NY Times Missed These 12 Trailblazers: Meet the Women Transforming AI
Introduction
So, the New York Times recently unveiled a prestigious list of the “who’s who” in AI. When that flashy caption appeared on my Google News feed, I had a feeling this list would be worth a second look. Oh, was I right. The list showcases 12 key figures in AI who have played a pivotal role in the new “AI movement” and are the driving force behind the dawn of our modern Artificial Intelligence era. Sounds cool, right? You can check out the original article here.
But, surprise surprise — they seem to have missed the memo! Not a single woman made the cut. Now, that’s not just an eyebrow-raiser; it’s a full-on head-scratcher. Because, let’s face it, there’s a legion of brilliant women out there making groundbreaking strides in AI, and we can’t just turn a blind eye to that. This omission sparked quite the buzz, and rightly so. Kudos to those who spoke up and pointed it out.
Why do we care? This is not an isolated incident. Ignoring tech women leaders without addressing it will just keep sending the wrong message that women’s contributions are less important in the field, which is far from true. Women may be a minority in the tech field, but their impact is nonetheless colossal and deserves mainstream recognition.
Now that we’ve got that off our chests and since I couldn’t let this slide, let me whisk you away to a world where 12 incredible women rightfully get their leadership status back in the public eye, shining as bright as their male counterparts. Because, you know what? Brilliance knows no gender!
RECTIFIED…: Who’s Who Behind the Dawn of the Modern Artificial Intelligence Movement
Anima Anandkumar
Meet Dr. Anima Anandkumar, a powerhouse in AI research, currently serving as Sr. Director of AI Research at NVIDIA and a Bren Professor at Caltech. As an expert in developing AI algorithms for scientific applications, she’s a key player in the “AI for Science” movement. Dive into her insights on LinkedIn.
Joy Buolamwini
Dr. Joy Buolamwini, the mind behind the Algorithmic Justice League, fights AI bias with art and research. She’s a Global Tech Panel advisor and author reshaping the conversation on AI harms globally. You can discover her journey in her latest book “Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines”. Definitely on my Christmas book list!
Yejin Choi
As a MacArthur Fellowship recipient and a University of Washington professor, Dr. Yejin Choi has been exploring the intersection of natural language processing and social common sense reasoning for years. She draws attention to the limits and challenges of large-language models in this area.
Check out her insightful TED Talk on Why AI is incredibly smart and shockingly stupid.
Daphne Koller
Dr. Daphne Koller, a trailblazer in machine learning with 200+ publications, co-founded Coursera, a global leading online learning platform with over 100 million users. As the CEO of Insitro today, she leads AI-driven drug discovery.
Catch her TED Talk on “What We’re Learning from Online Education” for insights into the evolving synergy of technology and learning.
Cassie Kozyrkov
Cassie Kozyrkov, ex-Chief Decision Scientist at Google and current CEO of Data Scientific, champions Decision Intelligence and safe, reliable AI. She has personally trained over 20,000 Googlers and advised on 100+ projects by shaping data-driven decision-making and AI strategy.
With a substantial following of half a million tech professionals, her invaluable insights are a must-read on LinkedIn and Medium. If you’re not following her yet, now’s the time!
Fei-Fei Li
Dr. Li stands as a luminary in computer vision, boasting over a decade as a Stanford professor. Renowned for leading the ImageNet project, her contributions in building the image dataset enabled huge advances in deep learning in the 2010s, which continue to underpin today’s progress in generative AI. As a co-founder of AI4ALL, a nonprofit championing AI education for a diverse generation, she vigorously advocates for universal AI access and perspectives.
You can follow her research and thought leadership on LinkedIn.
Mira Murati
As OpenAI’s CTO, Mira Murati leads the charge on AI products including Dall-E, Codex and the very famous ChatGPT. With a knack for public testing, she’s a key leader in one of the AI industry’s current hottest startups. Not to gossip, but given that half of the people on the NYT’s list are connected to OpenAI, her absence is even more surprising… But I digress!
If you’re eager for OpenAI’s updates from her viewpoint, she’s quite active on X (Twitter).
Joelle Pineau
Dr. Joelle Pineau is Meta’s VP for AI research (FAIR) and a proponent of open-source machine learning. You might have heard of No Language Left Behind, a unique project translating 200 languages with a single model, or SeamlessM4T, the first all-in-one, multilingual multimodal translation model recognized as one of TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023? Well, both were built by Joelle’s teams!
For an in-depth exploration of this last captivating technology, check out this Meta blog post.
Francesca Rossi
Dr. Francesca Rossi is IBM’s AI Ethics global leader. With over 200 published scientific articles, she stands as a key figure in global responsible AI and fairness initiatives. Currently presiding as the AAAI President (a premier worldwide AI association), she contributes her expertise to many global thought-leading groups such as the OECD AI Expert Group and the World Economic Forum.
Follow her on LinkedIn for a close look into the AI ethics field.
Lisa Su
Dr. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, successfully revived the company, reinstating it as a major player in the semiconductor industry. With AMD’s eye on AI chip dominance, she’s significantly shaping the future of AI hardware.
Read more about her transformative leadership on Fortune.
Vivienne Sze
MIT’s Dr. Vivienne Sze pioneers energy-efficient AI accelerators. Her work touches areas from autonomous navigation to digital health and IoT, making AI more accessible and widely applicable.
Stay updated on her breakthroughs via LinkedIn.
Raquel Urtasun
Last but not least! Dr. Raquel Urtasun stands as a pioneer in self-driving cars, currently steering the ship (no pun intended) as the founder and CEO of Waabi — an innovative company pushing the boundaries of generative AI to revolutionize autonomous trucking. Prior to Waabi, she spearheaded Uber’s self-driving car division, contributing significantly to the evolution of computer vision and perception, key components of the modern AI landscape.
Explore her journey and vision on The Verge.
Why “rectifying” matters
Now that it’s out in the open, do these impactful women deserve recognition as much as their male counterparts?
This article isn’t about diminishing others’ contributions. I, for one, am highly inspired by many of the NYT’s list figures (I let you guess who 🤩). But it’s about leveling the playing field.
This article isn’t about making a fuss over your favorite AI leader’s absence on a list either; rather, it aims to be a catalyst for discussions about fair recognition in tech. And to be real, in essence, my counter-list is symbolic as it only captures a fraction of the exceptional people in AI.
Ideally, we all dream of a world where dedicated lists become obsolete and merit alone naturally creates a mixed recognition landscape.
At the end of the day, we have 24 meritable AI leaders and two lists in front of us. Can we strive for a point where we consistently have only one fair and representative one in the mainstream from the start? I’ll leave you with that challenge.
Conclusion
The dialogue is open: Why do women’s contributions still frequently get less visibility in the AI and Tech space? What can we do to contribute to equal recognition? Join the conversation and let’s collectively break the cycle!
