AI’s Hidden History: Bias, Power, and the Builders Who Shaped It
summary
An embedded anthropologist spends eight years in four US labs in the 1980s–90s watching medical AI be built from interviews with single experts and textbooks, documents that systems are often built from one expert or one textbook, that meetings and clinical work are ignored, and that most prototypes become shelfware. Specific failures include a rule that led to recommending male pregnancy and reliance on one-hour expert sessions, plus women making up 8% then 15% now.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction: AI as a Cultural Force
- 0:12Diana Forsyth's Anthropological Research in AI Labs
- 1:12Understanding Digital Anthropology
- 2:37Power Dynamics in AI Research
- 7:10The Disconnect Between AI Designers and Real-World Users
- 22:33Gender Issues in AI Labs
- 25:07The Importance of Anthropologists in AI Development
- 26:15Conclusion: Learning from the Past to Build Better AI
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