Being discriminated against and trapped in an economic dilemma, Li Feifei said: I want to break the bias in the algorithm

Author | Li Feifei

Curated | Chu Xingjuan

Li Feifei's resume is impressive: at the age of 33, she received a tenured associate professor at Stanford, becoming the first woman to serve as the director of Stanford's artificial intelligence laboratory. She is a member of the U.S. Academy of Sciences and the creator of ImageNet, a key catalyst for modern artificial intelligence, and is a former vice president of Google and chief scientist of Google Intelligent Cloud and Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. In the field of artificial intelligence technology, which has always been dominated by men, her series of groundbreaking achievements are undoubtedly very dazzling. People are amazed by her many contributions to the field of artificial intelligence, but also moved by her inspirational story of counterattack - before all these successes, Li Feifei also had a difficult and difficult teenage years: as a teenager, she excelled in grades but was hit by the gender of her teacher, in the early days of immigration, her English was broken, her family was financially strapped and her mother was sick and sought medical treatment, and during her studies, she was faced with many choices between her scientific ambitions and real life. How did such a Chinese immigrant girl break through the shackles of American social class and become the "AI godmother" leading the global deep learning revolution?

(The following is an excerpt from The World I See: The Autobiography of Li Feifei, CITIC Publishing Group, 2024)

"I can't help but think about the first time I came to Washington, D.C., when I didn't know what artificial intelligence was, before I entered academia, and I didn't have any connection to Silicon Valley. My whole identity at the time (at least to the outside world) can be summed up in one word: immigration.

Like many immigrants, I felt bound by a variety of cultural divides that crisscrossed me. Some chasms are indescribable, while others are clearly in front of me, difficult to cross. I'm a woman, and my field of study is dominated by men, and the "hoodie man" has always been the quintessential image of science, so much so that there is no irony in the term anymore. For so many years, I've been wondering if I really belong in which world. ”

Seeds sown by parents

I was an only child, born in Beijing, but grew up thousands of miles away in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. Nominally, this is her mother's hometown, but in fact, she and her family have just settled there. They were originally from Hangzhou, and in the 30s of the 20th century, when the Sino-Japanese War broke out in full swing and Hangzhou fell, they were forced to leave their homes like thousands of others. They are glad they survived, but they are unable to escape the pain of displacement, and even their mothers' generation has been deeply affected.

My grandfather often reminisced about the past before the turmoil, and every time he thought about it, he was always saddened. He excelled in school and had a bright future, but had to give up in order to support his family. Even so, they were trapped in poverty for many years. For decades, he was depressed and couldn't let go. This emotion was transmitted to his children, and one day it seized me: dull and speechless, feeling at home and living somewhere else.

If a child can design their ideal parental figure without adult supervision at all, then the father definitely fits my requirements. This is my highest compliment to him, and at the same time the harshest criticism.

The father was handsome and neat in appearance, but his most prominent character trait was a severe allergy to anything serious and serious, to the point of being sick. He has been like a child who has not grown up all his life, and he has no regrets about it. It is not so much that he refuses to take on the responsibilities of an adult, but rather that he really does not seem to realize that he is an adult, as if he lacks some basic sense that other people are born with. He often whims and improvises.

On the day of my mother's birth, my father was late, just because he went to the park on a whim to watch birds and completely forgot the time. This incident of being late for bird watching made him think of using the word "fly" as my name. "Feifei" became the obvious choice of my name.

The name happens to be unisex, and it also reflects the father's lack of even concern for gender, a concept that is so important in traditional Chinese culture. In addition, there are very few people in our generation who are called "flying", which is in line with my father's unconventional style.

When I was a child, my father found all kinds of parts, assembled a bicycle with a sidecar by himself, put me in the sidecar, and walked through the crowded streets of Chengdu to take me to parks or remote villages. We'll spend hours catching butterflies, watching buffalo lying leisurely in flooded rice paddies, or catching wild rodents and stick insects and taking them home as pets.

Even outsiders can clearly see that there is no traditional father-daughter hierarchy between us, because he is more like my peers than fathers, and the stress and anxiety of fatherhood are completely invisible in him.

My father's happy and undistracted focus made me understand that whether he had a daughter, a son, or no children at all, he would spend his afternoons like this. Because of this, the example he set for me was even more inspiring. Before I knew it, he showed me curiosity in its purest form.

