Sex, Race, and Robots

How to Be Human in the Age of AI

By: Dr. Ayanna Howard

Narrated by: Amandla Stenberg

In the movies, robots can be terrifying. In reality, thinking machines are disrupting the world in ways that are even more disturbing than in Hollywood fantasies - but they also have the potential to change our lives for the better.

In this stirring, visionary work, acclaimed roboticist Dr. Ayanna Howard explores how the tech world’s racial and sexual biases are infecting the next generation of Artificial Intelligence, with profoundly negative effects for humans of all genders and races.

Drawing on cutting-edge research, and her own experience as one of the few Black women in the field of robotics, Dr. Howard shares how she navigated bias in her own coming-of-age as a roboticist. She also reveals how the world of computer programmers, which largely lacks women and Black people, is producing thinking machines that too often think like their flawed creators.

The danger of bias in our AI-powered machines has never been greater. Governments are using supercomputers to track COVID-19 patients. AI is being employed to monitor Black Lives Matter protests. Voice recognition systems have been rolled out that can’t hear female voices. Dr. Howard delivers a stirring warning about the risks of AI and robots - but also offers an uplifting message about empowerment and where we need to go next.

©2019 Audible Originals LLC (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC.

Wonderful treatment of bias in AI

I just finished this book and it was excellent. As a Black woman in robotics I am one of those unicorns that she referred to. This was a wonderful treatment of her journey into robotics and the bias she experienced as a student and engineer. It also explained the humanity of AI and robotics sand how we can respect and embrace it by being aware of how it can be used correctly and incorrectly. I highly recommend.

AMAZING BOOK

Great book on conscious and unconscious bias in our world and how it is negatively impacting our technology. A motivating case to get more diverse backgrounds in tech while the industry is still in it's infancy.

Existing and pre-existing human biases weaponized

I really enjoyed the content, though at times I found the narrator's voice and tone difficult to follow. If the goal is to influence readers to carefully monitor our tacit tendency to believe mechanization, robots and AI algorithms are purely objective, you succeeded with me. Apparently, this is what happens when technology our legal and social infrastructures fall too far behind technology.

Makes you ponder the future of tech

First off, the narrator Amandla Stenberg was amazing! Her voice inflection, her passion for the topic came through beautifully! I truly hope Audible employs her voice acting for more projects! The content of this book touches upon many, many aspects of our lives! I was surprised to learn about chat bots, and the algorithms that continually feed you more of what you search for. The information about how and where AI is being used was surprisingly fascinating! I applaud Dr. Ayanna Howard for her dedication to her profession (never giving up despite the pushback she received) and her willingness to pull back the digital curtain showing us how and why AI is biased. I truly enjoyed this informative book! So much to learn in a easy to digest format!

Hidden Curriculum in Robot and AI Design

Sex, Race, and Robots - How to Be Human in the Age of AI is a collection of thoughts on robots and AI in history, in our modern world, and in the future, and how the biases of those creating these machines and systems have become intertwined in how the robots perform and how the AIs make their decisions. It's thought-provoking, informative, and overall a very enjoyable read.

As a woman who has always been drawn to technology myself, I found it refreshing to hear a woman's perspective on this topic. I've been the girl in the high school electronics lab pulled aside to ask if I was there because I was interested in electronics or boys (I wasn't the flirty type and I mentored the younger classes.) I felt pushed out and ultimately pursued other degrees both times I attempted a bachelor of engineering. Attempt #1 I was 1 of 16 girls in the first-year class and 12 of the others were international students. Attempt #2 I was 1 of 6, and 3 of us switched to other degrees by the half-way point. During the one work experience semester I did before transferring the second time the only other woman in the office was the secretary. (And that's the story of how I spent 9 years in undergraduate studies and ended up with the vastly different majors of history and computer science.)

Dr. Howard touched on how AIs learning from records of interactions in a historically patriarchal society have unintentionally learned to attribute genders to professions, which becomes a problem when they're used to filter job applicants. How the sensors on self-driving cars, which rely on light reflection, don't register darker skin tones as well as paler ones, or how they fail to identify children simply because they're usually tested during school hours when most children are safely indoors. How speech recognition software responds best to male voices speaking in predominantly white dialects and accents because that's primarily who's designing and testing the programs. How search engines return images of startup CEOs when asked for rebellious white men, and mug shots when asked for rebellious black men, because those are the images and attributed descriptors they have been fed. The field of engineering in the western world is still very much a white man's playground, and because of that the robots and AIs being built are indoctrinated to be both sexist and racist, even if that's not the intent. This reminds me of a concept taught in sociology and psychology called hidden curriculum: the accidental lessons taught alongside the intentional ones. A child who grows up only seeing male doctors and female nurses, especially in an environment that also belittles nurses as less skilled or less intelligent, grows into an adult who doesn't trust female doctors. This is what we're doing to our robots and our AI systems.

In short, this is a book about ethics in robotics and AI and how we need diverse minds and voices in their creation in order to avoid passing on our own biases to the non-human workforce of our modern world. It's insightful and very well written, and I would absolutely be interested in reading (or listening to) more from Dr. Howard.

The audio performance by Amandla Stenberg was perfect, too. She was easy to listen to, had no trouble with technical terms or all of the various names of scientists and authors referenced. I usually listen at 1.5x speed and that felt like a normal conversation pace.

5 stars all around!

I was granted complimentary access to Sex, Race, and Robots on Audible via Audiobookworm Promotions in exchange for an honest review as part of my participation in the blog tour for this title. Thank you to both Dr. Alyanna Howard and Audiobookworm Promotions for the opportunity! This has not swayed my opinion. My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

Thank you, Dr. Ayanna Howard for this work...

I appreciate your experience and expertise as a researcher and engineer which has provided you insight into A.I. topics concerning ethics related to race and gender.

Fascinating

This book provides great insight into how AI works, how it is influenced by social bias, and the risks and opportunities related to its implementation. Personable and intelligent writing and well performed.

Powerful message, engaging performance

Love this book. No one understands the biases in the emerging and pervasive AI technology better than Dr. Howard because (a) she's a pioneer leader in the field herself and (b) she has experienced those biases in the field that created the technology in the first place. The book weaves in Dr. Howard's personal story with explanations of AI everyone can understand. The story is eye opening. And the performance by Amandla Stenberg is really outstanding!

I am exceptionally happy with this audio book.

This Sex, Race, and Robots audio book is awesome! Not only does it give useful techniques, it is especially helpful if you lack confidence, this is a confidence booster as well!

So fantastic

This is a fantastic book truly about life changing events in modern society! There is so information and insight in this book, I am so glad I purchased it. It will stay with me for the rest of my life.