A speaker at the annual AI conference NeurIPS is drawing criticism. It wasn't an opinion about AI, it was a reference to Chinese students.
In her keynote on “How to Optimize What Matters Most,” MIT Media Lab Professor Rosalind Pickard (pictured above) spoke of “Chinese students kicked out of top universities” for using AI. I have included a slide with the excuse quoted. The student allegedly said, “No one taught us morals or values at my school.”
The slides also include a note from Picard that says, “Most Chinese people I know are honest and morally upright.”
Google DeepMind scientist Jiao Sun shared a photo of the X slide and wrote, “Reducing racial bias from LLM is much easier than removing racial bias from humans!” I am. Yuandong Tian, a researcher at Meta, reposted Sun's comment and wrote, “This is clear racial bias. How could something like this happen at NeurIPS?”
In a Q&A video also shared by He urged her to remove the mention if she did. — a suggestion to which Picard seemed to agree.
After the talk, NeurIPS organizers posted an apology, writing: We are discussing this issue directly with speakers. NeurIPS is dedicated to being a diverse and inclusive place where everyone is treated equally. ”
Picard also apologized in a statement expressing “regret” for mentioning the student's nationality.
“I found this to be unnecessary, irrelevant to the point I was making, and caused unintended negative associations,” Picard wrote. “I am sorry for doing this and deeply regret the pain this incident has caused. I am learning from this experience and welcome ideas on how to make amends to the community. .”