My father didn't take me out to teach me anything – he loved nature, but he wasn't an expert – but the experience sowed the seeds of philosophy in me and became the greatest force that shaped my life: I developed an insatiable desire to explore things beyond my horizon.

If my father's curiosity stemmed from my strong curiosity, it was my mother who pointed the way to that curiosity.

Like fathers, mothers' personalities stem from the contradiction between self-perception and societal expectations. The father is a child who is lost in adulthood, and the mother is an intellectual woman trapped in a mediocre life. But she realized that her imagination was not limited by the real world, so she immersed herself in books from an early age. Reading opened a window for her to understand the places she couldn't visit, the life she couldn't feel, and the times she couldn't experience.

My mother eagerly shared her love of books with me, just as my father shared his love of nature. She encouraged me to read a wide range of books of all genres. Therefore, I not only read Lu Xun's works and Taoist classics such as the Tao Te Ching, but also read the Chinese translations of Western classics such as "The Second Sex", "Tale of Two Cities", "The Old Man and the Sea", and "Count Gidushan".

My grandparents raised me in a way that was in line with my parents' values. They didn't subscribe to the patriarchal attitudes that prevailed in their generation, but like my parents, they encouraged me to think outside the box and stick to the principle that I was an individual first and a girl second. Like my mother, they bought me a lot of books on a wide range of topics, from sea creatures to robots and Chinese mythology.

It wasn't until I was growing up that I realized that the world beyond our doorstep could be even more complicated.

Is science a boy's game?

The blissful time of studying on campus came to an abrupt end in one afternoon – at least for me. The last year of primary school was coming to an end, and on an uneventful day, the teacher made a strange request at the end of class: the girls went home first, and the boys sat in their seats for a few more minutes. I was immediately curious, so I wandered around the door of the classroom, hiding in a place where I could hear the teacher. The words I heard will never be forgotten for the rest of my life.

"I let the girls go first because now I'm going to tell you: your overall performance is not good. Boys are naturally smarter than girls, and math and science are the foundational subjects that embody the brilliance of your brains. There is no excuse for the fact that your average grade is lower than that of girls. I am very disappointed in you today. ”

Then, perhaps feeling the need to encourage everyone, the teacher's tone seemed to soften a little: "But don't give up on yourself. When you reach your teens, you will find that the girls around you will naturally become stupid. They lack stamina, and their grades will continue to decline. Even so, I hope you all work harder to reach your potential as boys. It's unacceptable to fall behind girls, do you understand?"

I was stunned for a moment before I reacted. During this time, countless questions popped up in my mind: Do teachers really believe that boys are naturally better at brains, do we girls really grow up stupid? Do all teachers see me like this? Do they always think like this? How do I understand that it is a ...... who says these things? Female teachers?

After a while, the doubts were replaced by another feeling, heavy and intense, rising from within me out of nowhere. This feeling is not discouragement, not even feeling offended, but anger.

It was a feeling of anger unfamiliar to me—a quiet but fiery rage, an indignation I had seen from my mother, but it was undoubtedly my own.

The teacher's remarks were not the first sign of sexism, most of the signs were very subtle and even difficult to discern, for example, I had a vague sense that the teacher was more willing to encourage boys in math and science.

There are also undisguised differences. For example, once I signed up for a first-grade soccer game — not a "boys' team," but a varsity team — only to be told that girls couldn't participate.

Although I was shocked by the teacher's words, they did not discourage me. On the contrary, these words reinforced the philosophy I developed growing up: no matter what obstacles around me, I must strive to transcend reality and imagine a broader future. Now I want to not only see further, but also go further. If math and science are boys' games, then what, learning is not a ball game after all, they can't stop me from competing here, and I am secretly determined to win.

Later, I enrolled in a middle school that attracted outstanding students from all over the city. During those years, I became more and more impatient with the presuppositions and prejudices against girls, and this emotion has gone beyond the scope of schoolwork.

Among my peers, I already had the title of "tomboy", but the words of my teacher still echoed in my memory, making me elevate the quirks of the beginning to the height of personal mission.

Like any teenager who likes to think of life as a TV series, it's easy for me to think I'm alone in the fight against gender norms in China. I cut my hair extremely short, refused to wear skirts, mingled with a bunch of male classmates who were bicyclers, slapstickers, and chatters instead of campus gossip, and threw myself into interests that were unexpected, especially aerospace science, the design of hypersonic aircraft, and even paranormal topics like UFOs.

