(upbeat music)
- After I got fired from Google, I could not imagine
being at yet another large tech corporation.
And the only thing I could imagine having the energy
to even attempt to do was a different vision
for how we could do research and a different kind of space
that welcomes people from many different backgrounds
who really just can't exist in the types of spaces
that we have in these companies and academic institutions.
- So DAIR was founded because the way that AI work
is done now, it seems to be done by a handful
of huge companies or small VC-backed companies.
- A tiny portion of the world located in Silicon Valley
has huge amounts of centralized power.
It affects the entire world.
But the entire world doesn't get to affect it.
- So at DAIR what we wanted to do is focus on developing AI
that really put people who are typically marginalized
at the center, people who are usually ignored,
people from the African, the continent,
and the African diaspora, refugees, gig workers
who usually are at the receiving end
of the negative impacts of AI.
- Because the social dynamics and like the politics
inside these companies also plays a huge role
in whose voices get heard and whose priorities get,
you know, bumped up in how these systems are built
and deployed and the impacts that they have.
- We can't really isolate ourselves
and then solve the problem and then go to the communities
and say that, "Hey, here's a solution,"
without really consulting them.
- If you're working on a, you know, set of problems,
you're not only working, you know,
with just tech folks attacking, you know,
a specific, narrow problem but looking at it from, you know,
community contributors or you know, the people
who are building these technologies.
- AI might actually be a solution
to a pretty narrow set of problems.
And if deployed right, that is pretty helpful.
And I think we're not necessarily against AI.
But if AI is not serving the people,
then why should we actually engage in that?
- At DAIR, there are, you know, wonderful projects
that we're working on, mainly targeting
marginalized communities.
It seems that this area that has like huge societal impact
is also the one that's ignored by corporations
and people that have resources.
And so, you know, if you're talented,
if you have the resources and so on,
I hope you can join us on the journey.
(upbeat music)