Finding AI’s True Potential for Humans Around the World With Kriti Sharma

Kriti Sharma, seen in Forbes 30 Under 30 in Technology, is an artificial intelligence technologist, business executive, and humanitarian. She has been a part of Google India’s Women in Engineering, a United Nations Young Leader, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts. In 2018, Kriti launched rAInbow for domestic abuse victims in South Africa. She is the founder of AI For Good UK as well as an advisor to the United Nations Technology Innovation Lab. Previously, Kriti was VP of Artificial Intelligence at Sage. 

Today, we are lucky to have her with us to discuss the future of AI and to answer an important question—what if disadvantaged groups don’t have a say in the AI tech we create? How can the world’s governments join forces from a regulatory perspective in order to create AI that benefits humanity as a whole? What types of social change and humanitarian impacts intersect with AI—how do we do bigger, better things that incorporate the human element? And how does GDPR play a role?

On this episode we discuss:

• 2:00 Kriti discusses her background, including her introduction to machine learning and robotics with a robot she created when she was 15. She also discusses the purpose of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and the types of problems they focus on within the group. What do these problems mean from a regulatory point of view and in everyday life?
• 6:00 How do we get governments around the world to engage in more collaboration? Rather than become a “leader” in AI, why don’t we use the combined power of joining forces? How does being in London alter her view of AI around the world and why did she choose to work there?
• 9:00 Is employment a driver for concern in the markets that Kriti engages with? Because AI is at the height of its hype cycle, how does that impact AI in business moving forward? Is the alarmist narrative surrounding job automation valid? Kriti discusses that women are expected to lose twice as many jobs to automation as men as well as the dark side of new job creation.
• 14:00 Kriti discusses the importance of diversity in AI and how it can bring focus to actual usefulness as well as potential misuse cases that can arise. How has Kriti encountered challenges and mistakes on this front?
• 17:00 Where is the intersection between AI and climate change and how does this relate to the youth classes Kriti has taught? What social issues do the young people Kriti teaches care about? 
• 21:00 Kriti discusses rAInbow for women in South Africa where 1 in 3 women face domestic abuse—a figure that is the same for Australia. Why are women not reporting their abuse? What other women’s issues and diversity issues intersect with AI? 
• 28:00 What are Kriti’s thoughts on GDPR? Is it working?