Destiny Fox Kanno
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our first Brave Spaces roundtable discussion brought to you by Incluu, LLC. Incluu is a product equity and inclusion practitioner, helping to build brave spaces for life.
Destiny Fox Kanno
And here with us today, we have some very, very esteemed guests. We’re going to ask them all to introduce themselves, tell us a bit about what drew them to their work. But before we get there, who am I? I’m Destiny Fox Kanno. I’m chief operating officer of Incluu, and I’m going to kick it over to founder of Incluu, Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi to get us started on those introductions.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Wonderful. Thank you so much for that Destiny. So happy today to join all of you, and we are welcoming Jennifer McClanahan-Flint and Masheika Allgood. Before I introduce myself, I would love to invite our two participants to introduce themselves and tell us a little bit more about what they do and what drew them to the work that they do. I’ll popcorn it over to Masheika.
Masheika Allgood
My name is Masheika Allgood. I am an AI ethicist and founder of AllAi Consulting, LLC. Our firm’s goal and purpose is to help make a more literate or generally literate AI society. I think a lot of the difficulties we have with AI is that people don’t know what’s going on, so they can’t protect themselves or others. And so that’s really the focus of my ethics work and the focus of AllAi Consulting.
Masheika Allgood
I got into AI randomly. I happened to work at a company that shall we say enabled this current AI age that we’re in, through the creation of a pivotal piece of hardware that nearly all AI is run on. I didn’t actually work in AI at that company, but I got bored with my actual job and started learning about AI and was well positioned to learn from some really well known and well respected experts.
Masheika Allgood
The issue of AI ethics came up almost immediately, upon me learning about AI. I spent a little time trying to do work within big tech around the issues, but then realized that the appetite wasn’t necessarily there. The way to address this issue would be a bit more direct, if we had more people in the room. And so then it became this issue of educating people outside of tech, about the tech, to allow them to do the things that they normally do, to advocate, protect themselves, move for laws and social norms to be incorporated into what we do.
Masheika Allgood
So that’s a bit of my journey. Shameless plug, my AllAi company, part of what we do is put out educational resources. November 1st, our first course, Introductory AI for Legal Professionals course will be available, a series of three introductory courses. That’ll be available November 1st, December 1st, January 15th. And that will kick off our educational thrust. We’ll also be having courses for educators, medical professionals, government procurement officers, and just a lot of different people who are in spaces to work around AI.
Masheika Allgood
I am shameless in that plug. I’ve worked very hard on these materials. I’ll just go ahead and put that out there at the intro, but I’d like to thank Dédé and Destiny for inviting me. I’m really excited to have conversation with Jennifer and Dédé and Destiny, and try to get, I don’t know, a different and interesting perspective on these issues.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Thank you so much for that, Masheika. We’ll bounce it right over to you, Jennifer.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
Thank you so much, Dédé. Masheika is so interesting. I look forward to connecting with you afterwards. We work with lots of law firms, so I could imagine some intersectionality going on there. Destiny, thank you so much for this great introduction and having me here.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I am Jennifer McClanahan-Flint. I’m the founder and CEO of Leverage to Lead. I started my career on Wall Street and then moved to law firm management. I managed all the day-to-day operations in major law firms, Northern California practices for global law firms.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And in that work, I spent a lot of time with individual partners, helping them build their practice and their book of business, grow their work. And as I was always having these marketing, finance, billing, what do we do to make yourself more profitable conversations, I was never having them with women. It was always with white men.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
In 2010, 2011, the last firm I was at wanted to have a women’s initiative program. I said, “I’ve got a curriculum, I’m ready, ready to help them.” And they were like, “Well, we just want to do a brown bag lunch.” I was like, all right, I’m going to start my own practice.” Head in hand.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I really started working with women in law and helping them build a pathway to partnership. And that work of course expanded out of law, because there were women who were having the same challenges everywhere. And then in 2013, after the death of Trayvon Martin and really it was my own awakening with Black Lives Matter. Not that I didn’t know I was black up to this point, but to really think about my identity, and why was I often the only black woman in a room? What did that mean? And what did I know and understand that also could be so helpful to other women of color?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I was on a mission to work with black women. I was like, I’m going to find them. Although it was hard, it was harder than you’d think it would be. But as I started really developing my understanding around equity and inclusion and the specific needs for people of color, I was helping them really expand their career set.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And organizations started reaching out to me, because they would have people of color in their organizations that they thought were going to sue them. And they would say, “Could you come in and help us manage the situation? We have an employee, and there’s a communication problem.” It was like, “Oh, you have a black woman and you have bias. So let me go in and help you out.”
