Why is Meta’s AI council made up entirely of white men? | TechCrunch Minute

Meta announces a new AI advisory Council That's all white dudes meta the company That owns Facebook Instagram and WhatsApp has announced a new Advisory Group that's supposed to advise the Company on AI and other new tech the Group's role sounds a little fuzzy Basically they'll meet occasionally and Provide advice and recommendations in an Internal memo that was obtained by Bloomberg meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says The council is being created at an Important time as the company is looking At opportunities in Ai and the metaverse Yes Mark Zuckerberg is still holding on To his dream of the metaverse and you Know what I respect a public company CEO Who can keep the faith like that anyway This group consists of four business Executives including stripe co-founder And CEO Patrick hollison and Shopify CEO Toby lutka but as my colleagues Dom Amanda and Kyle point out in a piece for Tech crunch every single member of the Group is a white man does that matter I'm sure someone somewhere is Complaining that even pointing this out Is too woke or too PC and to be clear I'm not saying that any of the council Members don't deserve to be on the board Or that meta shouldn't be taking their Advice but the fact that meta chose These four people and only these four People suggests a relatively narrow and

Blinkered view of who gets to have a say In the direction of AI at one of the Biggest and most important tech Companies in the world remember even Though some tech companies would like You to think of AI as this purely Logical objective machine we've seen Time and again that AI reflects the Limitations and the biases of the people Who built it and the data it's trained On for example there have been facial Recognition systems that incorrectly Flag black people as matches for Criminal suspects and there are Legitimate concerns that AI could Perpetuate discrimination in employment And housing women can also be Disproportionately affected by the harms Of AI as we've seen with pornographic Deep fakes and when we talk about Diversity it's not just in race and Gender where the council seems limited As I said before it's all business Executives not scientists or researchers Or ethicists which again suggest that Meta's goal with this council is very Specific learning how to make money from AI maybe ultimately that's all we can Expect a company like meta to focus on How to make money on AI not how AI will Affect society but for the rest of us It's the second question that really Matters we're taking Memorial Day Weekend off but Amanda will be back on

Wednesday