In Computing, There Is A Problem With Diversity

Regardless of how many women and people of color are welcomed into the room, tech's exclusionary culture may never change.

Amy Webb was forced to walk in a walking boot after breaking her ankle. That annoyance produced others, including the fact that she was no longer able to pass through the metal detector in airport TSA PreCheck queues. She had no choice but to utilize the backscatter equipment, which generate X-ray pictures of passengers.

Webb, a New York University professor and author of The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, used the inconvenience as a chance to see firsthand how this technology, which employs computational methods to highlight potential threats on the body, works. "I was gazing at the screen, and my cast, head, and breasts were enormous blocks of yellow," she recalls of the picture that showed from the scan. She saw a couple of other women go through the pat-down while waiting for her turn. The same thing: bright blocks over their breasts.

It was due to underwire bras, which the system occasionally mistook for possible weapons, she later found. She's had other issues with the equipment as well, including the fact that her mop of thick, curly hair occasionally throws them off. (My colleague Hannah Giorgis, who has a lot of curly hair, confirms that she, too, is subjected to a cranial pat-down at the airport.)

Webb's experience is one of the more harmless side effects of computer systems that don't account for all of the possible users. For example, computers have begun to issue jail sentences.

Derek Thompson: Should we be concerned about artificial intelligence in the criminal justice system?

Webb attributes her bad airport experience to the fact that "someone like me wasn't in the room" when the system was built, trained on photos of human shapes, or tested before going live. That concept is similar to a popular notion for addressing computers' lack of understanding of various types of people: increase the variety of representation among those who create these systems, and they will better serve the public.

But that's a wishful thinking. Although diversity in the IT business is rising, it is still far from ideal. Women, African-Americans, and Latinos are all underrepresented. As a result, diversity in computing systems is a necessary but insufficient answer to social fairness.

Companies and academics in the computer industry have characterized diversity as a "pipeline" issue for years. People with the appropriate educational backgrounds have access to the appropriate training, which allows them to enroll in the appropriate institution, which connects them to top jobs. The theory goes that fixing the flow of talent into this system will result in the workforce that Webb and others are advocating for.

The Constellations Center for Equity in Computer at Georgia Tech, where I hold teaching posts in the computing and liberal arts colleges, is one of them. The center's mission is to enhance women's and people of color's access to computer science education. It has financed and supported computer-science programs in Atlanta public schools, particularly in predominantly black communities where such possibilities had previously been unavailable.

Those efforts are commendable. However, considering the size and nature of the IT industry, their influence may be insignificant. More than 95 percent of technical employees at Google, for example, are Caucasian or Asian. Adding additional black engineers from Atlanta colleges to the mix will undoubtedly help progressively raise the numbers. It will also allow more people of color to benefit from the economic possibilities provided by the tech industry. However, there is a risk of tokenization; bringing in a black guy or a curly-haired woman may influence the design of the algorithms that created Webb's airport security experience. However, it is unlikely to significantly alter the present direction of the IT industry.

Webb blames the present state of affairs, at least in part, on training programs like those that Constellations is undertaking, even if she would want to see greater diversity among tech professionals. She remarked yesterday during a discussion at the Aspen Ideas Festival, co-hosted by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, that "we've had this preoccupation with STEM education." "It's reached a fever pitch, as seen by these initiatives requiring every child to learn to code." Webb is concerned that the push to increase the number of computer professionals for the sake of diversity may cause more difficulties than it solves. Where will students learn to design software with equality and care if everyone is focused on the nuts and bolts of building software fast at scale? "What the machines won't be able to do is critical thinking," she remarked.

As an alternative, Webb suggests China. This year, kindergarten children throughout the country will begin studying a textbook meant to teach them the new fundamentals of knowledge they'll need to succeed in a computational future. "That's the type of thinking that will enable them to collaborate with AI systems," she said. "We risk forgetting that every kid must learn to read and write while everyone is concentrated on 'Every kid must code.'"

Computing education, according to Charles Isbell, the executive director of Constellations and the future dean of computing at Georgia Tech, is still a crucial step. "The fundamental question," he explained, "is whether we are interested in variety or integration." Because of the inclusion of women, people of color, and other underrepresented voices, the whole industry's behavior would alter as a result of their participation in that community. Isbell stated, "Diversity is merely membership." "Integration is a combination of influence, power, and collaboration."

Integration, on the other hand, is far more difficult than variety. In order to do so, Isbell believes that two conditions must be met: "One is that the new people are both capable and confident." Another factor is that the elderly are willing."

Kamau Bobb, a senior director at Constellations and the worldwide lead for diversity research and strategy at Google, isn't so convinced the tech sector is ready yet. In Silicon Valley, a large number of individuals are active in diversity, equality, and inclusion programs, and "those folks are genuinely devoted," Bobb told me. However, giving access to the current condition of circumstances is a major motivator for them. "They're persuaded by the idea that it's just not fair that more people don't have access to the Google life—free food, electricity, and money," Bobb explained. Their purpose is to increase participation in the game, not necessarily to modify the rules. In this view, inclusion is first and foremost a matter of economic equality, with any social or moral advantages coming as a bonus.