AI Unmasked: Uncovering Bias and Ethical Dilemmas with Eugenia Jordan

Can AI really be unbiased? Join us as we tackle this provocative question with telecommunications pioneer Eugenia Jordan. Eugenia has not only shaped the future of communications with her numerous patents but also conducted eye-opening experiments with ChatGPT, revealing significant biases in AI-generated images. Learn how these biases persist and what this means for data ethics and the balance of power in our digital age. We dive deep into the ethical implications of data scraping from creative talents and discuss who really holds the power when AI taps into these vast data sets.

Discover the transformative potential of AI, especially for those outside major urban centers, and why ethics, privacy, and data security must be at the forefront of AI development. Eugenia and our team also highlight the unique challenges women face in maintaining professional visibility, including name changes, and how current AI platforms often fall short. We'll discuss the need for more intuitive AI systems that can navigate nuanced contexts and the importance of community involvement in shaping AI's future. Tune in for an enriching conversation on making AI work for everyone while fostering inclusivity and equity in the digital landscape.

Enjoy the podcast teaser from Citizen Journalist 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Future of Artificial Intelligence
• 13:35 Advancing AI
• 21:17 Advancing AI Technology and Ethics

Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

Hi and welcome to Citizen Journalist. I'm your host, shaman Isis, and I'm super excited about today's episode because we're talking about my favorite topic, which is artificial intelligence and communications as well, but really focusing on artificial intelligence, and I'm delighted to have you know a real maverick in artificial intelligence and communications, eugenia Jordan. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Thank you so very, very much for having me here, and you wouldn't believe it, because we're recording this episode. On the first one, the dog was scratching the door and the dog is scratching the door now, so I'm going to wiggle around, let the dog out and then I'll be right back.

Speaker 1: 1:41

Oh, my gosh, you're so funny. And then I'll be right back. Oh, my gosh, you're so funny. Eugenia and I recorded this episode the other day and, for some bizarre reason which I have not been able to figure out, the last four episodes I recorded of my podcast, which I've been doing for a couple of years now, they do not exist anywhere Not on Zoom, not on my computer, not in the cloud. So we're re-recording, but that just gives us a chance to give that much more of a delicious interview, right? So, eugenia, you are fascinating. You've got this incredible background. Not only are you an author, telecommunications pioneer, you hold a dozen patents in the area of artificial intelligence, and you know just so many more interesting things. So tell me what your thoughts are about the current state of AI. Are you excited about it? Do you think it's?

Speaker 2: 2:39

going to change everything? That is such a great question and one of my actually two of my patents. They are on predictive AI, because AI is nothing new. We use machine intelligence in many industries. We've been using it for a while. So what is new is the generative AI, where AI produces results based on the data that humans input and train. So there's many different types of AI, from predictive, as I mentioned, to conversational, and again, conversational AI is nothing new. We have chatbots pre-programmed chatbots that have been running on many different websites airlines, retail for a while. So what is new is that predictive AI, chatbot or conversational AI are now merging with generative AI, and that creates a lot of issues. Like you and I, we discussed it's garbage in, garbage out, bias in, bias out, and we were talking about me doing experiments with the version of older chat GPT and newer chat GPT that was released a few weeks ago around what an engineer might look like.

Speaker 1: 4:09

You guys are going to love this. You can ask AI what an engineer looks like.

Speaker 2: 4:15

In the graphic format. So I gave very specific prompt and I got a graphic of a white engineer with a beard and I'm like okay, so maybe I'm not being specific enough. So I went on Google and I said what are the type of engineers exist out there? And there's about 30 types marine, electrical, architectural, mechanical, electrical. Because I'm a persistent person and I also wanted to have some solid data, I entered them all.

Speaker 1: 4:56

Oh no, don't tell me, did you get a man every single time, every single time, every single time, every time. Now I would think in there, like just even just for like statistical roll the dice purposes, you'd get a couple of women, but you got none. It doesn't surprise me at all.

