Introduction to AI Transformation and Its Impact

Author’s experience: As I look to the future and imagine what’s to come regarding AI products, I feel tremendous inspiration and optimism about AI’s ability to help us out of some of the greatest challenges that face humanity. I moderate a monthly talk with Women in AI called WAITalks. Many of my questions during these monthly talks are recurring questions, largely centered on how the speakers broke into the field, what excites them most about AI, and what they wish others knew about their area of AI. There’s a lot of beauty and insight from how the various women working in AI, from research to corporate to entrepreneurship, answer the same set of questions.

One of our March 2022 speakers worked in AI policy at Meta. Because so much of her work involves ethics, we spent a great deal of time discussing the risks and inherent problems AI poses. After some time on that, I wanted to know what someone in her position looks forward to regarding AI. We hear so much about the promise of AI, and it’s always nice to get a sense of what diverse sets of people believe AI will help us with. Her answer blew me away. She said that because her work focuses so much on the legalities, risks, and biases AI poses, it would be easy for her to take on a pessimistic view of AI and its effect on humans across the world. But this wasn’t the case with her. She said she felt, more than ever, that AI will be foundational in helping us with the greatest problems humanity will face, from cancer to climate change to the social biases that plague us and keep us apart.