A lack of diversity in tech is damaging AI

The tech industry has a diversity problem, that's nothing new. However, this diversity problem has damaging implications for the future of artificial intelligence development, argues World Economic Forum AI and machine learning head Kay Firth-Butterfield. Speaking at an event in Tianjin, China, Firth-Butterfield flagged the issue of bias within AI algorithms, calling on the need to make the industry "much more diverse" in the West. "There have been some obvious problems with AI algorithms," she told CNBC, mentioning a case that occurred in 2015, when Google's image-recognition software labelled a black man and his friend as'gorillas'. According to a report published earlier this year by Wired, Google has yet to properly fix this issue – opting instead to simply block search terms for primates.