Speaker 2: 5:14

None whatsoever. And then I wanted to prove some points, because I already had in my mind that idea of bias and it all comes down from who puts the data in and how the data is being trained, and that's the bias that we're used to. So I asked, in a graphical form, what a doctor would look like. It was a man. What a nurse would look like?

Speaker 1: 5:41

Oh, of course it was. It was a woman, right? You know, I find this really interesting because both of us have communications backgrounds. But I've been following AI for a really long time and while simultaneously going through the phases that technology has been going through with, you know, the advent of Google and all those things and I noticed, you know there's issues that have never really been addressed with artificial intelligence, that people don't seem to really think about and how. You know how crazy it is that one company can control so much of the information highway for everybody and just sort of get a pass for it. I mean, that was called a monopoly.

Speaker 1: 6:19

When I was a kid and, as well as you know, playing with artificial intelligence and seeing some of the issues, I remember early on using generative AI and I could see, I recognized the artists that work was being utilized, even people who weren't really super well known, like a Da Vinci.

Speaker 1: 6:35

I was like, oh, I know, that's a fantasy painter that does a really incredible work. And I was like, how is? How is this going to work out? And I remember thinking, how are they stealing all of this data from? And I assumed they were scraping the Internet and any wherever they get a source of data of any kind that you get access to free and paid, and it made me really concerned about you know what happens to all the, you know where's the pay, where's the exchange of talent and uh cause, you know, as we know and I'm sorry I'm bouncing around here because this subject gets me really excited but as we know, like a chat, gpt is going to be one of the biggest companies in the world, uh, and? And yet it's built its business and I love it, I love it, it's great technology, but it's built its ability to be that big business off the backs of writers, artists, newspapers, magazines, tv. What do you think of all that? How do you think that's going to work out?

Speaker 2: 7:36

So they operate on a model ask for forgiveness later. So if I were building open AI, because they started in 2016 when Elon Musk took the NVIDIA processor and gave it to Sam Altman to build it out so it's been going on for a while. They've been building and training. It didn't just happen overnight and appeared in November of 2022. So they're going backwards a little bit. They're putting the agreements in place with New York Times and other publications signing licensing agreements. So they're doing it the right way.

Speaker 2: 8:20

Now a little bit backwards, but you brought up a really good point about artists my son, who is a Gen Z, and the group of his friends. They wouldn't use Midjourney early on because Midjourney was taking copyrighted art and then recreating it in their generative AI art. So having a generation that is aware of the work that goes in to create something, it's very important and having those government acts that's why there is I believe in Korea there are governments that are meeting to address those issues of copyright and with Da Vinci, so obviously his art was fed into all those platforms how is it going to be addressed? With written work, it's easier. With New York Times or Wall Street Journal or some you know authors, it's easy, because there are lawsuits with authors as well. It's easy to address. But what about art that existed for years and years and years?

Speaker 2: 9:36

Who's going to sign those agreements, and maybe it's the museums that hold them, or maybe some non-profits that will give grants to artists. I don't know, but we need to figure that out.

Speaker 1: 9:52

Yeah, we really do, because you know, as we know, it's going to put a lot of industries out of business. Now, sure, it'll create a lot of industries. I think we all know it's going to create new jobs. There'll just be different jobs and we haven't gotten far enough along to actually, you know, really decide what those jobs look like. I do think more attention and time and commitment needs to be made to that because it's coming so quickly.

Speaker 1: 10:17

But you know, when massive change is going on, we always seem to be trying to fix it after the fact, even though we're aware of it.

Speaker 1: 10:26

When it's happening, like with Google, watching Google become the dominant, I remember having these conversations and nobody wanted to hear it at the time because we're so happy with what we're able to do at the time that we're not actually caring about the repercussions of what we're deciding.

