AI Engineers Need to Think Beyond Engineering

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the biggest drivers of technological change, impacting industries and creating entirely new opportunities. From an engineering standpoint, AI is just a more advanced form of data engineering. Most good AI projects function more like muddy pickup trucks than spotless race cars -- they are a workhorse technology that humbly makes a production line 5% safer or movie recommendations a little more on point. However, more so than many other technologies, it is very, very easy for a well-intentioned AI practitioner to inadvertently do harm when they set out to do good. AI has the power to amplify unfair biases, making innate biases exponentially more harmful.