My mother is my solid guardian. When she feels that her values – ours – are being questioned, she does not hesitate to defend herself. My middle school teacher had taught her how powerful she was, and this unforgettable meeting seemed to change my life directly.

"Your daughter is very smart, there's no doubt about that. But I'm worried that she's not serious enough about her future. For example, the sooner you start preparing for the final exam, the better, so I often ask each student to share what they are reading with the class. Most of the students shared textbooks, test preparation materials, and school-recommended reading lists. However, Feifei's recommended books this week worry me a lot, and ......"

Before the teacher could finish speaking, the mother interjected: "My daughter has loved reading since she was a child. She made no secret of her contempt.

The problem was in the books she read. Look at The Unbearable Lightness of Life, the Brontë Sisters' book, and the magazines she subscribed to, and they were about marine life, and about fighter planes, and about UFOs...... There are so many examples. She did not focus on reading literature that aligned with the values and philosophies of the curriculum. ”

"Really? So what?"

For the next moment, I sat down beside my mother, trying not to let the joy that flowed through my veins come to my face. The tension continued for another minute or two, and then the teacher leaned forward and made one last attempt, a stern hint in his voice.

"I'll just get to the point. Your daughter may be really smart, but there are not many smart students in the class. Intelligence is only one factor in success. Another factor is to be disciplined, to put personal interests aside and to concentrate on learning what will be most useful for the future. ”

I'm not sure if my mother's next words were a response. She lowered her head, her voice softer than before. "Is this what Feifei wants? Is this what I expect from her? Feifei, you don't belong here, like me. ”

Change came in 1992, shortly after I turned 15, and settled across the ocean with my parents in New Jersey, USA.

The choice at the crossroads

When I learned that I had been accepted to Princeton University on a near-full scholarship, it was only after a few years that my mother was very calm and fully understood what this moment meant to her and the family.

Every milestone in her mother's life was a reminder that she was on the wrong side of those chasms that could not be bridged. She's been used to pretending to be confident for decades, but I know she's never really felt confident. Now, perhaps for the first time in her life, she finally has reason to believe that the story may not be so simple. She's already staked it all, and only then does she feel a real sense of relief.

It wasn't until 1999, when I was drawing to the end of my studies at Princeton University, that I was once again faced with a choice between my scientific ambitions and real life. The temptation of graduate school and the pressure to start a career left me torn between them. This time it's a real dilemma:

Her mother's health was deteriorating, and the fatigue of running the laundry and the family's debts were all adding to the strain. And the Wall Street giants have everything to offer: benefits, opportunities for advancement, an enviable starting salary, and, of course, real health insurance. They forgave our debts and provided security for my family. And the only thing I was asked of was to give up science.

"Feifei, is this what you want?"

"You know what I want, Mom. I want to be a scientist. ”

"So what else is there to say?"

In the face of my vague words, my mother's response was always to the point, and it took me a while to react quickly. Three-step lore, one sword to seal the throat. I'm going to graduate school.

Two years later, the bad news returned. Choosing to take a graduate course in both neuroscience and computational science had brought my physical strength and perseverance to the brink of collapse, and when I learned that my mother was suffering from congestive heart failure, I had more complex feelings than I could put into words.

A new reality is emerging, one so complex that it has shaken every decision I have made since I walked into the lecture hall of Princeton University as a physics major. A lifelong curiosity led me into a highly competitive, low-paying field where a long career was not guaranteed, and my parents now needed support that I couldn't provide.

I pursued my dreams every day, which made me feel extremely selfish and even too reckless. Most of my lab mates are from the middle class, and some are even very wealthy. The more I reflect on the differences with their families, the harder it is to deny the fact that becoming a scientist is a luxury that I cannot afford.

A few weeks later, one of my classmates mentioned that a partner from McKinsey, a world-renowned management consulting firm, had come to hire. They're looking for an intern-level analyst, and researchers at Ivy League schools with even a little connection to math and computer science are ideal candidates. In a moment of true despair, this seems like an opportunity worth considering.

Of course, I've been through this before. There has always been a conflict between my academic goals and real life, and I'd love to think of this incident as a recent skirmish. But this time, the voice of my inner scientist was different. After a new round of blows to my mother's health, it became less determined, and even that peculiar and guarded part of my heart began to succumb.

McKinsey & Company immediately gave me a positive response after the interview and decided to convert my internship to a permanent position.