Speaker 1: 10:51

And now we've got a search engine that's, I mean, and I love Google, but it's corrupt in what it produces and that it's almost. I remember when you used to put a restaurant into Google and it would show you the restaurants near where you lived, and most of them were a lot of them were mom and pops, a lot of them were chains, but a lot of them were mom and pops. It was really based on proximity. Now, when you put in restaurants, you get like four pages of of everybody who's paying and and what that's done is it's it's been in one more notch in the crushing of independent businesses and family owned businesses and, and you know that kind of thing. We can get ahead of it with AI. What do you think in terms of, in terms of the changes that AI is going to bring in, the positive and the negative?

Speaker 2: 11:47

So it's a good question because I've been thinking a lot about it. I have an AI for Business newsletter that's growing like crazy on LinkedIn and I've been playing with AI myself different tools, from programming tools that make programmers more efficient to going and open AI forums and asking how to improve different types of prompts. So I believe that AI is not going to take jobs. It's going to make us more efficient and it's going to help us be better at our jobs. So people that want to get ahead of that wave, they need to learn now. Ai is not going to go away.

Speaker 2: 12:38

So if you want to stay relevant, go take those courses. There are free courses available. There are YouTube videos. There is many different tools. You can go on OpenAI or Hugging Face forums and learn that. So it's coming into this with the perspective that AI is going to say what can I do better to be relevant and also what can I do better for AI to be better? And that is very important to provide the feedback back to companies that building those tools on top of different LLMs or SLMs. So don't be just a user, but be an educated user and think about the big picture where we need to be as humanity 5, 6, 10, 20 years from now.

Speaker 1: 13:36

Yeah, you know I'm working on my third book right now, called A New American Dream, and the whole point of the book is talking about you know. The point is is that now is really the time. Change is consistent. We know it's the most consistent thing in life, but being able to ride change and direct it isn't something that we're very good at, nor do we ever really seem to have conversations about it. It's kind of like the change happens and we go okay, let's figure out how to make it work for us now. And it's like we've got this precious opportunity with artificial intelligence to engineer all of it to not just be great for business, because that seems to always be the biggest motivator, but to be great for people. What are your thoughts on that? I'm curious.

Speaker 2: 14:28

So, absolutely. And also when you said the new American dream, this AI gives opportunities to people to build companies as well, so it creates new opportunities for someone that is not based in a big city like New York or Boston or LA create an innovative business using those platforms out of their home. So there will be a lot of new businesses coming based on AI. And it could be farmers creating software to improve farming. Anyone can create AI platform. So I have people reaching to me all the time asking to evaluate their platforms, and I do it as a user happy to do it. So that's the new American dream is how can I build platforms, tap into this platform to build better lives for myself and my industry? And number two, like you said, what's better for humanity, what's better for people?

Speaker 2: 15:43

So, and I'm going to answer it from twofold so when you are a business person, a professional, and you're implementing AI into your workflows, think about privacy, data privacy, data security, but also ethics. Implement it in your business from ethical standpoint. From ethical standpoint, partner with companies that hold those values privacy, security and ethics. And number two, when you're human as an individual and you're trialing out all those tools, provide feedback If you see that it's not making strides in the right direction. Provide that feedback. Have an you know open forum, linkedin or medium to discuss how that can be improved. I strongly believe one person can make a huge difference. Look at at Rosa Parks. She's my inspiration when she sat on that bus seat. So be like Rosa Parks, sit on the bus seat and provide that input, feedback, when you're a professional and when you're an individual.

