't have a conversation with her, then it's frustrating to her. 'Cause Alexa answers a question, but she's not just like, "Good morning, Kennedy, how are you?" And so that's confusing. Now, I have a few challenges there. One, well, let me say the things I think are great. My godson, who has a lot to practice with spelling and things, thinks Alexa's a toy. And so therefore he likes to practice and he can practice spelling with her more. So practicing and things like that, I love that. I'm concerned with What voices they'll use in the future, I don't know because I don't work for the company. But what voices are in the pipeline? And will it always sound like the current voice that it sounds like now? Will it be a male influence? Will the accent ever sound like my great-grandmother or my grandmother? What if I'm from New Orleans or from the Southern Geechee Islands? Will it sound like that? Will it understand that? Will Alexa know what collard greens are? In my family, we eat soul food, or is she gonna tell me how to cook kale and think it's the same thing? So those are the things that I always test when I'm doing some of the research. But it concerns me that this will become the resource to raise our children if we don't continue to activate dialogue. It also concerns me that the younger children have less ability to make eye contact in their communication because they don't have to look at this machine to talk. So when I'm I'm calling your name and I'm talking to you and you don't turn around and acknowledge me, there's a skillset that's missing there as a future leader. You're not— I don't believe the future's going to be just the net where you are sequestered in this house and you never leave and you work from your computer and all your screens. This is not a reality that I would want for any of the children that are a part of my life. So I love technology, love it, love it, love it, value it. And want to see it be the best that it can be. But I also know that it's so important for us to maintain some of the basics. I never thought I'd be old enough to be saying, "Back in the old days, we used to," and this matters, and you know, but it really does. And so I think we're going to see the good and the bad. And I also heard during one of the keynotes yesterday where from an elderly perspective, there's research that senior citizens are saying it's just nice to be able to hear a voice if you're alone and by yourself all the time. Right. That was something I had I never thought of. Never thought that you could get lonely and just say, "Hey Alexa," and maybe play me a song or say something to me and she respond. And that could be a source of comfort, which is why it's so important to have psychology and sociology at these tables as well, because we are going to lose something if we don't integrate and do this together. One of the presentations earlier talked about making sure that you're not using this to replace that human contact. It's a supplement to human contact with the elderly. It's not a license to ignore them. And you know what, ultimately, this has got to be intentional. This practice of diversity and wanting to ensure that we try— I understand we're not going to get it right every time. It just needs to be intentional. It has to be something that we make a priority. And how do we keep it there? You have to be intentional about it. When it's your intention to do certain things, it becomes a part— it's your lifestyle. It is my intention to be a good person, to do what is right. I'm intentional about it. Do I do it every time? No, but I'm intentional about it. And then when I get it wrong, it's a priority for me to figure out how to do it right again. It's intentional for me to make my family a priority. And when I can't, I have to go back and course correct. So it's really all about intention. And do you have people in your life that hold you to it? Absolutely. We have to hold each other accountable to that. And that's where these teams come around to say, I know it's our intention to be this way, but we are missing it here. Let's go back and figure out where we're missing it and grab it. So it needs to become a part of our work culture. Absolutely. And our values. Yep. Awesome. Jeanine, I can't thank you enough. Oh, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to be here. Such a pleasure. Such a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for making this topic a priority. I appreciate that.

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