November 21st, 2023
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The Rebel Tech Newsletter is our safe place to critique data and tech algorithms, processes, and systems. We highlight a recent data article in the news and share resources to help you dig deeper in understand how our digital world operates. DataedX Group helps data educators, scholars and practitioners learn how to make responsible data connections. We help you source remedies and interventions based on the needs of your team or organization.

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IN DATA NEWS

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“Speaking after the UK's first AI safety summit, the prime minister, Rishi Sunak said people should not be worried about the impact of AI on jobs because education reforms will boost skills and the technology would improve the economy in the long term. His government has so far declined to announce legislation to regulate AI, arguing that existing regulators are best placed to mitigate the risks while the technology evolves. A group of governments attending the summit and major AI firms agreed to collaborate on testing of their AI models before and after their public release. The 11 government signatories included the EU, the US, the UK, Australia, Japan – but not China. The eight companies included Google, ChatGPT developer OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon and Meta”

These 11 governments are in several tough spots. They aren’t AI experts, the AI experts who’ve been invited to A discussions have multiple conflicts of interest and there aren't any comprehensive existing AI governance standards. The citizens in their respective countries are becoming more AI aware, astute and literate. Too many of their citizens have experienced the harmful side of AI. And they are demanding action in protecting their digital civil rights. So here’s the unequal and disparity-widening compromise – for governments to increase education and tech research and development spending while allowing these companies to essentially self-regulate. There’s not enough data citizens demanding more and the tech companies’ profitability trajectory is too high to closely control. It’s a fear that invoking tighter controls on the tech industry would adversely affect the global economy.

Nevertheless, this recent AI Summit offers us an opportunity to better financially position ourselves. There are 4 emerging and fiscally lucrative categories of AI workers: AI critics, AI practitioners, AI-adjacent practitioners and non-AI practitioners. Each of these plays a role in public regulation of AI as an industry and as a messy web of systems, tools and platforms. Our world won’t be all digital or all analog. It’ll be a hybrid that’ll be regulated by the employee, entrepreneur and gig workforce. AI critics will inform people and organizations of AI vulnerabilities including but not limited to bias, discrimination, misinformation and disinformation. AI practitioners will continue to develop AI systems, tools and platforms. Some will be implementing responsible data/AI practices and others won’t. Non-AI practitioners perform those tasks that AI can’t e.g., human-side content verification and validation. And AI-adjacent practitioners move between the AI and non-AI worlds. They are translators who fill the gaps to bring the best of both worlds.

So which AI worker category do you most closely identify?

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DATA CONSCIENCE CORNER

"The claim that visualizations are easier to understand than text is a lie, made more evident by the tech community’s laziness in building its alt-text functionalities, capabilities, and integrations in terms of closed caption and transcription for images, video, and audio content." pg 208 Data Conscience

A picture is worth 1000 words – that’s what the axiom says. What’s not mentioned or remembered is that if you were to ask 1000 different people to interpret a data visualization, then you’ll receive 1000 different explanations. And here lies the problem. We, all of us, aren’t in a position to accept a data visualization at face value given the uptick in misinformation and disinformation. So take 3-minutes to first, read the explanation provided by the visualization creator. If there is none, you have cause for pause. It’s okay not to trust a picture without an explanation. Second, check if the explanation aligns with the visualization. Does it make sense? And third, consider which parts of the data visualization you’re not confident or don’t understand. It’s okay to not understand and ask for clarifications. This is what makes you a good data citizen.

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Get Your Copy of Data Conscience Here!

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A WORD FOR BLACK WOMEN IN DATA

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A Word of Encouragement: Jenifer Lewis regularly says the things that hit me in my full chest. May you claim your greatness, be happy on your way to happy and meet yourself. Listen to this GOOD word from Auntie Jenifer.

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A Word for Promoting a Daily-ish Rest Routine: I watch a pre-Google TV-show nightly. I’m a huge fan of whodunnit series. I'm currently re-watching Murder, She Wrote.

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​A Word on The Power of Ask: Closed mouths don’t get fed. Meet Leondra R. Gonzalez. She’s Sr. Data & Applied Scientist at Microsoft and a Doctoral Researcher at University of the Cumberlands' School of Information and Computer Sciences. Leondra shares her gems on how to ask for a raise, negotiate your pay, ask for time off, pitch yourself for inclusion in promotion-worthy projects, and more during this 60-min webinar. Bring out your notebook and hear the replay. If you miss a gem, don’t worry because you can re-watch as many times as you want.

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Listen Now!​

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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National Center for Atmospheric Research NEST Community Workshop

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For 3 days, I stretched my brain at the National Center for Atmospheric Research NEST community workshop in Charleston, South Carolina on how they can better serve community-driven climate priorities. It was a mix of academics, private companies, nonprofits and small businesses who are invested in productive climate action.

Much of the think tank group activities had us imagine an infrastructure to address a challenging societal problem, or set of problems, centers on climate change impacts relevant to their local community, with communities actively contributing toward developing ideas and effective solutions. Effective data use and AI development were reoccurring themes from data/AI community-centered practical workshops, “phone an expert” requests/repositories and verifying data correctness in a timely manner for the community in need.

Being in this space with 65+ others from all over the U.S. was inspiring, exhausting (I’m such an introvert) and more resolute to keep hearing from different communities on their wants and needs from data insights as well as share my perspectives on what these data insights can and can’t do for them.

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LAUGHING IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

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Stay Rebel Techie,

Brandeis

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