Last month, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, unveiled a new artificial intelligence advisory council — composed entirely of white men.

For some in the tech industry, it was no surprise. Women and people of color are still vastly under-represented in tech. Just one in three tech workers is a woman.

As AI becomes more accessible and widely adopted across industries, it raises questions about how these biases will play out. Will a technology written by a small group of people have the same biases as its creators?

MPR News guest host Chris Farrell and his guests talked about why the gender gap is so persistent and its implications for the tech industry and the effectiveness of AI.

Guests:  

• Alex Hanna is director of research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), an independent organization that studies the development and impact of artificial intelligence.
• Valerie Lockhart is founder of Minnesota Women in Tech and executive director of Minnesota Tech Network. She is the former executive director for Code Savvy, a Minnesota-based organization supporting inclusive computer science education across gender, racial and socioeconomic gaps.

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Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.