S04 EP05: The Research-Backed Case for Inclusivity
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When we talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, we’re often making an emotional case. We hear stories of people who have been discriminated against or left out. We hear from allies who are motivated to create an equitable environment in their workplaces - and beyond.
But what about the business case for the DEI movement?
Renée Richardson Gosline is a Senior Lecturer in the Management Science group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She focuses on the intersection of behavioral science and technology, and how cognitive bias works in human decision-making.
In her academic studies, Renée has observed how leaders and employees approach inclusion in their workplace, and how they focus on self-improvement in the DEI space. Through her research, Renée has uncovered a clear business case for inclusion - backed by scientific studies.
In this episode, Renée is diving into the scientific and academic grounds for an inclusive business model. She’s covering everything from how leaders can support their employees, to how employees internalize biases in a way that negatively impacts their performance.
What You’ll Learn:
How leaders can create a safe, inclusive space
Ways that employees can feel comfortable speaking up for their own needs in an organization
How to health-check your organization’s approach to inclusivity
The modern way to incorporate DEI in your organization
Ways that allies can support minority groups
The science behind inclusivity
The business case for inclusivity
How you can leverage your own social capital to open doors
Best practices for organization leadership
Show Notes:
Episode Transcript
Rianka: 00:00 Renee, welcome to 2050 TrailBlazers.
Renee: 00:04 Thank you. Hello.
Rianka: 00:07 Oh my goodness. I'm just smiling ear to ear right now because, ah, the moment you walk into the room, you can just feel your positive vibes and energy. And I love just always seeing you speak. Always.
Renee: 00:25 Thank you so much. I feel the same about you.
Rianka: 00:28 Oh, thank you. The first time we met was, mm. Maybe a couple of years ago back at the association of African American financial advisors conference or also known as Quad-a and, just your ability to, just the intersection of the behavior science and technology was so mind blowing to me. And it, it shouldn't be because you are, you know, a senior, you know, research scientist at MIT. So I should not have been surprised, but how you made it so just easy for us, non scientific people to understand was just like, wow. And, and you know, so on season four here of, 2050 TrailBlazers is all about diversity, equity and inclusion, sharing best practices through that lens.
Rianka: 01:28 And so I was thinking, well, typically when we talk about diversity, equity, inclusion, it's coming from a place of passion it's coming from a place of emotion. And typically the people who are the trailblazers having these conversations and the pioneers having these conversations may have experienced some sort of something in the past that has made them step up, stand out and speak up. And so people who may not identify as DEI being of importance to them because it's like, well, how does this affect me? I want it to bring you on specifically because your research focuses specifically on the intersection of behavior science and technology, and the implications of technology and, and cognitive bias in a human decision making. And so what you're bringing to the table today, which I'm so excited about is the stats, the numbers, the facts. So while there may be emotion in it, as we know, numbers don't lie and you have the research to back it.
Renee: 02:41 Yes, no, I think that, it's important that we have a look at things from, a factual and objective point of view. But at the same time, I think that the human stories that people who are affected by exclusionary practices and structure that often characterizes, organizations, those stories and those realities are also important to build empathy because oftentimes you need both empathy and factual evidence to spur action and to get people to realize that this is not merely one person's story, but at the same time there are people, real people being affected behind the numbers that you see.
Rianka: 03:26 Absolutely. And you know, as we've had many talks and now and now we're just bringing it for it, for the, for the listeners of 2050 TrailBlazers to listen to. But some of the things that we've talked about before as is really important is shifting from just focusing on diversity and looking at inclusion. And having that be a focus. And listen listeners, Renee has so many different videos, blogs, articles. I am going to post them all. So if you're not familiar, go to www.2050trailblazers.com. Click on her episode and I'm going to post various videos. Some are short, three to five minutes. Some are long, 20 minutes, but all worth watching. And one of the videos that I watched of you, it was a recent video, you mentioned that being an authentic and mindful leader means thinking about the issues of inclusivity so that you can raise the performance of all of the members of organization and achieve the highest possible productivity from your firm. So the old talk of inclusivity was being color blind. And as well as Mellody Hobson has said, we want to shift from color blind to color brave. And so when you mentioned this statement, what does that mean?