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
So that work really evolved. In 2019, I partnered with MJ Mathis and we really started to build values-based work for organizations and really examining the values in our organization, to understand what about your values, whether they’re aspirational or in practice, is really creating exclusion, and what could be creating inclusion? And so the values excavation work has really expanded as you can imagine, over the last two years.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
But my heart and as Dédé knows, my heart is really doing the career and executive consulting with individuals and people, helping them to really shift the paradigm of what’s possible for them.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Thank you so much for sharing that with us, Jennifer. And before I get into my introduction, I just want to introduce our first in a series of conversations that we’re hoping to have over the next several months, years. Well, there’s no end date in sight, but we welcome you to Incluu’s Brave Spaces roundtable.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
I am Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi. I am an ethical technologist and social scientist, and I have 20 years of experience in my field. I leverage international professional experience and unique lens as a polyglot from a multicultural background, as I create strategies for individuals and organizations committed to investing in equitable and accessible product development and design processes.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
I got into this work because of who I am. I was born in West Africa. I was born with a chronic illness disability. I was raised in an environment where I got to use multiple languages. I was adopted transracially. I grew up with a lot of cultures, languages and a perspective of how things work around the world as part of my day-to-day. And quickly realized that there weren’t products out on the market that had people like me in mind. They weren’t designed with me in mind.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
I decided, if not me, then who else is going to come down this path and create something that’s going to be workable for me and all the other people in the world who are just like me, who straddle geographies, who straddle languages, who straddle different types of identities, depending on the context that they’re in? And so through a bit of trial and error, found out that the work that I do in terms of helping organizations and individuals understand what it means to build with a diverse world in mind, rather than for them, started to come to the conclusion that the work that I want to do is creating brave spaces where we can be vulnerable, where we do think about the people who are left behind, who are at the margins and bring them to the center of all that we do.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
And it’s still my reality, that hasn’t shifted. There’s still a huge need for it. And as we will continue to discuss over time, but as technology continues to change and improve, and as we create new types of emerging technologies, we need to have more focus towards building relationships whereby we’re bringing into the center of what we’re building, the potential positive impacts that we can leave behind. As technology changes and increases, we need to be able to bring back the human element into what we do.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
All right. So, tall title. Masheika and Jennifer, would you be so kind as to tell me a little bit more about what you thought the initial need you were hoping to fill, as you worked in developing tech, so AI and ML for you Masheika and Jennifer, individual coaching and business coaching. What was the initial need that you were hoping to fill and has this changed in 2021?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
The goal of civil rights is for people whose identity differs from whiteness. The physical and cultural identities of whiteness. The responsibility we have is to assimilate. And this is, I think listening to you talking about the accents and the bots, it goes back to this idea that there is English, and our responsibility is to assimilate to that English.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And that brings me Dédé to the question that you are asking, regarding what brought me to the work. And really, the thing that I want is for people to actually leverage their difference. When I’m working with leaders in an organization, when I’m working with black women who are trying to ascend in their careers, they think the path forward is to show up in a way that keeps them safe. And keeping you safe often means that the best of you doesn’t come with you.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And so the work is really to build the audacity to say, no, these parts of my identity, these parts that make me different, these things that don’t fit in, are actually what you need to continue to be successful. You need me to show up differently, in order for us to think differently, to do things differently, and for me to give you my best ideas. If I’m spending my energy in the day covering, I don’t have the time or energy to dig deep into my creative mind and to bring forth what it is that I know to be true, that could really impact what we’re doing here.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think for people of color, we have spent our life, if we have been in predominantly white spaces, and by white I mean the construct of whiteness, not necessarily the identity of everyone in the spaces. You have spent your years knowing, identifying, understanding, feeling your way through a tough situation. So your ability to be acutely aware of what’s going on in a room in any particular time is a skill.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think Masheika it’s like your mother didn’t have to say anything. Her eyes said it all. We have been reading eyes since however long. So our capacity to know, understand, interpret, know where we stand, understand what’s going over there, combined with our capacity, our curiosity, the fact that we probably have always had to be creative in some sense, to be able to move ahead and to show up in a space that doesn’t always want us, my whole goal in life, is there space for people just to be, so that they can do their best work?
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Thank you so much for sharing that, Jennifer. It really brings to mind for me why I continue to do the work that I do. And despite the difficulties that I have showing up in my difference, with my difference, and understanding that it is, or I guess all the aspects of my difference, differing, well, anywho, différance with an A instead of an E, as the postmodernists like to say, that allows me to be able to actually be creative and actually be able to walk teams and individuals and organizations step by step through a process through which they can understand truly what it means to build relationships with the communities that they’re going to be impacting.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
First, to understand those communities exist, and then be able to actually have a non-interactive relationship with them so that they’re building something that’s going to be useful. And in all of the ways that I show up, I show up as someone with accessibility issues, physical accessibility issues and geographic accessibility issues. I’m someone who speaks different languages.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
And so when I interact with someone, I try to figure out, how can I communicate better with this person based on my experiences of being a member of different communities around the world? But in all of the ways that I show up, I still show up in fear. And that’s something that I struggle with every single day.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
And part of the reason that I do the work that I do is because I’m not represented. And other people like me are not represented. And so by stepping into the center, I have to be able to feel as though it is a space that is going to be welcoming enough of me, to be able to help shepherd them to a place where they can then understand what is being said to them. Whether that’s in a different language, whether that’s in a different format than they’re used to seeing or hearing or experiencing.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
But every time I do that, I come into that space in fear. I don’t believe that much has changed for me or for the organizations that I work with in 2021, as opposed to when I started down this journey, except that I know this work needs to be done. I know that in doing so, I’m going to be able to at least have relationships with people like you Jennifer, with people like you Destiny, with people like you Masheika.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Even knowing that, it’s still difficult every single time. And every single time, I see some news article about how some so-and-so company has again perpetuated systemic injustice. I roll my eyes and I’m like, “Why didn’t you talk to me first?” That’s what comes to mind. I’m like, “You should have talked to me, come on now.” There’s so much work that we could do, so much more improvement that we could see. But at the same time, I don’t actually want to step into that, because I’m like, it’s so much work and it’s overwhelming and who knows where the end is going to be?
