I think this was a great topic for the second to last class. It was really interesting to hear from recent grads about their transitions and progress after graduating from NYU. Although Ansh’s work is a lot different from mine, it was really cool to see what he did at the Columbia Lab. The work he is doing with Alzheimer’s Epilepsy patients is really important and informative. It was also really interesting to hear about his comparison of then and now in regards to Technological Criticism. It was also interesting to hear about the awareness of tech workers and what they are realizing post-Cambridge Analytica. His take on Machine Bias reminded me of when we listened to Umoja Safiya’s talk on ML Bias. The image he had on the slide with Michelle Obama was really shocking and frustrating which is a feeling I remember having while listening to Umoja Safiya’s talk. I also really never thought much about the word fairness and its meaning so it was great to learn a little more about that. Especially about loans and how it may be fairer to use ML. It was also really important when he talked about diversity in tech companies. It’s something I have been thinking about a lot lately. He said its important that diverse voices have a seat at the table, however, which table and how the image of your diversity gets wielded by the company is also important. There is always someone above you in a company and it depends on how the company as a whole views diversity within the company. He also talked about how he wanted to keep game design as his passion instead of his career which was also really interesting.
Jordi’s talk was also really captivating because she is a woman of color in tech and it is amazing to hear her perspective of what she has experienced in the tech field. It was cool to see that she transitioned from psychology to computer vision. It was also reassuring to hear that she said she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do when she graduated which is something that I’ve been worrying about. I also enjoyed how Jordi talked about the importance of working with people that look like you and feeling comfortable in your work environment.