The bias of Artificial Intelligence

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By CGTN's The Point

Open any English search engine, use the picture search function and type the word “CEO” into the query field.

What comes out?

“You will get lots of nice pictures. But first of all, no women, and secondly there are no Asians,” said Harry Shum, Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Research Group.

Shum was pointing out the inherent bias of AI when talking to CGTN’s The Point on the sidelines of the 4th World Internet Conference which has just wrapped up in eastern China’s Wuzhen.

More than 1500 guests attended the international meet, which focused on digital economy, openness and sharing to build an online community with a shared future.

Even though there are some pitfalls to AI, Shum spoke highly about its future. He thought that AI’s speech recognition will be better than that of humans in five years and visual recognition will exceed that of people in 10 years.

As for the differences between China and the US regarding AI, Shum thought the US is still leading the world in terms of fundamental research…but China is catching up.

“China is making tremendous progress, not only in universities, but also in companies; and it’s not only big companies, but also startups,” he said.

Harry Shum, Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Research Group. /CGTN Photo

He emphasized that creativity is going to be more and more important for young people who want to carry out research into AI and encouraged them to develop computational and independent thinking.

“We live in an echo chamber [in which people only get to hear their own opinions reinforced]; so we have to develop the capabilities to understand what’s going on,” he said.

The Point with Liu Xin is a 30-minute current affairs program on CGTN. It airs weekdays at 9.30 p.m. BJT (1330GMT), with rebroadcasts at 5.30 a.m. (2130GMT) and 10.30 a.m. (0230GMT).

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