AI Ethics Diaries: Keeping it Real

Ready for a career in Responsible AI/ML? Join this session to learn about the diverse jobs available in corporate and academia, get tips from experienced recruiters on how to land your dream job, pivot from your current non-AI role, transition from academia to corporate sector, and how to assess your potential work environment.

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Ebitie Amughan is the Senior Recruiting Operations Program Manager for Inclusive Hiring at Pinterest. She brings her unique talent solutions to business partners and hiring teams through her creative and strategic workflows. With her recruiting expertise, she has managed and launched programs and processes that optimize and simplify the hiring process to ensure the organizations meet their goals and plan. Prior to her promotion to a Senior Program Manager role, she was a Technical Recruiter for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at Pinterest in charge of recruiting senior engineers in building a discovery engine. Ebitie’s deep knowledge of recruiting has led her to work with distinguished companies like Microsoft and the National Board of Advisors for the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona as a newly inducted board member.

Jessica Yrani is a lead technical recruiter focusing on Analytics and ML hiring at Roblox. Before joining Roblox, she was a lead recruiter at Pinterest, partnering with engineering leadership to build Machine Learning teams within the Core and Monetization organization. Throughout Jessica’s decade of experience, she has partnered with technical teams to create inclusive hiring strategies.

Tulsi Parida is the Global Director of Government Data Solutions at Visa. Her work is at the intersection of payments data and government and she develops innovative data solutions for governments looking to use spend insights to inform their policy-making and decisions. She brings a decade of experience at the intersection of tech, society, and business, with a commitment to reducing digital inequality and promoting responsible and inclusive technology. Prior to Visa, she led teams at various startups working to bridge digital divides in literacy education both in the US and in India. Tulsi holds a BSc in Education & Social Policy, Economics from Northwestern University and a dual degree MSc /MBA in Tech & Society from the University of Oxford. Recently, Tulsi has won the global 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics and Tech Women 100 awards in the UK.

Join us for an interesting conversation with the Senior Designer on IBM’s Design for AI team, Milena Pribic as she shares details about her career journey so far, her views on ethical and AI and how it applies to her work, the tools and frameworks she uses to address bias and ensure fairness, the benefits of coming from a non-traditional background in this space, and so much more.

There is a disturbing trend in the AI space as critical societal issues are being overshadowed by hype projects favored by the techno-elites. Meet the philanthropic leaders supporting much-needed racial justice and diversity work by organizations like Algorithmic Justice League, DAIR, Women in AI Ethics among many others. We’ll hear their thoughts on the power imbalance in the tech industry, role of philanthropy in building the tech we want, and their ongoing efforts to ensure a more ethical and equitable AI/tech future for all.

Artist, educator, and AI researcher, Lia Coleman takes us through the highlights of their eye-opening career journey including the experiences which inspired them to get involved in the space, the challenges they’ve encountered as they navigate the world of technology as a creative along with the importance of diversity in the space and having allies advocating for you, helping you to push forward.

AIethicist.org Founder, Merve Hickok joins us in this series to share her inspiring career journey and how she’s continuing to do meaningful work in this space despite coming from a non-technical background. She also opens up about overcoming different hurdles as well as her thoughts on diversity along with some encouraging words for individuals who are coming from non-technical backgrounds and are thinking of joining this space.

AI Ethics and Policy Researcher, Favour Borokini takes us through her career journey as she shares what inspired her to join the AI space and how she landed her current role at Pollicy. She also shares some of the most common barriers and challenges she tackles on a daily basis as someone who comes from a non-technical background. Listen in as she shares her thoughts on diversity and the most practical tips to get started in this space especially if you're someone who comes from a non-technical background.

Tulsi Parida is the Global Director — Data Solutions at Visa. In this episode, Tulsi shares what compelled her to join this space, the highlights of her career journey, the types of issues in AI and the different barriers she deals with on a daily basis, and why we need more diversity in this space. Tulsi also has an inspiring message for those of you who come from non-traditional backgrounds but absolutely want to be involved in the change that we want to see in this space.

In this inspiring episode, we are joined by Temi Popo, Chenai Chair, Kathy Pham, and Wiebke Toussaint. We talk a bit about their backgrounds and how they got started in this space, how they handle difficult situations around fairness and equality, the importance of having people who experience inequalities as part of the solution, the different ways Mozilla is building trustworthy AI on a global scale, and so much more.

In this episode, we’re joined by Alex Hanna, Alex Ahmed, Anna Lauren Hoffman, and Kandrea Wade a few days after Timnit Gebru's firing from Google. It's an absolutely engaging and powerful conversation revolving around the realities of inclusion and diversity in the AI space and looking beyond inclusive hiring while touching on missed opportunities, capitalism, and a lot more.

Join us for a fascinating discussion with Anthropologist and author of “Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass”, Mary L. Gray on the vast invisible human workforce that powers the services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber. Explore the ethics of this new underclass that makes AI and technology seem “smart” while making less than legal minimum wage and who can be fired at will.

Join us for a candid conversation with senior research scientist at Google and eminent scholar, Dr.Timnit Gebru on her seminal work in uncovering racial bias in automated facial analysis algorithms and datasets, including the “Gender Shades” project, and get her thoughts on racial power dynamics, what meaningful actions for progress look like, and last but not the least, get the inside scoop on Eritrean and Ethiopian food.

AI  Ethics Diaries - Keeping it Real' by the Women in AI Ethics™ Collective podcast is a culmination of many diverse voices and reflects our quest for more inclusive and ethical AI.  Eloquent speeches and statements are not enough. Join us instead for brutally honest conversations with  women in the AI Ethics community who will share their lived experiences, highlight the challenges in this space, and how together we can build a  more ethical and diverse future.