Speaker 1: 17:07

Love that answer. You know, it's so true. I talk a lot in mindfulness about the fact that we're kind of taught to play small, you know, keeps all the competitors out, and then it really is up to us to crown ourselves. It's up to us to own our God and Goddess energy and to be our divine self and to show up and command attention. And it's okay. And if people don't like it, they can lump it, because the if people don't like it, they can lump it, because the people who don't like it are basically unhappy with the way they're showing up in the world. It has nothing to do with us and and I and I think with ai like I noticed this when I asked two students because I'm an adjunct professor and I asked them about ai and I'm always shocked at how many of them have have never tried artificial intelligence. And I'm like god, I'm like guys, you have to make it your friend, stop being afraid of it, because it's not going anywhere and it's going to dominate everything. It's going to change every industry. It's impossible for it not to. I'm very excited about it. I think it's a wonderful time to be alive. It's an exciting time to be alive. My biggest concern is how do we approach artificial intelligence from a conscious living standpoint to really turn it into a tool for a better future, instead of a tool that just makes more small segments of the global population extra rich, because that's what the trend has been. Um sorry, giving little speeches over here. I did want to ask your thoughts on something that I noticed it in, and I would love to know your thoughts on how it could correlate to sort of what we're seeing with AI.

Speaker 1: 18:34

One of my frustrations with, like, say, google, is that, like, I've had several names because I'm a female and my generation got married and when we did that, our reputations would get established. So I had a very long career in marketing and PR and unless you know that name, you can't find that history at all. And it actually causes issues for me because people can't see without going to the trouble of going and reading. You know my whole like, say, biography or looking at, but even that's it's a lot to ask people, especially when you've been around a couple of decades, and I find that very frustrating because it reduces the opportunities that, as a female leader, I should be given, because it's too much work for someone to do to go find and see all of the results of all the things that I've done over time and this isn't about me so much, as, like in with Google, there was never any consideration in the way that it was structured in the lives of women and how the way that it was structured in the lives of women and how that the way that it is structured actually impacts females, like there's nothing, even like. I even looked into that once to see. Like you know, how do you figure out what? What multiple? Can a woman actually list herself under multiple names and outside of her own website or paying? There's really no way to fix the results and I wonder, like, what your thoughts are in terms of um. One more example, and then I want to hear what you have to say.

Speaker 1: 19:54

With chat gpt, one of my frustrations is my pen name is shaman isis, because I'm a spiritual teacher and isis is the ancient egyptian goddess of healing. She's. She is not a group of men who decided to create destruction in the last 40 years of our history. But when you go into chat GPT, I'm not allowed to use the word ISIS. So a female goddess has literally been erased from AI history because her name was used in recent years by one group, a group of men, you know, and I'm not trying to detract from the horrific things that they did, but I wonder, if it was a man, goddess, who had been worshipped globally for 10,000 years, would they also have erased him from history, like? I just find that whole thing interesting. What are your thoughts on those kinds of dynamics within technology and communications?

Speaker 2: 20:49

Very, very interesting because I got married as well 12 years ago.

Speaker 2: 20:55

I had to um rebuild my name and the brand um under the new.

Speaker 2: 21:01

So it's I didn't even think about it because um, mine happened throughout, you know, um when I took advantage of of LinkedIn and Medium and writing with the new name. So what needs to happen is it's the way we input data and the way we structure the data. So we talk about AI, generative AI, but it needs to be also intuitive AI to the needs, and I think that's the next step when AI starts thinking as a human a little bit and have different variations. So it's not black and white because right now it's black and white and it's very high level. It's not black and white because right now it's black and white and it's very high level surface level.

Speaker 2: 22:01

If you ask chat GPT, for example, or if you ask other tools to provide, like code snippets, it's very high level. So I think it's the next step is to look at all the information and all the variations and teach AI that there is gray areas. It's not just black and white. So you're bringing up a really good point and leaders in AI that build in AI they need to listen to that input because it will make AI better. That's fantastic input.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Yeah, yeah, I was actually quite surprised that I had actually posted several times saying, hey, chat, gpt, adobe was several generative programs, almost all of them. I'm not allowed to use the word ISIS and this is not about me. It's that I use experiences and examples like that to foresee, as a futurist, what that's going to do. And I already went through what happened with Google. Like it's.