Renee: 04:53 Part of the issue with being color blind is that it's not an achievable goal. And so my research I'll always is couched within the reality of how human beings think and behave. Otherwise, it's a theoretical exercise, which is not what I'm interested in and what anyone who's interested in actually making actual change, should push past. So it's not realistic, right? For, for me to expect someone to look at me and not notice the fact that I'm a woman, for example, or notice the fact that I am a black woman, for example. But the goal then right, is for them to see me and to see value in the perspective that I bring. Because these different values and perspectives we know are conducive to higher levels of innovation. Now the interesting thing is when we talk about data and research, when you measure people's discomfort, right?
Renee: 05:52 It tends to be a bit higher actually when they're dealing in heterogeneous populations. That's because it's easier and more comfortable for us to be in familiar situations and to be around people who are like us. Evolutionary psychologists say that there's a sort of a primordial survival feature of that whereby, you know, you knew that you had a higher likelihood of surviving inhospitable, conditions. If you found yourself in a place where there were other people with whom you shared many things and you could then ostensibly band together and they would be more likely to share resources, thereby enhancing your survival. But we're no longer surviving out in the wilderness and you know, running from predators. You know, as Neanderthals, we are, evolved in, complex individuals. Yet at the same time, many of those sort of instinctual behaviors and leanings persist, which is why familiarity often feels comfortable.
Renee: 06:55 However, in an organization the goal is not to just make people feel comfortable and do what is familiar. The goal often requires people to get out of their comfort zone to think about things in a different way. I mean, innovation is literally about doing things differently, right? And so research suggest that though people may feel more comfortable in an homogeneous setting, it is actually in heterogeneous or diverse settings where you receive the highest performance with regard to innovation with regard to better, predictions with a of market activities and a host of other behaviors that benefit from people sort of having different perspectives. There are really primarily two sort of benefits to this diverse kind of group. One is that when I'm around people who are different than me, I'm more likely to sort of edit myself and think through what I'm going to proffer before I say it, which means I have a higher quality of output when it comes to working on problem solving or working on solutions in an organization.
Renee: 08:08 But the other thing is, you know, having a variety of informational inputs, much like crowdsourcing, leads to a higher quality, of that final output, right? Controlling for organizational sort of quality and, and good leadership and the rest of it. So it really is a beyond an ethical or moral, which is not to be discounted, but an ethical or moral or leadership imperative to, to dismantle many of the barriers that are disproportionately faced by people in traditionally marginalized groups. There's also a business case, right, for having more diverse leadership and more diverse groups if you want to maintain a competitive advantage and if you want to be more likely to solve the problems that your organization faces.
Rianka: 09:00 Yes. Some, some of the best movements have been grassroots. Right. And that's in our community, that in a place where we feel like we have some sort of say or power. It may feel a little different when we are in organizations and we don't necessarily have a seat at the table. You know, we may not have that title of president or a or a managerial role where we have a lot of weight or say however your voice and your opinion does matter. And if you want to continue to grow and thrive in an environment, we want to make sure it's inclusive, that you feel comfortable and that you feel welcomed. We all know that the stats of the financial service industry, specifically the financial planning profession, it's, it's, you know, if you are at a firm, you may be one or none of people of color in a firm.
Rianka: 09:58 And if you're a woman, you may be one of a handful. If you're lucky. And so, however you may start to notice things that you want to speak up about, how do you suggest and, and understanding leaders, right? And we, we talk about the pioneers and the trailblazers of the financial service industry, specifically financial planning. They are older white men and they may have some, some heuristic biases and some may be unconscious and some may be conscious. How do you empower someone who may not necessarily have a seat at the table to, for a lack of a better word, challenge the leader who we may see have some biases, whether it's unconscious or not.
Renee: 10:51 Right? So it's tricky because oftentimes people who haven't traditionally been represented are in somewhat vulnerable positions and so they may feel unempowered to speak up because they're late arrivers in terms of opportunity and we all know the proverbial sort of last tired, first fired. And so there may be a feeling of vulnerability and that's real and it's a challenge and it's not easily addressed. I would say that there are some clues based on the research that I and others have done around sustaining performance within these organizations, despite these challenges. And some are internal in terms of things you can do for yourself and others are external with regard to things that others can do. The first thing I would say is that people are very resistant and reluctant to change, even when they want to. You know, there's a graveyard littered every January with new year's resolutions that get abandoned very, very quickly.
