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A speaker at the annual NeurIPS AI conference drew criticism — not for his views on artificial intelligence, but for the way he referred to a Chinese student.
during its main presentation MIT Media Lab professor Rosalind Pickard (pictured above) added a slide quoting the excuse given by a “Chinese student now kicked out of a top university” for using AI on “How to Optimize What Matters Most.” “No one taught us morals and values at my school.”
The slide also includes Picard saying, “Most of the Chinese I know are honest and morally correct.”
Google DeepMind scientist Jiao Sun shared a photo From the slide on X, “It’s much easier to reduce racial bias from LLMs than to remove it from people!” Comment from research scientist Yuandong Tian Sun at Meta and he added“This is blatant racial bias. How can this happen in NeurIPS?”
It was like that in the Q&A videos Also shared on Xone attendee noted that this was the only time Picard’s presentation referred to someone’s nationality, suggesting it was “a bit offensive” and urging him to remove the reference if he presented again – a suggestion Picard agreed to.
NeurIPS organizers after the speech wrote an apologywrote: “We would like to address a comment made during an invited talk this afternoon, as it is something that NeurIPS does not accept and is not in line with our code of conduct. We discuss this issue directly with the speaker. NeurIPS is dedicated to being a diverse and inclusive place where everyone is treated equally.
Picard also apologized statement he expressed his “regret” for mentioning the nationality of the student.
“I see that it was unnecessary, inconsistent with the point I was making, and led to unintended negative associations,” Picard said. “I’m sorry for doing this and I feel very bad for the distress this incident has caused. I’m learning from this experience and I welcome the idea of trying to make amends to society.”