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
But before we move on to the next one, I would love to invite Destiny also to [inaudible 00:17:19] what her initial inspiration was, and what she’s trying to achieve as well.
Destiny Fox Kanno
Wow. It’s hard to follow up all y’all, but I think a similar, in the same thread of Jennifer, in this soul searching way of, I’ve always known I was a connector. I’ve had different types of friends, all different colors, all abilities and all of this. And I’m just like, “Hey, you’re nice to me, you’re fun. Let’s have a good time.”
Destiny Fox Kanno
And so part of that is what pushes me forward as well, because I just feel this need to ensure that we all can have these spaces where we can share our different perspectives, whether we agree or not, learn something new and push some change forward. I think last year with the murder of George Floyd particularly, there was definitely this huge social justice, civil justice warrior that was just like, “I can’t stand it anymore,” that just burst even more furiously inside of me.
Destiny Fox Kanno
And so this need has always been there, and hearing you all talk, I am reminded of, when that happened last year, and I was speaking to my mother or my auntie, and they’re like, “Oh, we did that whole civil justice thing 30 some years ago, nothing’s changed.” And I’m like, “Well, we’re going to keep trying and we got to keep going.” I’m pretty sure 30 years down the line, we might have another revolution, but I think that’s just human nature. We’re always forcing change in some way. And sometimes it is more painful, more dramatic and more at the forefront than it was in the past, but it is always progressing towards something, some ideal, I think, that we all would like to have eventually.
Destiny Fox Kanno
So this is what powers me to keep doing this type of work every day, alongside you Dr. Dédé at Incluu, and this work has also just opened my eyes a lot more to what has and hasn’t changed. So we have what has changed in 2021, and I’m like, I have some jaded friends that are like, “Girl, you’re still steam rolling along, but nothing’s changed.” And I’m like, “I know, but I got to keep going forward.”
Destiny Fox Kanno
I think when we keep going forward, too, we have to remember to just take time to see those milestones that we have actually hit. Because it is so easy in this work to just feel jaded like, oh, another company that’s making billions of dollars is not going to take our advice on their horrible extractive tactics, in order to actually do better in the world and also make better products in the world.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Right on. And as we continue hurtling towards this future where more and more is automated and less and less difference and diversity are taken into consideration, what pitfalls, what negative impacts or consequences are you currently seeing and experiencing?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
Let’s say the fear. I think the fear that it won’t change, the fear that it will change, the fear that I will be sacrificed as part of the change. I think sometimes when I’m working with clients, I get it. I am an optimist. I have learned optimism. If you’ve read the book, I’m very in the unrealistic, optimistic frame of that book.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
But I say to myself, so if you don’t do it, where will you be? What is your option? What else are you going to do? I think the stubbornness of white supremacy feels like there’s just no way forward and we still do move forward. I have to say, I’m in Destiny’s camp.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
But I remember in 2015, I have a blog leveragetolead.com. Under resources, you’ll see we have a blog, you can sign up for the blog if you want to read some of our writing. But in 2015, I was writing about Colin Kaepernick and the flag and I was my like, I wrote it and then I wouldn’t publish it. Because I was like, oh, my God, my mother’s going to read it. My boss is going to read it. Everybody’s going to read it. I felt really vulnerable in such a public way and the retribution that may or may not befall me and my family.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think in some ways, oh, who am… I think it was overblown, no one came and found me after I’d been writing about race now for seven years. I don’t think it’s extreme, because sometimes I don’t want to say the randomness, but there is no protection from being black, in many ways.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think it was a fair concern, and it’s not that I don’t ever hold the concern, but also, I went to back in 2016, a white privilege conference. And it was just really in that conference when I… Not that I thought racism would change in my lifetime, but it won’t even change in my daughter’s lifetime. It was like one of those really clarifying moments about where not just our country but our world is, on racism.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I said, well, you got a choice. You got a choice. I think the idea, knowing it’s difficult and that it’s sometimes dangerous and there’s the fear, really is a pitfall. I will say, I’m going to use my Tim Howard analogy. He was the goalie for the US men’s soccer team many years ago and he has Tourette’s syndrome. And so he set record back in the time for the most saves in a soccer game, which talks about the level of play for the US team, but he was a great goalie.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And the question was, how when he is in these very high stress moments, when he is really feeling like, oh, my gosh, where am I at? What am I going to do? How does he not have the Tourette’s syndrome come up? How do they not rise up? And he had to really reframe and say, “This is the level I want to play at. This is the work that I want to do. This is where I am. And when I am feeling this feeling, it’s because I’m where I want to be. It’s not an affliction for me.”
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And I think for me, at the level that I do the work now, which I wouldn’t have said back in 2015, the people I’m working with now, I would ever work with, there are moments when I’m like, “I’m going to talk to you. What can I even say?” I know that that’s the point of the work I’m doing. That’s the level I want to be doing the work at, because that’s where I personally can have the most impact.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And so it was really reframing that idea, that the fear I’m feeling is because I’m actually being challenged to do the work that I said I want to do.
