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Diverse R&D Teams Make For Better AI: Microsoft

Microsoft has pointed to its partnerships with Indigenous communities in Australia as evidence of how it is incorporating Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) into its development of AI.

Lindsay-Rae McIntyre, Microsoft’s chief diversity officer, told the BBC that Microsoft localises its AI strategy to numerous cultures.

“In India, for example, we just ran a D&I experience at the intersection of race, ethnicity and religion for managers and leaders,” she said. “Through feedback, we were also able to have Copilot pop up with responses that are both qualitative and quantitative so that we can be more effective as we deploy it to the whole of the workforce.

“We’re also doing that in Australia and New Zealand for the Indigenous communities. And in the Middle East and Africa, we wanted more support for employees and their families who are going through menopause – something that isn’t always talked about in cultures around the world.”  

Inherent bias within AI is just one of the challenges faced, along with incorrect information being disseminated, global job losses and matters related to creative copyright.

 

Cape York 2021 project with Microsoft, CSIRO and local rangers. Phisch Collective/Microsoft.

 

The BBC reported that McIntyre said “her team at Microsoft is increasingly focused on embedding inclusion practices into the firm’s AI research and development to make sure there is better representation ‘at all levels of the company’”.

“Microsoft says AI can be a tool to promote equity and representation – with the right safeguards,” the broadcaster stated. “One solution it’s putting forward to help address the issue of bias in AI is increasing diversity and inclusion of the [developers, engineers and researchers] building the technology itself.”

McIntyre said: “It’s never been more important as we think about building inclusive AI and inclusive tech for the future.”

In 2019 Microsoft announced its Healthy Country trial project in Australia’s Top End, aimed at protecting the environment and biodiversity.

The company described it as a “ground-breaking project, weaving together Indigenous knowledge, scientific research and artificial intelligence into a pioneering and adaptive co-management solution …”

 

Project using AI to help protect Kakadu biodiversity and environment. Image: Microsoft.

 

Among those who took part were the Kakadu Board of Management, Bininj co-researchers and Indigenous rangers, CSIRO, Microsoft, Parks Australia, Northern Australia National Environment Science Program (NESP), University of Western Australia (UWA) and Charles Darwin University (CDU).

The trial allowed more data to be collected and more locations to be accessed at all times of the year, and Microsoft said its AI removed the need for people to “physically review thousands of hours of video to count animals and identify para grass in its different states (burnt, wet, growing, dead). Instead, CustomVision AI, trained with machine learning, interprets the drone footage”.

In 2021 it was part of a program in Cape York with the CSIRO and Cape York Indigenous rangers in which Cloud and AI were employed to “quickly analyse thousands of aerial photographs of remote beaches in northern Australia to identify evidence of both turtle nests and their predators”.



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