In 2019, Stanford University announced a new artificial intelligence institute with 120 faculty members and tech industry leaders. However, none of the faculty members were black, causing harsh criticism for the institute’s complete lack of diversity across the board. Additionally, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have also created a joint AI ethics research initiative, which includes just one woman. Though, problems with representation in the area of AI ethics goes beyond just academics. There is also a history of major tech companies creating AI ethics boards that lack diversity and often times include people with interests that contradict the ethics mission. For instance, Google developed an advisory council for AI ethics that included the CEO of a drone company, Dyan Gibbens, and the president of a rightwing thinktank, Kay James, who has a history of advocating for anti-immigrant and transphobic policies. Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft also created an ethics group called The Partnership on AI, which did not have any black board members or staff listed on its website. The lack of diverse representation among these groups is alarming given how much AI is being used in criminal justice, education, government surveillance, and other systems of society. Consequently, there is a risk that, with a lack of diversity in AI ethics, the algorithms that govern AI could operate with unintended biases that produce real-world inequality.
