Comments about the article in Nature: Can a major AI conference shed its reputation for hosting sexist behaviour?

Following is a discussion about this article in Nature Vol 563 27 November 2018, by Holly Else
To study the full text select this link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07552-1 In the last paragraph I explain my own opinion.

Contents

Reflection

Introduction

But although attendees at this annual event will hear talks on cutting-edge ideas in computer science, another issue will also be front and centre: whether the conference can provide a welcoming environment for women as the field of artificial intelligence (AI) grapples with a culture of harassment and discrimination.
The problem is not so much the relation between AI versus harassment and discrimation but the relation between humans versus harassment and discrimination. Specific what is the meaning of both. If the meaning is not clear and unambiguous than any discussion will result in lack of clarity.
Women reported unwelcome, persistent advances from men at the previous conference.
When that is the case, in some sense, the behaviour of men is bad, unethical.
Terrence Sejnowski, president of the foundation that oversees the conference, told Nature that the foundation’s board, and others, had read the report with great interest, and thanked the authors for the analysis. “It provides us with valuable information for understanding our community,” he said.
Terrence Sejnowski should have given a much stronger rejection and declare this as not tolerated behaviour.

1. Diversity measures

In December 2017, Sejnowski and the chairs of the boards of the 2017 and 2018 conferences acknowledged in a statement that several events held at or in conjunction with the 2017 conference had fallen short of the standards required to “provide an inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone”.
That is very bad and not what you should expect from any conference.
Next:
They said that they would take immediate action, including recruiting the diversity and inclusion chairs, formalizing the process for reporting concerns and strengthening an existing code of conduct, by which all attendees and sponsors will have to abide in future.
To define a code of conduct which describes the behaviour of man towards woman is not what I would suggest. If you do something make it gender neutral. As an example say that the behaviour of all participants at the conference should be open, with respect and on equal footing of every ones opinion. Treat every one else like you would expect they should treat you and want to be treated for the rest of our lives.

2. Infuriating questions
Raia Hadsell, a machine-learning researcher at DeepMind in London who has been attending NeurIPS for more than a decade has not witnessed a “rampant culture of discrimination, bias or harassment” at NeurIPS but has seen and experienced many things described in the gender section of the survey there.
Okay.
“I find it infuriating to be asked whether I am a recruiter, or a ‘plus one’, or whether I ‘did the work myself’ — do men ever ever get asked questions like that?” she says.
That man and woman are not treated equal is wrong.

Reflection 1 - AI Conference and sexist behaviour

The question to ask is: whether sexist behaviour is something specific for an conference relating to AI or for any conference? Reading the papers and observing what is happening in the relations between humans I believe this subject is more general and not specific related to AI.

The article does not give enough detail what the problem is, specific in relation with Articicial Intelligence.
AI science includes the concept of training. Training is used to increase the skill of the AI system, and depents on training data. It is important that the data used should not be biased in any way. In practice it means that a face recognition system should be trained with data from all sexes, all colors and all ages.

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Created: 30 March 2018

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