What Bard said when Google VC AI asked about the value of diversity of work

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There is plenty of research showing that humans are prone to bias in hiring decisions, and there are concerns that AI may replicate these flaws rather than surpass them. But Bonita Stewart, a board partner at Alphabet-owned AI-focused Gradient, says Bard passed an early test, albeit a minor one.

Stewart asked Bard, Google’s first public version of an AI chatbot — and a competitor to Microsoft-funded OpenAI ChatGPT — about the value of corporate diversity. She says Bard was “spot on” in her response.

Artificial intelligence has produced many points to make in pushing the case for greater diversity in the workplace.

That’s what Stewart said, interviewed by Deirdre Bossa at CNBC’s Virtual Sustained Comeback event this week, Bard told her.

“It’s important for decision-making, it’s important for early innovation, it’s important to make sure you know how to create an inclusive workforce because you’re going to build products and services for everyone and it’s also ensuring that you deliver to the bottom line.”

She said Gradient is looking for founders who are building an AI “data moat” and “moving to expertise” in their businesses.

“Whether it’s ChatGPT or Bard, it’s coming and it’s going to be in the enterprise,” she said.

But she stressed that with the adoption of artificial intelligence, it is important that the development of technology reflect diversity in development. “It’s a skill that has to be built,” Stewart said.

She noted that 25% of students at historically black colleges and universities are interested in STEM and the industry needs to make sure those students are exposed to technology companies. This is a problem that HBCUs including Howard University have been trying to solve.

“Early exposure is important,” she said.

Mitigating bias risk by building algorithms with diversity in mind will not happen without a diverse workforce as part of actual product development.

Companies risk repeating a model of not paying to build a diverse team until they reach critical mass, but Stewart says building a diverse team early is even more important with new technology.

Although this does not mean that every team member needs to be a software developer. “You can be a lawyer, a business leader, a revenue officer or an employee, there are so many aspects of technology,” she said. “No one should be sitting on the sidelines with all this technology coming,” she added.

Thinking about generational diversity may be as important as racial, ethnic, and gender diversity as AI is in the mainstream, too. She has studied office workers across baby boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Generation Z demographics, and says that as AI products are woven into many businesses and services, tailoring them to fit generational differences will also be essential.

“If you’re not inclusive early on, there are likely to be fundamental effects in thinking about the value of revenue that you’re creating,” Stewart said.

The hiring discussion comes at a time when the tech industry is laying off workers faster than it was after the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000s. “I think there have been more than 131,000 layoffs in the tech industry and these are big names,” Stewart said.

Google is among the major technology companies that have announced significant job cuts.

Stewart said she hopes these companies won’t simply use a “LIFO” — “last in, first out” approach to laying off workers, though there are concerns that diversity initiatives will decline as a result of widespread layoffs.

Other than technology specifically, Stewart says, she believes big companies should take advantage of the bleeding edge in tech, which has long been an isolated sector where workers move from tech company to tech company but not out. “It’s really an opportunity,” she said. “I hope the Fortune 1000 companies for which digital transformation is a top priority for the board will say, ‘This is an opportunity for us to reflect on all of this talent that is becoming available. … We must hire them and bring them into our companies. This cross-fertilization can happen across the Fortune 1000.”