Kathy Baxter, Research Architect Salesforce: definition of AI and types of intelligence for bots; enculturation and training data; fairness, ethics and research methodologies to build a neutral system; governance, bias and ethics in AI

Kathy Baxter has an MS in Engineering Psychology from Georgia Institute of Technology and has been on the “Silicon Valley tour” working for companies such as Google, eBay, Oracle and (now) Salesforce. She is currently a Research Architect at Salesforce where she uses her skills in HCI, ethnography, I/O Psychology, ethics, AI and experimental design to create innovative experiences across Salesforce, with a particular focus on Service Cloud, process automation, and artificial intelligence. She has presented papers and taught tutorials to the Human Factors and Usability community in the US and Europe since 1997. She also actively volunteers for events to increase the number of girls and women entering the STEAM fields.

In today’s episode we talk to Kathy about chatbots, her work with Einstein ( Salesforce’s AI), ethics and bias. We cover definitions of AI, types of intelligence for bots, and how it compares to humans frames of learning. We cover enculturation, training data for chatbots, and the need for diversity and inclusion. We talk about fairness and ethics and what methodologies can be used to build a neutral system that is based on unbiased data. We also talk about governance, bias, and ethics and what companies can do to start reducing bias and take an ethical approach to product building. Lastly we cover how a social scientist can approach this field.

Mentioned in podcast:

• Einstein AI https://www.salesforce.com/eu/products/einstein/overview/
  -“How babies learn and how robot’s can’t compete” article: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/03/how-babies-learn-and-why-robots-cant-compete
• Bias in the COMPAS System https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607955/inspecting-algorithms-for-bias/

Kathy’s work:
-Coauthor of Understanding Your Users, Second Edition: A Practical Guide to User Research Methods (Interactive Technologies) 2nd Edition https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Your-Users-Second-Technologies/dp/0128002328/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?dpID=51mZmVSfc6L&preST=SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40&dpSrc=detail

• How build ethics into AI Part 1 (https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/how-to-build-ethics-into-ai-part-i-bf35494cce9) and Part 2 (https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/how-to-build-ethics-into-ai-part-ii-a563f3372447)
• How to meet user expectations for AI (https://medium.com/salesforce-ux/how-to-meet-user-expectations-for-artificial-intelligence-a51d3c82af6)

Social media or other links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathykbaxter/
https://medium.com/@kathykbaxter
Twitter: @baxterkb