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Comment by exstudent2 | Hacker News Reader

Other HN thread on the same story by Bloomberg:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11980557

At least this article has a _slightly_ less hostile title, but the fact remains: it's not white men's fault that they have been innovative and early in the field of AI. If one absolutely must drag identity politics into AI it would be more accurate to say that women should participate more, and that's on them. Not white men.

Regardless, I don't see how being sexist and racist (as these articles are) helps anything.

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What's hostile about the title? And you say that these articles are racist.. that kind of reaction is really common when actual racism is being pointed out. It can be hard to differentiate and I've found myself feeling something/someone is racist when it's really that they're pointing out how I'm being racist, and my reaction is to be defensive, instead of actually examining inside and unwinding my conditioned thoughts a d responses.

You say it's not white men's fault that thy were innovative early in AI. Consider though when the field of AI was first being developed (in the late 50s) which black or people of color in the US would even have had access to the same resources that e.g. John McCarthy had. And why would they have had difficulty accessing those resources? Because of the laws white people had in place then.

So to say that it's white men's fault may be too simplistic, but it also has historical truth.

> What's hostile about the title?

It's a direct attack on a particular gender and race.

1960 was 56 years ago. It has no relevance on people studying the field today.

But explain how it's an attack. I wager that /you/ feel attacked.

Saying that a distance in the past has no relevance on people studying the field today is ridiculous. You're saying "the past has no relevance". Especially considering scale, 56 years is not a long time for things to change. There's ample examples of how what was so socially and politically that affected black people 56 years ago continues to exist today.

It says that there's a problem and it lays it at the feet of white men. If that's not an attack, I don't know what is.

EDIT: Since I can't reply anymore, I'll just add my comment here. I (and most people) are in no way responsible for the lack of women in AI. If you personally feel responsible because you know you've been sexist/racist, great, make amends and don't do it anymore. Tossing blame at people you don't know and saying they're responsible for your actions is not the correct course. Blaming white men is racist and sexist so you can take this opportunity to learn and hopefully stop making generalizations about people regardless of their gender or race.

If someone has done an action, we can say that they're responsible for that action. There's no attack in identifying responsibility or ownership, but as I explained above, I myself have often interpreted this as an attack on me, when for example, someone was pointing out to me how I was being racist.

It's not blame or racist when it's true, so you're just being defensive. If you're "neutral" (think that you're not part of the problem) then you're still supporting and benefitting from the system that IS racist. You're complicit in your lack of action.

Perhaps there are systemic barriers that make it more difficult for women than men to participate in the AI field.

The beauty of computer science is that no one can stop you from doing it. Anyone who can afford a computer can excel in the field if they put their mind to it. If you want to talk about helping people who can't afford computers, that would be worthwhile. That's definitely not a gendered discussion though.

EDIT: I fully agree with WalterBright below but have been banned by HN from continuing my conversation in this thread for daring to suggest insulting white men might be racist and sexist.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

In the D language community, we have many strong contributors who we actually have no idea who they are, other than their online persona that they create themselves.

We don't know their age, race, gender, religion, nationality, politics, nothing.

It's as close to a pure meritocracy as is probably humanly achievable.

Systemic barriers like constant reinforcement from the media of the idea that woman and minorities face system barriers to doing what they want in life, so they never try and instead become embittered by this dogma?

"That's on them" sounds suspiciously like victim blaming.

I'm specifically saying that they are not victims.

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