4 takeaways from the “HX: Aligning our Tech Future with our Human Experience” Livestream
All Tech Is Human’s Founder and Director David Ryan Polgar sat down with Tami Bhaumik (Vice President, Civility and Partnerships at Roblox), and Avriel Epps-Darling (computational social scientist, PhD student in Human Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) on Wednesday, February 9th, 2022 to discuss how we can align our tech future with our human experience.
This livestream followed the just-released report by All Tech Is Human called the HX Report: Aligning Our Tech Future With Our Human Experience that features 45 profile interviews across various backgrounds and perspectives, resources from over 100 HX organizations, and learnings from the 150+ person working group. You can read and download the report here.
Tami Bhaumik:
I’ve spent my entire life in the most innovative place in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area. So maybe it was inevitable that I’d be drawn to technology. I started my career on the agency side and worked with highly creative shops like Saatchi and Saatchi and Goldberg Moser O’Neil. Here I learned to understand the power of really great emotive communication. Years ago, I moved to the client side where I could combine my love of consumer technology with my love of great communication. I work with consumer technology products that literally change paradigms. Whether it’s watching your home television on your smartphone, tablet and/or computer (Slingbox), or eliminating your monthly home phone bill by making your calls on a phone that uses the internet (OOma), or driving toy cars that utilize sophisticated artificial intelligence (Anki), or storing and accessing all of your digital memories in a never-been-done before way (Lyve). I'm now passionate about helping to build the metaverse at Roblox, to enable creative expression and shared experiences for tens of millions of people around the world. My approach is pretty simple. First, get the message right. It sounds simple, but since we’re introducing brand new things that the consumer has never even dreamed of, getting the explanation of what the product is and why the consumer should want it is critical. Once that’s defined, then I work with highly creative teams to make sure every piece of communication is impactful—from television and radio spots, to web design, to social campaigns, to package design and everything in between. I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to forge partnerships and friendships with some of the smartest and most talented people in the world. My passion is to continue growing, learning and making a difference.
Avriel Epps-Darling:
A Los Angeles native, I graduated Summa Cum Laude with a B.A. in Communication Studies and a minor in Education Studies from UCLA after graduating from high school at 15 years old. While on full academic scholarship, I was selected to be both a Ronald E. McNair Research Scholar and Wasserman Scholar. At UCLA, I led a digital-communication-focused research lab, and continued on to work as a quantitative and qualitative researcher in the Graduate School of Education’s The CHOICES Project. My research garnered numerous awards and honors, including an invitation from the U.S. Department of Education to present my work for Congress in Washington D.C. and selection as a Predoctoral Ford Foundation Fellow. Focusing my pre-academic career around the intersection of brand experiences & storytelling, digital media, and technology, my work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, Vogue Magazine, Huffington Post, and Vice Magazine, among others. Although my professional experiences have spanned across multiple industries, one thing has remained true: I find fulfillment in leading diverse teams through envisioning and executing long-term, conceptual projects. Today, as a PhD candidate at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, I seek to make a meaningful impact through researching how online, machine learning-driven ecologies influence youth of color as they construct and affirm racialized and gendered identities.
HX: Aligning our Tech Future with our Human Experience Livestream:
Tami opened the conversation by emphasizing the importance of focusing on safety from the outset of a platform’s development, and applauded Roblox for creating the role of VP of Civility and for upholding safety as the number one tenet of the company, with the goal of allowing people, especially young people, to express themselves and their creativity.
“We’re not in a position where we’re retrofitting for safety – we did it from day one.”
1.THE IMPORTANCE OF LAYERING CONTENT MODERATION
David turned the discussion to content moderation, with Avriel raising the question of how AI can effectively moderate content if humans haven’t even figured out how to do this yet? Alternatively, Tami mentioned that large platforms like Roblox have too much content to not take a layered approach, applying automated content moderation as one layer, like chat filtering, while also employing thousands of human content moderators responding to reports of abuse to provide a layering effect.
2.THE POWER OF POSITIVE NUDGING
Avriel is currently working with Spotify on research showing that there are potential opportunities to mitigate gender inequity in music listening habits simply by exposing Spotify users to more females and non-male artists. This example of research that nudges toward positive behavior, while not a causal study, could get us closer to the point of saying that setting metrics for positive human growth could be among the goals that platforms and digital spaces set and measure, and that algorithms could be optimized to meet these goals.
“We’re going to see…the great potential that these platforms have to actually do good in the world, because there is an opportunity there to make small changes…to make [people] more empathetic [and] more open to diversity.”
3.THERE ARE POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL PLATFORMS ON ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
Avriel discussed her research on adolescent development and how there are gaps in development models because the existing models could not anticipate the effects of predictive technologies and artificial intelligence, or of modes of communication that are mediated by algorithms.