My heart is full of mixed feelings, and it is difficult to put into words. On the one hand, I was about to leave behind everything I had studied and loved, and on the other hand, I saw my parents on the brink of despair for many years, and I felt more and more that they had made such a sacrifice for me. It seems that this job allows me to finally unload the burden I have been carrying for a long time, and my mother has given everything to make me able to come to the United States. I know now is when she needs me the most.

I told my mother about the interview, the job offer, everything else, the salary, the starting salary, and the offer before I could reply. I explained that this is a shortcut to the career that every immigrant mother wants her child to have, no matter how you look at it. She listened politely, but before I could finish speaking, I saw that familiar look on her face.

"Are we really going to talk about this again? I know my daughter. She's not a management consultant or anything else. She's a scientist. ”

"Think about your body, Mom! What can we do with academics?"

"Feifei, we have come this far, not for you to give up now. ”

"It's not giving up, it's my dream job, a career that will get us out of the mess we are in. Look what we're like now! Three adults live in one dormitory!"

The mother paused for a moment, perhaps thinking about the words, and then replied, "Feifei, you keep saying that the path you are taking is 'selfish', as if you are sacrificing us in your pursuit of science. ”

"How could I not feel this way? I could have supported our family now, and ......"

"You don't understand what I mean. It's never your own path. From the beginning, this was the path of our family. Whether you're destined to be a scientist, a researcher, or something else I can't imagine, or whether you can make money from it or not, our family has been working towards this goal since the moment our plane left Shanghai. ”

I don't know what to say.

"I'll say it one last time: we've come this far, and it's not for you to give up now. ”

She was right. She's always right. This time, for some reason, I finally listened to her. And I never questioned my path again.

They also belong to this era

In 2015, image classification, which was already a well-known success, failed one after another: labeling a photograph of the gates of the Dachau concentration camp as a climbing frame, labeling a white woman with a face coated in colored powder as an "ape." While the accident was not malicious, it is not comforting. On the contrary, the problem revealed by the inadvertent mistake is all the more troubling: the lack of diversity in datasets, including ImageNet, has led to a series of unexpected results, further exacerbated by under-tested algorithms and questionable decisions. When the Internet is dominated by whites, Westerners, and males in everyday life, the technology we develop makes it really difficult to understand the rest of the population.

As journalist and commentator Jack Clark has argued, the root of the problem lies in the "sea of men" in AI: the underrepresentation of the tech industry, which causes algorithms to be inadvertently biased and underperform on non-white, non-male users.

It often takes several years from the emergence of a representative problem to the fact that the problem is truly felt by the public. That's why I co-founded AI4ALL, a nonprofit education organization with a few partners, to promote the inclusion of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields by opening up Stanford University's AI Lab curriculum to high school girls, people of color, and other underrepresented groups.

It's only a small step now, but we've made the leap from nothing. It only takes a little effort to convince everyone who has been excluded from history that they also belong to this era and this field.

In addition, there is a hint of comfort in the fact that the industry is often reckless and lacks self-reflection in its pursuit of the future of AI, and our efforts ensure that at least a small number of people are doing the opposite.

In 2016, I took a 21-month sabbatical from my professorship. After much consideration, I finally decided to accept the position of Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence at Google Cloud. I also happened to meet the company's newly appointed Google Cloud CEO, Diane Greene, one of the few women who conquered Silicon Valley, and I look forward to working side-by-side with her in an industry with a very uneven gender ratio.

Looking back on my career now, this experience of crossing the ocean has left a deep imprint on me. However, it is only now that I realize that this imprint continues to influence my research and thinking: the best works are always born on borders, where ideas are forever trapped between coming and going, explored by strangers in strange lands, both insiders and outsiders. But that's what makes us so strong. Our unique identity allows us to maintain a unique perspective and gives us the freedom to challenge the status quo.

As a daughter, a scientist, an immigrant and a humanitarian, I have seen many different worlds, but the most important world is the world I will never live in, the world that builds on everything I do now, the world where I poured all my love and hope into it, and the world for which I am most grateful. It is because of the existence of this world that everything I do now is meaningful. This world is the world that my children and their children will inherit. In the age of artificial intelligence, motherhood is the most humbling experience for me, and I believe that it will always be a unique human experience.

Original link: Being discriminated against and trapped in an economic dilemma, AI goddess Li Feifei said: I want to break the bias in the algorithm _AI& large model_Li Feifei _InfoQ selected articles