Speaker 1: 22:49

It's nearly impossible for people to find find my history because of the way it wasn't structured, with the understanding that some people's names will change over time. It was actually designed based on the way a man experiences life. And when I look at chat, gpt and it's like erasing women from history without actually seeing that that like the fact that, that they didn't respond to it thanks for the heads up, we'll give it some consent. Like the fact that they didn't respond said, thanks for the heads up, we'll give it some. Like nothing, like I was. Like do you guys not understand what I'm actually saying? It's not about ISIS, it's about the fact that you're actually altering history because of something more recent that's politically sensitive but has nothing to do with actual truth. And when AI is engineered to only produce the results that we currently feel are politically appropriate. It's not actually telling the truth, and that's a huge problem spitting out responses.

Speaker 2: 23:42

In the future versions they will be asking clarifying questions. So I think that would be probably the right direction, because I remember seeing an example where they would they said oh, if you're writing a Valentine's card for your husband and currently it would just spit out the card, in the future chat GPT would say okay, tell me a little bit more about your husband, instead of just giving a canned answer. So Chad GPT would say oh, does he like, I don't know, horses, flowers, cars, whatever. How did you meet? So and maybe that's one of those nuances that with that particular word there would be a clarifying question Do you mean this or do you mean that?

Speaker 2: 24:42

So if you mean ISIS as a terrorist organization, that it's no. It's like they, workflow, they, the flow boom closed. Workflow, the the flow boom closed. But if you mean it's as an ancient quarters, then it's there's more um branches in that answer. So I'm hoping, when the new version is there, you can ask that question and see if there's branching, like they promised that us that there would be yeah, you know, that's actually really interesting.

Speaker 1: 25:13

I love that you're saying that about the asking questions, because I think that actually makes a really great point of the next evolution. But also, you know, shouldn't people be able to have input in how they're seen? Because we should have been able to do that with Google, but Google wasn't thinking about people. They were thinking about organizations and businesses and how to make money and monetizing. But it ultimately really affects people, particularly women, until we no longer change our names, which I'm sure have a sneaking suspicion that's in the future. But do you think there's a way for people to tell AI who they are, which is probably a strange comment, but you know, it kind of bears like having a conversation, because does it? Why does it always have to be about people who are powerful or rich or famous? You should be able to at least inform, on a basic level, a search engine or a data, you know, I don't know. I just think that's kind of an interesting thought.

Speaker 2: 26:13

It is. It is and there's an example of Wikipedia. Because Wikipedia is open source, anyone can contribute to it and sometimes it's bad things, sometimes it's right things. So we should be able to contribute to those results in artificial intelligence and there should be a process involved where human will oversee, because we don't want someone going in in AI and tarnishing our name or adding some inconsistencies the way Wikipedia operates. Maybe that model would be also used by Google with artificial intelligence or chat GPT, because the process is there.

Speaker 1: 27:06

Yeah, that's actually a good idea. My one challenge with Wikipedia is that it's really a monetized model that's not monetized by the people who actually own it. I get a content all the time by people, especially as an author I know, you know what I'm talking about by people who are like you should have a Wikipedia page and I'm like, how much are you charging? Because I don't know if a lot of people understand that you can do it yourself, but the way they have engineered that platform is really complicated. It would probably take a person one to two days of studying and actual consistent working just to put something forward and then it can get kicked back by anybody, because I've had to do this for clients.

Speaker 1: 27:44

But a lot of people may not know that most people pay to get that Wikipedia profile and it requires citations of public documentation, like a TV interview, things like that, and so what that does is it makes being somebody about money, which is already like such a massive issue. But I'd only bring that up because I think that's interesting, that it is actually a great model for that and you should be able to set up your own AI Wikipedia type thing, but it should be something that you're allowed to do with a government ID as your own, you like. You're declaring your page like you would you declaring your ID. In fact, I'm sure the government would just eat that up so you're absolutely right.

