Today, a conversation about equity and AI. Tom's guest is Dr. Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist and tech expert who is working to reduce the negative effects of artificial intelligence.

In 2021, Dr. Gebru founded the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), a non-profit she currently serves as executive director. Before that, she was employed at Google, where she co-led the Ethical Artificial Intelligence research team. She was fired in 2020 — although the company insists she resigned — after a dispute with Google about its suppression of some of her research, and her criticism of the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. She had previously done ground-breaking work at Apple and Microsoft.

Dr. Gebru is also the co-founder of Black in AI, a nonprofit whose stated mission is "to increase the presence, inclusion, visibility and health of Black people in the field of AI."

Her DAIR research includes studying how artificial intelligence often reinforces and amplifies existing prejudices and marginalization. She has looked at how facial recognition programs are much less accurate in analyzing faces of people of color. She has also written about the need for regulation in the tech industry, and the environmental impact of AI.

Dr. Timnit Gebru joins us on Zoom from San Francisco.