Work.Life.Ai - Week Ending 10.4.19
This week I attended the #AiNow2019 Symposium at New York University’s AI Now Institute. This session came about three weeks after attending the O’Reilly Artificial Intelligence Conference in San Jose, California. Being on two completely different sides of the country was just the beginning in terms of the differences between the two events.
The California event being held in the tech mecca of Silicon Valley, was focused more on the bits and bytes, where Artificial Intelligence is going and what is possible. The New York event was more about where we have been, what has gone wrong and philosophy behind what could potentially go awry, without serious advocacy, oversight and ethical considerations.
The fact is that both events were about possibilities - Silicon Valley being about the focus on relative advantage of the technologies while New York was about the realities and potential disadvantages of superimposing technology on top of existing bad policies that have real consequences for underrepresented lives.
Thank heavens that I actually believe there is currently room for both sides of the issue.
If I had to say which one allowed more voices into the room, I’d have to say the O’Reilly Conference, but then again it was four days long versus the AI Now Institute’s symposium which was one evening. Don’t be fooled by the time though, the 2019 AI Now Symposium packed a lot of serious punch. I found myself almost wanting to jump out of my seat a few times - both from excitement as well as maybe rage?
Neither event fully addressed the use of artificial intelligence technologies in the hiring process, which is where my research sits, but I am sure that is on their agenda for future sessions.
Articles for week ending 10/4
How Artificial Intelligence Will Impact Self Employment via Phys.org
UK Employers are Using Artificial Intelligence to Find New Talent via The Inquirer
How to Prepare your Company for the Human-Plus-Technology via @Inc
Events
The AI Now 2019 Symposium event is viewable on YouTube. You may still be able to find the 2018 even as well.
The annual HR Technology Conference happened in Las Vegas again this year from 10/1 to 10/4. No doubt the newest, shiniest technologies claiming to help human resource professionals and talent folks reduce bias, improve quality of hire and save recruiters from tedium, were on full display. It is very possible some of those products may be able to help and potentially offer real value.
However, if past experience is any indicator, some are too new to be valuable, some will add versus reduce annoyance and some are just about adding perfectly good tech to perfectly bad policies.
I definitely want to be there next year though. Based on Twitter feedback, there were some outstanding speakers. Here is a summary of the contribution of one current HR/AI Influencer, Josh Bersin: