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Lorlei Boyd
As AI applications continue to roll out, a 2021 Pew Research study shed some interesting light on potential challenges for the industry: 68% of tech innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists doubt that ethical principles in most AI applications will benefit the public good by the end of the decade.
Those concerns are a reason why Lorlei Boyd — a developer at Gray Decision Intelligence — is working to actively changing the way AI is being implemented and applied. Her focus and belief is that AI development needs to be mindful and forward-thinking in terms of its innovation and impact on the world.
“I think a lot of people are skeptical of balancing the utility of artificial intelligence with confidence or accuracy about its use,” Boyd said. “That’s why it’s important to take a really critical lens to technology and science to understand people’s relationship to the tech and how they use it.”
Bizwomen spoke with Boyd recently about some of the ethical challenges in AI, how businesses can most effectively use AI, how AI development can be done in a mindful way and more. Here are some of the insights she shared.
What spurred your interest in this specific AI field?
I’m a bit of a combination of my parents. As a child, my mom was an artist who taught me the importance of everyone’s artistry in life. My dad was more of a science/tech kind of guy who taught me about the genius of the universe. My stepmother, a mathematician, later taught me to have an eye for detail.
I feel like I’m a pretty good mix of all of these qualities. So when I headed off to college, I wound up majoring in science/tech studies focused on STEM. It was a humanities degree that teaches you the importance of recognizing that humanity is embedded in each action.
