If they think immigrants aren't welcome, tech's future leaders might never come to America

On this episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, Carnegie Mellon's Andrew Moore talks about the future of tech education as fields like artificial intelligence and machine learning take center stage. Moore, the dean of CMU's computer science school, says he's "concerned" that anti-immigrant fervor will deter the next generation of great computer scientists from coming to America, although CMU has not yet seen an impact on its application numbers. "I think it's short-term, and I haven't seen any craziness, though of course, I'm frightened that it'll happen -- on this question of getting really the strongest folks over," Moore said. "If we appear to have a society which doesn't welcome folks from elsewhere then of course any sane brilliant scientist will end up going to Canada or Singapore or Zurich because they'll be able to get the best of both worlds." "Once you're living in an academic community or in a software development office for an exciting company, usually in day-to-day interactions this doesn't come up," he added. "You're so focused on some particular mission. But that perception -- especially among someone who's maybe 16 or 17 in anywhere from Turkey to China to England -- is something I'm concerned about." On the new podcast, he also talks about the often-forgotten importance of electrical and computer engineers, who will develop the sensors that make machine learning advance; how educational programs have been complicit in the lack of diversity in tech; and why he's personally pessimistic that self-driving cars, one of Carnegie Mellon's areas of expertise, will be ready by the early 2020s, as some have predicted. You can listen to Recode Decode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. Below, we've shared a lightly edited transcript of Kara's full conversation with Andrew. Kara Swisher: Today, I'm delighted to have Andrew Moore on the podcast. He's the dean of Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, which was ranked No. 1 in the world by U.S. News and World Report. And he was previously a vice president of engineering at Google where he was in charge of Google Shopping. Andrew Moore: Happy to be here, thank you. I wanna get your background. I've had various computer scientists on the show who are teaching and like that, and I'd love to get sort of the academic perspective, but you've been in the fray, also. So just let's give your background, where you came from and how you got to Carnegie Mellon and then we'll talk about what's going on there. I grew up in a seaside town called Bournemouth in South of England, and there, in the late '80s, I really got into creating video games, like a lot of kids at the time.