Masheika Allgood
I’m a little different from y’all. I’m not an optimist. My fear is different, because I already know that I don’t fit in these spaces. I’ve already been crushed in that way. I was a lawyer to start. How many of us are lawyers? Now, women in tech. How many of us are in tech? I’ve already had my career dreams crushed. I’ve already been through all of that over and over again, so that no longer is really part of what motivates me.
Masheika Allgood
Feeding myself is a thing, but trying to get acceptance in spaces that clearly don’t want me there, you can only do that for so long before you have to tap out or just lose it. You know what I mean? Tap out, conform or lose it.
Masheika Allgood
I’m not in those spaces. I’ve tapped out. I’ve done something different. So to me, my fear is around getting the things done that I will want to get done. My fear is around putting out the level and the quality of stuff that I want to do.
Masheika Allgood
And so when I’m in these spaces, I think the original question was about what negativity do you see? Honestly, I work in AI. Everything you hear right now is some level of negativity. I could write on list for you if you want, but I don’t really see that there’s a lot of value in that, because that’s just more beat down.
Masheika Allgood
When I first started making posts on LinkedIn, it was trying to inform people about the negative aspects of AI. But it hurts, you know what I’m saying, to see it and to say it over and over in new and novel ways. And so it was sucking at my soul. I was like I have to do something different.
Masheika Allgood
And so I may talk about a negative consequence of AI, but I’m framing it in a way of, how could we have done this different? When I talk about Compass, I don’t just talk about how horrible that was for society. I talk about if we had used the AI as a human augmented tool to give us information that we could then act on separately, as opposed to a human automated tool, a decision-making tool, then it could have had a positive impact. Getting that information could be positive for society, as opposed to just seeding control to the AI to make bad decisions based on that information.
Masheika Allgood
My thing is, I don’t believe AI is suited for decision-making. That’s not what, it’s statistics. You don’t make decisions off of… You take statistics and based on those statistics, you make a decision, but the statistics are never the decision in and of themselves. I think we just fundamentally misuse the tech and people do that purposefully.
Masheika Allgood
So for me, I’ve been in tech. I recognize that they’re not interested in this. And so it’s where do you put your efforts? How do you turn this negative, how do you find a way to make it positive?
Masheika Allgood
And that to me is, I listened to the prime minister of The Bahamas. She is amazing. And the way that she sees the world is cut and dry and clear. She articulates it in that way. That is a leader who can bring about change.
Masheika Allgood
I recently started following the new commissioner of the EOC in the US. And he’s given talks all around the world, the negatives and positives of AI and HR systems. Now mind you, we need to have a conversation to better understand how he sees and how he frames that negative and positive. But for him to even be having those conversations, the commissioner of the EOC to be having those conversations is a huge win. It’s a massive step in the right direction.
Masheika Allgood
I’ve watched him over time have various conversations and it’s real. And so for me it’s more, I’m not trying to change the people who are fat cats off of the exploitive nature of the technology. You’re not going change their minds. There’s people still fighting in the South, the War of Northern Aggression. You’re not going to change the minds of the people who are benefiting off of a biased system. You have to change the structures around them to limit their power and their ability to do negative things.
Masheika Allgood
That’s my focus. That’s why I’m focusing on law, on policymakers, on the people as a whole. Because we’re all the buttresses of our society. We’re all the people who can step in and check power. Right now we’re not in a position to do that. The people don’t understand. You know what I mean? So we’re not in a position to argue and fight.
Masheika Allgood
Yes, we understood Black Lives Matter. We know how to get outside and march, but do we know how to argue against having AI facial recognition in this particular context, or to purchase it in our companies, or to allow it to do certain things? That’s something an individual person can do in the scope of their job. Then it’s like everyday activism. You know what I mean?
Masheika Allgood
And so for me, trying to find a different audience to have these conversations has been liberating. Because you cannot beat your head up against a wall harder than I have beat mine up against the systems in this country, and still have a head. It is not possible. I bought all the things to bear, the education, the speech, the look, all the things.
Masheika Allgood
I reached a point in my life where I was like I’ve done all the things right and it’s not working. It’s not me, it’s the system. I need to find a way around or through, or change within this system, or of the system as a whole, in order to allow myself the life that I have been promised and that I worked really hard to have. Because this shit ain’t getting it.
Masheika Allgood
And so that’s the same way that I approach the idea of changing AI to be more ethical. You have to change the systems around it. Zuckerberg ain’t going to change shit. He’s making plenty money. Clearly, his focus is on making more money. When you get to a certain level and you haven’t made enough money, it’s a sickness. What do you call… It’s an addiction. It’s something that you cannot stop, even if it is reasonable for you to stop.
Masheika Allgood
So why are we going after addicts and asking them to change their behavior? We need to start stripping them of their drugs. That’s how we treat any other addict. That’s how I approach it. I’m not overly optimistic. I don’t believe in the power of changing hearts and minds. I believe in changing structures. I believe in changing laws. I believe in changing regulations. I believe in suing the hell out of people until they figure shit out.
