Racism, DEI and Technology

A few days ago, racism on a soccer field made the news again. During this time, I have seen and heard many debates between friends, in person or on social media, and have expressed my opinion about it.

But before I share it, I think it's important to remember what the word means. According to the RAE, "racism" is defined as:

1.- Belief that sustains the superiority of one ethnic group over the others, which leads to discrimination or social persecution.

2.- Ideology or political doctrine based on racism.

3.- Discrimination based on racism. Acts, episodes of racism.

Seeing these attitudes I come to the conclusion that we live in our bubbles and lose sight of the fact that the world is a diverse place by definition. I think we are a racist country because here we have not lived too much with different races, creeds... until relatively recently; but that is not an excuse to look the other way, to ignore the problem. Discrimination is a pending challenge that we face, something very detrimental to people's development, but also a great loss of talent.

When we talk about ESG, and one of the many pieces that make it up related to this topic, DEI, we realize the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the workplace. But it seems that we are not giving it enough relevance outside the workplace.

We often talk about conscious biases, unconscious biases and their importance when developing artificial intelligence. We should think in terms of conscious racism and unconscious racism. It is possible that if we assume that many attitudes that are accepted because "it has always been done that way" or because "it is tradition" are not correct, we will be able to move forward as a society and progressively eliminate racism and many other unjustifiable discriminations in the 20s.

Justify the attitude, saying that Vinicius provokes the fans. That is where I take the words of Jürgen Klopp, who some days ago, when asked about the subject, answered directly and precisely: “There is nothing that justifies racism. Nothing.”

Another coach who is highly admired by soccer fans, Pep Guardiola, responded to a question on this topic as follows: "Racism is not a problem in a specific place, but in the whole world. We believe that our country and languages are better than others, but the more you travel and get to know the more you realize that we are all the same."

The more I wonder about this topic, the more I realize how unaware we are. I am not thinking only of programming biases (including Generative AI), but of other less visible ones such as drug biases (they are also racist because they exclude different groups from the clinical trials with which they are tested).

We talk a lot about creating an agency to control the development of AI. But it is just as urgent to evolve a new capitalism that puts people and the planet first. Some people call it regenerative capitalism and I think the name can be very accurate if it helps us to regenerate the basic principles of society, of humanity. Let's be aware that what Manolo García sang with El último de la fila in "Insurrección" is an absolute truth, "No one is better than anyone, but you thought you'd win." We do not believe ourselves to be better than anyone, because we are all made of flesh and bones.

Originally published in D+I

https://www.elespanol.com/invertia/disruptores-innovadores/opinion/20230530/racismo-dei-tecnologia/767553244_13.html