Renee: 11:59 And that's because people are creatures of habit and they're very, very resistant to change regardless of whether it's in their best interests or not. As a result, knowing what we know about people and that's really kind of a cornerstone about, you know, behavioral economics and behavioral science, it's like, let's not remove the human from the equation. Let's take the human into account knowing what we know, it would suggest that processes are easier to change and people. So then the strategy really becomes around changing practices and processes within the organization so as to minimize the harm that is presented by cognitive bias and to maximize the likelihood that anyone with a good idea will be able to, to share that with the group. And so there are multiple sort of things that one can do within an organization, that include things like decoupling status from ideas so that, the idea is not evaluated or even a candidate for a job is not evaluated in the context of who they are and other non sort of pertinent information like their race, their gender, et cetera.
Renee: 13:22 But rather removing that and allowing people to sort of look at the idea and not be biased by who's offering it or look at the candidates qualifications and not be biased by, who they are. There's also, you know, strategies around using apples to apples when you're evaluating candidates for example. So that, you know, there's often a lot of informality around the types of conversations and questions that are asked of people when they're applying for a job, for instance. But if you can be very clear about standards, standardizing the exact questions that are asked of each person, then you can evaluate those answers apple to apple and you can remove or limit the likelihood that one person's response, they got an opportunity to talk about something that another person didn't get an opportunity to talk about or that, you know, I'm just going with my impression of people who I feel fit, which is a very nebulous, concept.
Renee: 14:32 But then there's work that you can do that is internal and that a leader needs to sort of be willing to take on in terms of introspective work. The first is I think adopting a growth mindset. Being willing to say that I can as opposed to a fixed mindset, right? Fixed mindset say, well, this is how people are and this is how I am. Growth mindsets say, well, this might not come to me naturally, but I embrace growing and changing and therefore challenges and someone like that is more likely to sort of push through being uncomfortable initially because they're not familiar with the background of someone than someone else who is not willing to sort of stretch in that way. And that's also important because organizationally when I talk about sort of process and culture, you can engender what is called psychological safety.
Renee: 15:29 Oh, this is a concept that I'm a former professor of mine in the Edmundson, pioneered, but essentially it's around the fact that in order for people to really perform their best, they need to feel like, if they were to ask a question, if they were to make an error, it wouldn't lead to gloom and doom in terms of their career. And so that's really important, particularly for people who feel vulnerable in an organization, like people who are underrepresented for them to feel like they're in an organization that encourages psychological safety. I think the other thing is that leaders need to be willing to do the work. Whereby they ask, you know, where could bias show up here and how can I route that out? Being deliberate and conscious about sort of neutralizing that and engaging in exercises that help them think.
Renee: 16:31 Would I have the same reaction? For example, if it were a white man who said this sort of a thing, but leaders need to be willing to have settings whereby people can offer those kinds of ideas and where they can sort of practice being more conscious about, their cognitive biases. I would also say that research suggests that inclusivity is essential to leadership in that, the types of features that, are associated with inclusive leadership are also associated with employees feeling welcome, feeling included, feeling like their ideas are heard and recognized, which is a predictor for motivation and performance. So back to this being a business case. Absolutely. That's there. Now I wanna talk a little bit too though about the internal work that needs to be done for those who feel like they maybe are overlooked or can't speak up and things of that nature.
Renee: 17:33 That's very difficult and that's very real. And it's familiar to anyone, myself included who may have been, you know, underrepresented, and struggle with kind of feeling, feeling heard. You know, there's this interesting paradox that others have talked about. The invisibility, visibility paradox whereby, you know, as a person of color, for example, in an organization you feel invisible. Yet at the same time you feel very conspicuous because all people see is, you know, this black person here for example. And that's, that's difficult. That's, that's a challenge. I would say that there are a few strategies that, can be helpful. I think support systems are essential and that they may be outside of the organization and they may be within the organization, but you have to sort of diversify your portfolio, if you will, of advisors. And that means finding allies who some can share that experience in that path, but also finding mentors and allies who may be junior to you and others who may be senior to you or, on the same level but are from different perspectives.
Renee: 18:50 And that means not just black people because we can't gain full entrance on our own. We need to have people who use their social capital to open doors as well. And so I think that finding that those support networks is imperative, to survival. And those need to be within and outside of the organization as well. But I've also done research on motivation and performance and with regard to the way in which people view themselves as opposed to the way in which they view the organizations in which they are apart or the brands that, of those organizations. And we need to check ourselves from being so grateful to gain access that we not consciously talk ourselves out of our performance, that we suffer not only from impostor syndrome, but that we actually convince ourselves that we like, the struggle that we are having.