Masheika Allgood
And so that’s how I’m approaching all of this. And so it’s less an optimistic, it’s more of a, what the hell can I do right now to push people who don’t want to go?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I would just like to clarify, Masheika. I don’t think we’re that far off. My hope and optimism isn’t necessarily that we’re going to go in and change Facebook in any way, shape or form. But that those of us who think that we don’t have the agency to do something different, we do.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
So it’s not about what we’re doing to influence people who are not interested or share our values, but that we can stand out and say, “These are our values.” And work in a place, in an organization, in a frame, whether it’s our own, whether it’s someone else, whether it’s in conjunction with someone else where they value what it is that we have to offer and what we’re bringing to the table. That we value who we are and what we do enough, so that we don’t feel like our only choice is to compromise and assimilate.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
So just to be super clear. It’s not optimism that I think if we all work hard enough, Zuckerberg’s going to have a change of heart.
Masheika Allgood
But I also, when it comes to, once again, I’ve been thrown out of two, three careers at this point. So the idea that, because we come to the table properly and we come to the table valuing ourselves. Dédé sat on a panel, I think this was the same panel you sat on that we had at Nvidia, where we had someone come in and she was talking about DEI efforts and moving up in the company.
Masheika Allgood
And she kept talking about, if you have, what is it? When you don’t believe in yourself, even though you should. What do they call it?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
Imposter syndrome.
Masheika Allgood
Yes. She was talking about, her whole thing was on getting over imposter syndrome. I was like I have four degrees and a Mensa card. I’m not an imposter. So when I have my shit together, now what? What’s the next step? She told me to read her book. She had nothing. She was like, blah, blah blah. I was like, “Are you kidding?” This is where we are.
Masheika Allgood
I get getting us ready for the party. But we also have to recognize, even if you’re ready for the party, the host may not want you at the table. You have to be willing to walk away.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
You don’t need to stay. Yes need to go find a place that… Yes.
Masheika Allgood
…in a position to do that too. You know what I mean?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I was just saying, I think… Yes. So I think it’s incumbent of us to make sure that we take care of ourselves financially. There are many of us that we’re working to make sure that we have the financial capacity to have choice, but you have to actually know you want choice.
Masheika Allgood
Totally agree with that.
Destiny Fox Kanno
Dr. Dédé, did you have anything to add here?
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
I was actually waiting for you to add a little something.
Destiny Fox Kanno
We’re so polite. Well, I almost wanted to just round up what I’m hearing here. And what I’m really hearing is, whether we’re optimists or not, that all of us were not afraid of saying the quiet part out loud, because that is often what we need to have said the most.
Destiny Fox Kanno
And also, I get this feeling, whatever the path we take, we’re almost being whistleblowers for humanity. Just throw out a quote there, because it really is. You both are right Masheika and Jennifer, whatever function we choose to be in, especially making sure we’re feeling good ourselves, we’re not going to let someone push us out and put us in the corner. We’re going to carve out our own space and just keep going.
Destiny Fox Kanno
I guess maybe that’s where my optimism is. I don’t need to be at this company or that company. I know who I am. I know what I’ve got to say. I know that it’s valid and I’m going to keep pushing, because the world needs it.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Yes, very well said. I think for me, so much of what Destiny and Jennifer you say resonates with me, to the point that I want to call myself an optimist, but I know myself better. I am an unending, a never ending romantic and optimist, but to a certain point. I’m optimistic about other people’s behavior.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Masheika, I find myself in the situation where I’m trying to change hearts and minds, rather than being like, oh, wait, you’ve been here before. Oh, wait, no, this isn’t déjà vu. You’ve lived this before. This is another round on the merry go round, it’s another turn and it might be time to get off, but I’m like, but no, I can change these horses into elephants, or I can change these elephants into goats, or I don’t know, bunnies. What kind of animals are in my… Whatever. Anyway, I’m always trying to change hearts and minds, rather than being like let’s take a step back and actually consider what we’ve done, all of the stuff that we’ve taken to get here, and think more about the structures that need to change.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
I consistently, and Jennifer will probably let you know this too, I consistently start to think, oh, wait, no, no, the piece of this equation that is wrong is me, because I’m the common denominator across all of these things. But that’s not the point. The point isn’t that I’m wrong. I’m not miscoded. An X is an X is an X, whatever it’s supposed to be is going to always be that.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
But place the X in a particular algorithm and the algorithm changes, the equation changes, the outcome changes. I want to be the person who is making the outcome or the equation change. The area that I think that we should be focusing on, and I want to bring it back to what you said before, limiting the structures around the people limiting change.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
How do you approach that? How can we talk about the things that we want to see in the people, in the organizations, in the individuals that we’re working with? How do we go about changing the structures around them, so that we can eventually get to a place where we’re changing hearts and minds of the people who actually want their hearts and minds changed?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I don’t have the answer. I’m not the expert, but I am going to just throw out that if we could stop talking about imposter syndrome, because imposter syndrome means that you’re trying to be part of a structure that has no use for you or no need for you. And so people throw this… You aren’t an imposter. You are yourself, but you are not a white guy. And that’s okay. The goal isn’t for you to be more white, so that you can do X, Y and Z.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think really Masheika, your comment about the structure is really, to me, it’s just stands in relief of this idea of imposter syndrome. And it’s like you don’t even understand how caught up you are in a structure that will never serve you, which is why it’s feeling like an imposter so much.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
So anyway, we talk about systems in our work a lot, because white supremacy is a system. So you have to be able to have another system in place of that system. It’s a new reality, but it’s not necessarily flatness. But when you talk about systems and AI, I would love to hear your point of view since that is definitely not my expertise.