Speaker 2: 28:27

So Google when I claimed my author's page on Google, I had to send my ID with my driver's license, like this. When I created my YouTube channel and I wanted to be able to link to different sources, I had to do like this implement that instead of asking for money, because there is a lot of smaller creators, but also underrepresented scientists, writers, artists. They can afford that. I remember that woman that created like a thousand wikipedia pages for scientists. God bless for female scientists.

Speaker 1: 29:11

Love that, yeah, love that story.

Speaker 2: 29:13

Right so, but you're absolutely right. There should be some sort of controls to be in place for individuals who adjust their AI, and what you're suggesting is brilliant.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Yeah, I think it would be interesting.

Speaker 1: 29:30

I mean, I think the fact is most people don't feel like they have any privacy anymore.

Speaker 1: 29:34

So it's like we're already registered on every social media platform. Like what's the difference in actually claiming your public persona, if you will, and being able to? You know, it's probably it could be a combination of like it's a serious thing and you have to show your ID and you have to actually be the real person and you get, you know, spanked into trouble if you actually do anything false, but that you can also have fun with it, like have a nickname and, you know, share your books, and it would actually be kind of interesting. I mean, it definitely looks my intuition's telling me that, now that I've said that out loud like there's going to be an announcement soon. We're going to have a government database where you can claim your page on AI, anyway, oh goodness. So what do you before we go? I would love to hear I want to hear about your book, of course, but I do want to hear your thoughts about the industries that you think are going to benefit the soonest from all the incredible advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence and technology.

Speaker 2: 30:33

So obviously you and I, or any other professional, can use AI tools now. They can go in, get free trials, get on forums, so you don't have to be in a particular industry to use it now. If we're looking at the particular industries, it's interesting and I believe that probably industries that always been ahead of the technology wave, like FinTech or finance or M&A or manufacturing they would be probably way ahead with AI. And then other industries that require more regulations, reviews, like telecom or healthcare, they might be a little bit behind. So it's a phased approach and it all depends on the past. If you implemented your cloud-based IT infrastructure or the first of the industries, like finance, then you're probably going to be ahead of AI as well.

Speaker 1: 31:50

That's great advice. You guys, stop being afraid of AI. Make it your friend. It's going to be there anyway. You might as well ride it to success. Aside from the dozen patents that you have in AI, you're also an author. Tell us about your book book.

Speaker 2: 32:10

It's right behind me, yeah, so it's called Unlimited. It's a leadership book by a woman, by an immigrant, written for women and immigrants that want to become leaders or business owners and realize their full potential in corporate America.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Love that. I love it when women support women through their work. Yeah, it's incredible. So much of my younger years there was such a sense of competition between women, and understandably so, because that's what we were trying to see each other, and it's been beautiful in recent years to see how many women are stepping up, writing beautiful books and creating organizations to support women, so I love it. Any last words If people wanted to learn about your work, where would they go?

Speaker 2: 33:06

So they can Google Eugenia jordan and find me on linkedin, twitter, instagram, youtube and my website. So whenever you people are, you can connect, follow and um. It's all the channels, platforms are there.

Speaker 1: 33:29

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much, eugenia, for joining us today to talk about artificial intelligence. I love it. We'll have to catch up soon and talk some more and see where things are at.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Thanks you guys for listening to another episode of Citizen Journalist. If you're not already subscribed, what are you thinking? Intelligent listening? Come now, go ahead and subscribe and share the show with your friends and family. Here in Citizen Journalist we talk about important topics and how we can actually go from soundbites to solutions and really implement a great future for humanity. So if that sounds good to you, definitely be sure and subscribe. And I would like to mention to those of you who have not already ordered, memory Mansion. My second book has been out for a few months now. It hit number one. It shares my journey from Tennessee orphanage to marketing pioneer to spiritual social activist guru. Like you know, when you get older you have many titles, folks. Anyway, if you want to learn more about the work that I do or check out Soul Tech Magazine, please visit my website, shamanisiscom or soultechworld, and get the dish on everything. Anyway, thanks you guys and have a beautiful week.