“I think a lot about what that means for our lifespan if, for instance, digital natives have kind of a cradle to grave or womb to grave digital footprint, and when digital natives pass away, what’s going to happen with that data? Will their lifespan kind of persist into the future? And what does that mean for how we conceptualize the lifespan and the lifespan developmental models? There are a lot of unanswered questions.”
Avriel points out that online spaces also provide an opportunity to foster healthy development as well, by enabling adolescents, especially marginalized youth, to find online communities in which they can share stories and find affirmation.
Tami shares this sentiment, pointing out the supportiveness of Roblox users, and affirmed Roblox as an online space where people find a community and create experiences on the platform that reflect who they really are in a way that they may not be able to IRL.
“We need to start developing…technology to create emotional connections, which I think will really help the civility and positivity within all platforms. ”
Tami also brings up the uncanny valley and the importance of continuing to work to improve this so that emotions can be better incorporated into avatars, as developing and adopting tech that can create emotional connections will improve empathy and civility.
4. IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT AN IDEAL TECH FUTURE LOOKS LIKE, ASK A DIGITAL NATIVE
David closed with perhaps the most important question: What does your ideal tech future look like?
“Ask the most marginalized person in the room how to make it work for them and it’ll work for everyone else. ”
The consensus was to ask digital natives. Ask marginalized youth: what does a tech that affirms your experience, affirms you, look like?
[Check out Roblox job openings in Trust and Safety!]
Some Submitted Questions for Our Panel
What’s the role of parents in this alignment? How can they build their capacities to better execute their role?
What kind of recommendations do you typically provide to social media platforms, product managers, and engineers? In your work with product proximal teams, what kind of feedback do you find most successful in terms of affecting impact for a more human-centered approach to product design and iteration? Which have been your greatest levers for influencing change in this space?
Avriel Epps-Darling: in light of rapidly emerging technologies, do the old Human Development theories and models still apply (e.g. Erik Erikson's stages of Psychosocial Development) - if not, how is exposure to digital media from a young age shaping the way we develop as humans? Interested in both positive and negative ways that technology influences our development.
Do you think blockchain/Web3 will be a more equitable internet or do you think that it will put more barriers for marginalized communities to exist online?
How do you mitigate bias in your work?
I'd like to hear the panelist discuss the role of human emotion and behavioral psychology within the context of "Aligning our Tech Future with our Human Experience"
What is the best way for a platform to approach being transparent with customers? As we approach conversations around new regulation and privacy, should companies think about this process now or see what info regulators ask companies to make public?
What is your vision for a tech future that is aligned with our human interest? We asked attendees of our livestream. Here are some of the responses:
Tech that reduces systemic inequities and enables us to individually and collectively thrive - save our planet and all living beings
Tech that serves humans and not the other way round.
A future where children do not feel compelled to monetize their experiences and/or derive their sense of self-worth from social media.
I'm a doctoral student researching algorithmic biases in HR systems with an emphasis on knowledge gaps among HR professionals. I'm concerned about AI impacting the entire employee lifecycle in a way that undermines DEI&B efforts.
Even the most well-intended software can be oppressive. Tech should be built to create efficiency and reduce harm. At SIID Technologies, we take a human approach to software design & development.
Harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to mitigate the influence of human biases within decision-making and communication through the development of an Ethical machine learning AI model that detects bias and recommends alternative language or inclusive strategies.
Have a safe experience in online spaces without infringing on human rights.
Participatory, serves the needs of the vulnerable and oppressed first
A world where humanity leads tech - not the other way around
A tech future that is inclusive, accessible and built with compassion and empathy for all. Less revenue driven. People and their minds should NOT be monetized.
A tech future that is inclusive, accessible and built with compassion and empathy for all. Less revenue driven. People and their minds should NOT be monetized.
Human centered
It's a place where companies, as much as possible, work with their base to create a safe and equitable environment.
Some Questions & Comments from the YouTube & LinkedIn chat:
Would also be interesting to hear what the speakers think about the tech companies' political decisions about what content to moderate in each country and the process by which those choices are made.
Not sure the notion of "when platforms take this on as a responsibility" really resonates with for-profit companies. Is there any practical movement towards an objective set of independent standards?
What do you think we should do to improve the diversity, equity, and inclusion of Responsible Tech and other similar movements like Effective Altruism.
What is the calculation like between what the overall good is, and what the intensity of the bad is, even if it's not a large proportion?
When you can be anything you want via how you present w/your avatar (& all the positives that offers) what are lines between representation & appropriation? What prevents a metaverse "Rachel Dolezal"?
Seems that future tech relies on people's judgment when the current ecosystem of tools take away the attention and ability to cultivate judgment
I'm curious about what Avriel steps recommends as ways to make platforms welcoming and inclusive for marginalized groups? What kinds of things is Roblox doing?
Totally agree the younger generation gets it more and will be the innovator to fix the problem