Masheika Allgood
So for me, and I fully agree with that. Because I was a big old square peg in that round hole. I could wear as much round as I wanted, but that peg was still square. I am fundamentally who I am, no matter how I look or present.
Masheika Allgood
But as to the issue of structures, so for me, I’ve had this conversation and I try to be very clear about, there’s this mentality when I talk to techies and it’s like this is broken. They’re like find something better and we’ll go with it, which means we’re going to continue to do the broken thing until you find a way to replace it.
Masheika Allgood
I don’t think that’s proper framing. I don’t think it’s on the oppressed to find a tool to be unoppressed. I think that’s how that framing goes. I’m constantly trying to push back against that kind of framing, because it’s what we all hear. It’s the general construct around things. You have to replace the system with a system, which, yes, to some degree is true, but you can build that new system over time. It doesn’t have to be a swap and replace. I think you clearly recognize that part.
Masheika Allgood
I’m not trying to hit on you for that, but I just had this conversation yesterday with someone and he’s like, “Well, when you find something better…” I was like, “So we’re just going to keep doing raggedy foolishness until I as an individual find a way to fix the entire…” That’s just stupid. It’s unreasonable. And it’s just a way to blow you off.
Masheika Allgood
I think the focus should be first on limitations. I look back on how we did worker safety. There were no laws around worker safety, or we can go even further back. We can go to when Hershey… No, it was Heinz. When Heinz first proposed that we have… The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration. He came out with that, because back in the day, people were using all kind of adulterated materials to create ketchup and it was affecting his sales.
Masheika Allgood
And also it was affecting his branding, because people were buying ketchup and dying, because it was made out of whatever, saw shavings and whatever. And so he was like, “We need regulation in order to allow spaces for innovation, in order to allow people to make benefit, if they do positive things and create things in positive ways.”
Masheika Allgood
So, when you look at how the Food and Drug Administration came about, when you look at how we moved with worker safety and product safety over time, we’ve gone through these inflection points within our history about the products that we create. I don’t think AI is any different. So you start out trying to figure out, what are the harms, what are the incentives?
Masheika Allgood
I was just reading an article where the gentleman was talking about the difference between, you had to look at… Where did I put this article? Because it was awesome. I’m sorry. You’re going to have to… Affordances in the Senses. And so he was like, you have to look at what the technology allows you to do. What is it replacing? What is it making easier? So how the internet makes it easier to communicate. So that’s an affordance. You don’t have to go out and buy a stamp. You don’t have to look up an address. You can send an email, send a chat, send a message. So it affords us ease and communication.
Masheika Allgood
So what are the incentives that come with that affordance? Well, the incentives are, instead of only complaining when something went horribly, horribly wrong, because it took so much for me to complain, now I complain for everything that even slightly aggravates me. So you got all these people, “Oh, my God, this is the worst product ever,” but it just was really an aggravation.
Masheika Allgood
So you got to look at what the incentives are and how people are likely to use the tech. So if we start looking at tech from that lens, what are the affordances from a social media [inaudible 00:43:41]? And then what are the incentives? So the affordance is anybody can have an opinion. So what are the incentives? Anybody’s going to have an opinion. And if that’s a negative opinion, then I never got to put it out in the world before. I’m really going to be pushing it, because now people are listening to me.
Masheika Allgood
You see the affordances and the incentives don’t really seem to be aligned with social values or societal values. So then what’s the last part of this? Well, what are the limitations? Are there any limitations that can help protect against the worst abuses of this new system?
Masheika Allgood
So when you look at technology within that frame, then you end up in a situation where you’re not just trying to outlaw things that you think are bad. You’re not trying to necessarily replace an entire social structure through technology, which we can’t tech everything. A lot of things that are wrong with society are wrong with society and we need to fix society.
Masheika Allgood
But what we can do is try to figure out these most egregious use cases for the technology and stop that. There are laws with product liability about you putting out an inherently dangerous product. Well, that’s the same kind of mentality. What is this made for? How is it most likely going to be used and what are the worst abuses of it? We create laws in order to protect you from that. So how is it any different for technology?
Masheika Allgood
It isn’t. But because tech is, new people think everything needs to be new. We need whole new laws and whole new areas of this. We have to look at this in a whole new lens. We have structures for this. And so my thing is, we can move pretty quickly to address a lot of these abuses if we’re willing to use the structures that are there and see them in new and creative ways.
Masheika Allgood
I give Elizabeth Warren a lot of credit for being the first person to talk about break up big tech. We’ve gone through that before in this country, where we had a few people basically operating as oligarchs, and then a president in the administration come in and break them up and tried to level the playing field.
Masheika Allgood
It didn’t become completely even. We took our eye off the ball, and clearly they have clawed back with they had and more, but it’s not that we haven’t gone through this process before. We have structures to handle these processes. We just happen to be in a situation right now where our government is complicit. Or a lot of the people in our governmental structures are complicit with the people who are making this money through exploitative tech. And while they are embedded with each other, it’s too heavy of a power on one side of the scale.
