Melinda French Gates calls on tech companies to promote diversity in AI - MarketWatch

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As lawmakers consider how artificial intelligence will affect the lives of people in the U.S., Melinda French Gates, a philanthropist and the former wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, says companies must pay attention to who is developing AI technologies.

During a livestream with the Washington Post, Gates raised concerns that AI now has a bias toward men that could have lasting societal repercussions.

The tech industry has a responsibility to ensure diversity in AI, she said. She suggested that if tech companies “create good paid internships and they go out and recruit from some of the nontraditional places, you get a woman or a person of color with a foot in the door.”

People like that bring a fresh perspective to the development process, she said, adding that that perspective is “not better or worse. It’s just different.”

Some companies, she said, are already moving in that direction, “because they’re also seeing that the products they create are better off and will reach more markets.”

Ensuring that AI “is made for all of us” requires that women and people of color have “a seat at the table creating AI, helping with the rules, helping with the regulations,” Gates said. Otherwise, “you’re automatically biasing it toward one part of society.”

She compared the development and impact of AI to the founding of the United States. The founders wrote some “incredible laws” that continue to govern our country, she said. “However, women didn’t get the vote. Black people definitely weren’t counted. And look how long it took for us to get the vote for those two groups. And now look at the bias we still have in society.”

In response to a report that said women are more likely than men to lose their jobs by the end of the decade because of the rise in AI, Gates said that the concerns are valid but that it is too early to know how accurate they are.

“I think we need to take some of those concerns and worries and instead create urgent action to change that,” she said.

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