Bumped into an old professor at the grocery store who changed how I see AI ethics

Last Saturday I ran into my college computer science professor by the produce aisle. He asked what I was working on and I mentioned using AI for content generation. He just shook his head and said 'you're putting the cart before the horse if you don't think about who gets left behind.' That hit me hard because I realized I never once considered how these tools might affect people without internet access or tech skills. Has anyone else had a moment where someone made you look at your AI work differently?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_john2d ago

Exactly, the elderly and people in rural areas are totally invisible to most AI companies.

mila_murphy2d ago

Did you ask him what he thought was the biggest group getting left behind?

taylor.brooke2d ago

Yeah I hate to admit it but I was kinda in that same boat for a while. I was so focused on making things work fast and getting cool results that I never stopped to think about who actually gets cut out of the picture. Then I saw a talk from a librarian who works with seniors and she said something similar about how her patrons can't even use basic voice assistants half the time because the tech just assumes everyone has high speed internet and a smartphone. It really snapped me out of that mindset and now I try to question every assumption I make about who the user actually is.