Masheika Allgood
And so once again, that brings me back to why I think we need more people involved in the conversation. We need lawyers to balance the scale. That’s what the law does. The law balances the scale, and we need the people and people power to balance scale. So when I look at limitations and creating structures, I’m not necessarily talking about forming new parts of government. That may be helpful. I’m not saying it won’t. But for me, I feel we have levers that we can pull, if we creatively look at our history and see what we have that we can use today.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I know I already spoke, but I just want to also add that part of our work is about the people structures. The way that you partner with people in your organizations. I think that it just makes me think, in order to have the lawyers and the people that can do the work to counter, where we are right now is that we have to actually think about the humans. Giving the humans the capacity to understand that it is their gifts that will make a difference, gifts that they have at this point felt aren’t valued.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And so it’s really, how do you change the perspectives, so this firm will do the work that needs to be done? And give them support. So it’s not the same firm and these people are dead, tired and beat out. We have 20 years of human resources experience on our team. We really go in to talk about, how do you build structures that support people? Not just business.
Masheika Allgood
On that same note, there are now, people are creating processes and structures around how to bring humans, users, end users, people into the development process, into the design process. Not just human centric design, where it’s like, oh, but humans as the key. As opposed to an AI pipeline and human in the loop, a human pipeline and AI in the loop. So, starting with the people and what your problem is that we want to solve, what are your structures that you have? What are your systems? And then where would AI fit, if it fits at all? And how can we make this seamless within how you see the world and how you do these things?
Masheika Allgood
So, that process is happening. But I think that your work is a foundation for that process. Because it helps companies understand how to work with people in general, because that is not a core competency of most companies. They don’t actually know how to work with their customers. They hire other people. “I work with the customer.” They hire other people to handle that business.
Masheika Allgood
And so bringing individual people into the design process, like people outside of the company who are stakeholders, bringing them in, and having an ability to communicate with them and understand their ideas and bring it into your processes, that is a competency that most companies don’t have. I think the companies who are going through your process and who are learning how to do that, even entirely with their own people, are forming a foundation that they can use to then create better AI over time.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Absolutely. And that is why Jennifer and Leverage to Lead and Incluu, shameless plug, work very well together as partners. Because Leverage to Lead brings them in, gets them started on that hard work of figuring out how to build those relationships, how to have those conversations, how to actually invest in their people. And then we can come in and support with additional data points that can help them figure out how to get to their stated values and state goals, by bringing in diverse voices and perspectives into the product development process.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
We are having an amazing time. We only have another few minutes left. I would like to wrap it hopefully on a more positive note, and we’re already headed in that direction anyway. But overall, as we’re thinking about moving beyond 2021 in the areas that we work in, how can organizations has worked toward long-term sustainable change in AI and ML, in people management, in investing in their employees and in people and programs and products?
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
I think you’re right. Our conversation is really leading to, it’s systems and it’s people, it’s not either/or. We are working with an organization that has decided that they, they wanted to hire more people of color, and we’re like, “But they’re not going to stay in your all white firm. So what else would you like to do?”
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And so really going from the bottom up and to understand culturally why they don’t know people of color. The leadership was willing to say, if this is what we want, and it’s important to our work, we are the block. It’s not this system out there that’s the block. Oh, there’s a system that is enabling us to show up this way, but we are still showing up this way. And to really hold the accountability and the responsibility for that.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
And then to understand if we’re going to change, that means we have to question everything. Because everything that we’ve created is based on a system of exclusion. And we thought we were great because of it. We’re super profitable. Things are really good. They had to be willing to really ask themselves constantly, am I looking at the mirror of who I say I want to be when I make this decision? And it is faith restoring, because they’ve been really deep in the process of doing that work.
Masheika Allgood
I think the difficulty with AI and ML is the tech is immature and so are the leaders. I say that because I’ve had a couple conversation, CEOs and about CEOs, and their only interest is the tech. “The tech is so cool. I want to build a cool thing. The tech is my focus. I’m a tech company. I want to deal with the tech.” Well, you can’t just have dessert. You put it out there into the world and it’s affecting people every day.
Masheika Allgood
You can’t say, I want a single focus on the tech, because that’s what tech companies do, without acknowledging that tech companies are fundamentally altering the world that we live in, in not very good ways. I think there’s a level of immaturity amongst our tech elite. And the idea that we can hold this knowledge amongst ourselves, because we are the meritocracy.
Masheika Allgood
And so we’re going to keep it, we’re going to hold it, we’re going to hoard it, because that is our value. We’re not going to share it with other people. I feel like that is something I can personally address, which is why I’m jumping in on that end. But I think there’s just a level of maturity that has to happen within the tech itself and within the tech leaders.
Masheika Allgood
I think the law and getting sued enough, will mature tech leaders faster than anything that we can do as individual citizens. But I think that when it comes to maturing the tech itself, it’s an issue of, we need to educate engineers outside of a silo that they’re educated in. Engineering is not just a technical skill anymore. You are social engineering.
Masheika Allgood
They need to learn philosophy. They need to learn political science. They need to learn social science and literature. They need to be given the tools to understand their impact on the world, as opposed to just code this thing, and are you coding enough for the day? I think we have to mature in how we educate our engineers.
Masheika Allgood
And then I think when it comes to tech companies, once again, we need to look at the structures that are in place around how they release their technology. There are some fundamental things that you can look at in a dataset to determine if it’s biased. There are things you can look at in the features to determine, are you likely to have the outcomes that you’re intending to have?
