Egyptian-American scientist Rana El Kaliouby launched her new podcast series, Pioneers of AI, on Wednesday 18 September. Produced by RieldHoffman’s Masters of Scale, the podcast invites listeners to explore how artificial intelligence (AI) will shape the future.
In this series, Rana delves into AI’s impact through conversations with leading experts. She tackles AI from ethical, philosophical, and sociological angles, encouraging the development of technology that is not only innovative but also responsible and thoughtful.
The podcast aims to democratize AI by making it more accessible and inclusive, showcasing voices from diverse ethnic backgrounds and minority groups and ensuring a wide range of perspectives are represented in the conversation around AI’s role in society.
In her debut episode, Rana interviews Dr. Joy Buolamwini, a Canadian-American computer scientist and digital activist, and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, to explore the flaws in facial recognition systems and how to make the technology more inclusive.
During the episode, they discuss the biases inherent in AI through the lens of Robert Williams’ case – a man wrongfully arrested in 2020 for allegedly stealing thousands of dollars’ worth of watches. Detroit police had matched blurry surveillance footage of the crime to Williams’ driver’s license photo using a facial recognition service, but Williams was not the thief; he was actually driving home from work at the time of the robbery.
This case marked the first documented instance of wrongful detention due to facial recognition technology, a tool increasingly used by police departments and government agencies across the US.
Who is Rana el Kaliouby?
Rana El Kaliouby is on a mission to humanize technology before it dehumanizes us. As the co-founder of AI startup Affectiva, with a PhD in machine learning and computer vision from Cambridge University and postdoc from MIT, she has spent over two decades as a leading innovator in AI, pioneering the field of Emotion AI.
Rana is also a co-founder and general partner at Blue Tulip Ventures, where she invests in early-stage startups building ethical AI that is good for people.
In a previous interview with Egyptian Streets, she stated, “I think it’s imperative that we include young people in this AI revolution. Not only because AI is shaping every aspect of our lives, including those of young people, but also because the younger generation are tech natives and so have creative views on what AI should look like.”
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