CANNES, France, June 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LivePerson, Inc.,
a leading provider of conversational commerce solutions, has brought together global leaders in business, tech and academia to
launch an ambitious project to set new standards in AI. The initiative, named Equal AI, will encourage brands to assess their
current ways of working and focus their efforts on eradicating gender bias in the engineering of AI.
It was launched today by Robert LoCascio, founder and CEO of LivePerson, at the Cannes
International Festival of Creativity. It is focused on correcting and preventing gender bias in the development of artificial
intelligence. With the rapid growth of AI, and its susceptibility to incorporating the personal and unconscious biases of its
creators, this initiative will shine a light on this important issue, and work towards a new set of best practices to raise the
bar across the AI field.
In a recent survey
commissioned by LivePerson, nearly 60% of U.S. consumers agreed with the statement that "AI is a fundamental risk to the
existence of human civilisation". When it came to the gender imbalance in the technology industry, most respondents were
troublingly unaware of the current landscape, which is heavily male-dominated: 50% of respondents said they believe the industry
is made up of an equal mixture of both men and women. At the same time, only 8% of respondents said they could name a famous
woman leader in technology, compared to the 57% who said they could name a male leader.
With Equal AI, LivePerson is actively challenging the consequences of an internet that was created by organizations mostly
dominated by men. If AI creators use their own unconscious personal biases, they will unwittingly set benchmarks for all of
society as their biases reappear in the algorithms. At the same time, machines are teaching themselves from data sets and texts
that reflect or even amplify society's past and present biases.
Together with leaders across business, technology, and academia, Equal AI will develop guidelines, standards, and tools to
ensure equal representation in the creation of AI.
Joining the Equal AI initiative are:
- Professor Bettina Buechel, Professor of Strategy and Organisation at IMD Business School,
Switzerland
- Damian Bradfield, President, WeTransfer
- Professor Justine Cassell, Associate Dean for Technology Strategy and Impact in the School
of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
- Alex Depledge, Founder, Hassle.com
- Tabitha Goldstaub, Co-Founder of Cognition X
- Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk Group
- Arianna Huffington, Founder and CEO of Thrive Global
- Martha Lane Fox, Founder of doteveryone
- Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia
- Sarah Wood, Founder, Unruly
- Debbie Wosskow, British Entrepreneur
In September 2018, Equal AI will publish a report with tangible and practical steps businesses
can take to play their part in eliminating bias from AI. The report will call for engaged supporters to adopt these practices in
their own businesses, setting a new standard for corporate responsibility on the issue. The website EqualAI.org will provide details on the work and guidelines created by the
initiative.
Founder and CEO of LivePerson Robert LoCascio said: "As we enter the AI revolution that will define our future, women
make up less than 30% of research positions worldwide. Even worse, across the largest tech companies, fewer than 20% of technical
roles are held by women.
"While the world focuses on removing inequalities embedded across industries, we are simultaneously at risk of programming
these very biases into the heart of the technologies shaping our future. We need the builders of tomorrow's products to be more
female-led and to agree to a set of standards which avoid gender, racial, and ethnic bias, otherwise AI will become the next
digital technology that divides us."
Supporting this, Dr Justine Cassell , Associate Dean for Technology Strategy and Impact
at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, says: "AI has great potential to
transform our lives by making technology more efficient, reliable and capable, opening up tremendous human opportunities. But
unless we address these everyday behavioral biases now, AI will enshrine and perpetuate the problematic gaps that currently exist
within society."
Supporter Martha Lane Fox , Founder doteveryone said: "The development of AI, one of the
world's biggest innovations, risks running away before ethics and standardisation has caught up with it. It's important that
everybody responsible for using AI comes together to agree on a set of standards. As the Founder of an organisation that
champions responsible technology for the good of everyone in society, it is essential to support this charge"
More information is available at www.EqualAI.org.
About LivePerson
LivePerson makes life easier by transforming how people communicate with brands. Our 18,000 customers, including
leading brands like Citibank, HSBC, Orange, and The Home Depot, use our conversational commerce solutions to orchestrate humans
and AI, at scale, and create a convenient, deeply personal relationship — a conversational relationship — with their millions of
consumers. For more information about LivePerson (NASDAQ: LPSN), please visit www.liveperson.com.
Contact
Allison Franzese: +1 212-609-4224 / afranzese@liveperson.com
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SOURCE LivePerson, Inc.