Masheika Allgood
There are things we can look at in the feedback loop. Who did I create this tech for, as opposed to who is getting it? And then there’s just, nobody wants to be at the wheel. Nobody wants to admit that they’re steering society with their technology. They’re just, if I don’t say I’m creating Skynet, then I’m not creating Skynet. But we’re clearly creating Skynet.
Masheika Allgood
We need to be honest about what we’re doing and someone needs to say, “This is where we want to go as a tech company. This is the future that we see,” and start building towards that future, as opposed to just claiming to be unbiased in that future and creating whatever can be created, which at the time is the most exploitive stuff that we can find.
Masheika Allgood
I think there just needs to be an honesty, which tech employees are doing their best to require that now, and that’s been pushing the conversation forward. There’s a lot of different ways that we can move forward, but they all push towards the same thing, some sort of honesty in what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and understanding of what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, which I think is fundamentally just not there.
Masheika Allgood
And opening of who was involved in the conversation. Whether you want to hire them into your 2% or not, an opening where people who are not in the tech industry are still being involved in the tech conversation. Because the time for building healthcare without doctors, the time for building education apps without teachers, the time for building legal apps without lawyers is over. The wild, wild west needs to end. We need to recognize that you need an expert in every field that you involve yourself in as a tech company.
Masheika Allgood
And we need to require that at a professional level. The American Medical Association needs to get involved. The American Bar Association needs to get involved. The American Realtors Association needs to get involved. All of these professions that are being affected need to get involved and make sure that they have a say in how their industry is being changed by this technology.
Masheika Allgood
I think the way we move forward is to not focus so heavily on changing the tech companies from the inside, which I appreciate everyone who’s doing that work. You have to do it. But I think the bigger change, the more radical change will be from the customers not buying and making requirements that shift the narrative. And from people shifting what they allow in their jobs, in their communities, what they will be willing to put up with to use services. I think it’s a broader narrative. We need an AI literate society, so that people are empowered to protect themselves and the people they love.
Destiny Fox Kanno
I was going to add one thing, but then she kept going and I think you actually covered it, because we’re talking about long-term sustainable change. I think this is probably going to come across as basic, but just if organizations can realize it is long term, it’s not a six month thing or three month thing and then we’re good. We changed the world in six months or a year. It’s like no, as long as this product is out in the world, it’s going to be work that continues through that lifecycle and lifespan of that product. And whoever it touches, that’s still work that needs to continue.
Destiny Fox Kanno
I just really wanted to stress the longevity of this work, in all the ways it shows up. Whether it’s in the courts or whether it’s directly in the minds of the people creating it, or those who are affected by it.
Masheika Allgood
I just want to say that is so not a basic point, that is fundamental and it is fundamentally misunderstood. Thank you very much for bringing that up.
Destiny Fox Kanno
Cheers.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Thank you all. I don’t have much more to add. I believe we’ve all covered what I think also is necessary to see organizations do or work towards for a long-term sustainable change. For me, my personal work, for Incluu and the impact that we’re trying to have, it is all about long-term sustainable change. And it’s about creating the relationships that are necessary for the people who are at the center of doing the work to realize that they are within a system.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
And within that system, there are certain things that they can do. There are levers that they can push. If they want to call it human centered design, they can focus on human centered design and bring in more perspectives. Even if it’s just at one part of the product development lifecycle during the design stage.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
If they’re actually focusing more on liberatory design or society center design, then they can think more long term about the impact unintended or otherwise of the products that they’re putting out into the world, and the people involved in the process of putting out those products. Once they start thinking about that long-term sustainable goal, then we can work backwards to help them figure out what steps can they take to get there? Who’s involved in the process? Who’s involved in the conversation? What kind of data are they using? What are they considering to be data? What are they considering to be primary critical material that’s going to impact the direction that they go in?
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
And if they’re only talking to their engineers, then we need to actually look at the way we classify engineers. What do we call engineering? A lot of the work that I like to do is to try to get organizations to redefine the title of engineering. When we’re building for a positive social impact and long-term equitable outcomes, we should be focusing on creating better engineering.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
Better engineering doesn’t have to mean a technical skill. It doesn’t have to be just coding. It literally has to encompass your emotional intelligence, your ability to create relationships, your ability to be able to empathize and sympathize with other people with different life experiences from you. And be able to listen and hear when people are telling you, “This is not actually what I need. This is what I need,” because of A, B, C and X, Y, Z reason. And you’re there. You’re willing to engage and have, I don’t know, a dialogue.
Dr. Dédé Tetsubayashi
So without all of those things, I don’t think we can foresee or design a better future, a sustainable future for all of us, that includes all of us. I want to thank everyone. I want to thank Masheika. I want to thank you, Jennifer. I want to thank you, Destiny, for helping us shepherd into existence this first Brave Spaces roundtable.
Jennifer McClanahan-Flint
Thanks so much for having me. It’s been a joy. I’ve learned so much. So get me on the list, because I’m sure I want to hear all the other conversations. Thank you so much everyone for everything that they’ve shared. It was really interesting to me.
Masheika Allgood
Agreed. This was fun. We need to hang out.
Destiny Fox Kanno
Yes.
Masheika Allgood
Offline, with alcohol and food.
Destiny Fox-Kanno
With alcohol and food?
Masheika Allgood
No, this was a good time. Thank you. I’m intrigued by the series. I’m looking forward to listening to the different conversations you guys have.