The Tech Humanist Show: Episode 2 – Dr. Rumman Chowdhury

Summary The Tech Humanist Show explores how data and technology shape the human experience. It's recorded live each week in a live-streamed video program before it's made available in audio format. Hosted by Kate O’Neill. About this episode's guest: Rumman Chowdhury’s passion lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and humanity. She holds degrees in quantitative social science and has been a practicing data scientist and AI developer since 2013. She is currently the Global Lead for Responsible AI at Accenture Applied Intelligence, where she works with C-suite clients to create cutting-edge technical solutions for ethical, explainable and transparent AI. She tweets as @ruchowdh. This episode streamed live on Thursday, July 23, 2020. Episode highlights: (Part 1) 3:17 how Rumman's background in political science shapes her thinking in AI 3:28 "quantitative social science is math with context" 3:58 "often when we talk about technologies like artificial intelligence… we've started to talk about the technology as if it supersedes the human" 4:11 Rumman mentions her article "The pitfalls of a ‘retrofit human’ in AI systems": https://venturebeat.com/2019/11/11/the-pitfalls-of-a-retrofit-human-in-ai-systems/ 4:56 What is the core human concept that shapes your work? 5:25 "I recognize and want a world in which people make decisions that I disagree with, but they are making those decisions fully informed and fully capable." 5:49 A DOG ALMOST APPEARS! 7:18 transparency and explainability in Responsible AI 8:17 on the cake trend: "reality is already turned upside on its head — I want to be able to trust that the shoe is a shoe and not really a cake" :) 9:04 on the critiques of Responsible AI, "cancel culture," and anthropomorphizing machines 11:11 Responsible AI is not about having politically correct answers; her role leading Responsible AI is part of core business functions 12:00 Responsible AI is about serving the customers, the people; credit lending discrimination example 12:40 need for discussion that's bigger than profitability and efficiency; humanity and human flourishing 13:27 "human flourishing — creating something with positive impact — is not at odds with good business" 15:21 "I think sometimes people can get overly focused on value as revenue generation; value comes from many, many different things" 17:05 a political science view on human agency relative to machine outcomes 19:22 AI governance 20:34 "constructive dissent" 21:13 the "human in the loop" problem 25:14 algorithmic bias 29:20 "building products with the future in mind" 29:44 are there applications of AI that fill you with hope for the good they could potentially do? (Part 2) 0:45 how can we promote humanity and human flourishing with AI and emerging technologies? 1:16 what can businesses do to enable Responsible AI 1:22 "I have a paper out… where we interview people who work in Responsible AI and Ethical AI… on what companies can do" (see: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.12358) 6:22 what can the average human being do 8:40 where can people find you? on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ruchowdh on the web: http://www.rummanchowdhury.com/