Renee: 20:02 We need to take better care of ourselves. And there's a certain amount of confidence that comes with that. But I think that that's where those support networks come in because my research has shown that to the extent that you feel subordinate or inferior to the types of names that are out there, big time companies, et cetera, you may on one hand want to be a part of it and actually feel grateful to be a part of it while non-consciously on the other hand be struggling with your performance, and undermining it because you're in a place that you've, where you feel subordinate.
Rianka: 20:44 Wow. I mean you just shared so many best practices. You know, I was taking notes. I feel like I'm one of your students right now and you know, if you're a leader of a organization and you're listening to this, some of the best practices that I heard from a key takeaways is definitely processes are easier to change than people. And you are so right, Renee, as you were saying, how it's just like, huh, that is true. And, and what are some of the ways that you can change the processes within your firm internally or within your organization to make sure that they're, you try to eliminate as many biases as possible or room for subjectivity? Decoupling status from ideas. I love that idea. Maybe there is an anonymous idea box and people can just voice their, you know, thoughts there. And also I think this is true for everyone, not just leaders of firms.
Rianka: 21:47 Adopting a growth mindset and, and not a fixed mindset. I, you've said this many of times in all of, in all of your talks that I have been to innovation is here. Innovation is here to stay. And if you are behind the innovation curve, you, you are going to get left behind, especially with technology, which we're going to be talking about here in, in a, in a moment. But adopting a growth mindset is key. Also do the work. You know, engage in exercises where, you kinda check yourself it to, to put it, to put it, you know, very short. And then also if you are kind of the underrepresented, not kind of, if you are the underrepresented person in your organization or firm, it's something that I always share too, is find your support system and you may find it in or outside of your organization. So wow, thank you for best practices. One, two, three, four, five, like I'm writing them all down, so thank you so much.
Renee: 22:55 No, you're welcome. I it is work and I'm glad that you underscored that because you know, the social structures that created bias were not created by accident, but by deliberate legal, educational and financial structures. So if we're going to try to dismantle them, we need to be just as deliberate in our approach and that means to do the work. But I think the other thing about it is that you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to think, gee, I may hold biased opinions. And similarly it's uncomfortable to say, wow, as a black person, I may have internalized some of these biases where I'm actually inadvertently upholding them. Right? These are uncomfortable things, but the work is worth it. And the benefits are multiple. So yes, doing the work, it's not about necessarily making it easier in the short term, but it's absolutely valuable. In terms of creating value for all stake holders in the long term.
Rianka: 24:09 Yes. And you know, I've said this before and you'll hear this throughout as a thread throughout 2050 TrailBlazers with the multiple guests is that as humans, we're all afraid of making a mistake where, we are afraid of, you know, putting ourselves out there and looking, you know, like we don't know what we're talking about. And so if you approach these conversations, or these topics with, with grace and, and sharing with whomever you're speaking to, that you are in a phase of learning and you may not say everything correctly, and, and you, you want to be a better person and you're going through some self improvement. My hope is that if something was said, that may have been offensive, it's taking, it's, you know, taken a, a little less offensive because the person understands that you're, you're in a learning space and, and it's, that's something that we've also talked about Renee, you research you're the research goddess over there at MIT. You have some self-improvement research that you have done in the past too. Where, where you talk about people want to be better, they sign up for courses, apps, et cetera.
Renee: 25:27 Let's talk about that. Yeah. So, some research that I did with my coauthors that was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology couple months ago, looked at people who are deliberately trying to better themselves through, digital and non-tech products. But we use primarily digital platforms and these are people who wanted to get better in a variety of areas. They wanted to be better with regard to financial decision making. For example, others wanted to learn a language. Others wanted to improve their acumen with regard to, mental acuity and just sort of learning in general. And so we tested this with a variety of, of learning and self-improvement products and platforms that were created. And we conducted experiments, right, because we wanna understand the causal relationship between these variables, not just observe correlations. And essentially what we did was we had these people use these variety of varieties of products for this goal, but we in our experiments vary the names of the companies on the products that they used, right?
Renee: 26:50 So in the case of improving your financial investment behavior, we had the exact same, learning product, one though with, a name of a high status financial services firm and another with the name of not necessarily a low status but a lower relative to the high status financial services firm. Right. And so the task here in this experiment, in these experiments where we had the participants, train with the product, and they were randomly assigned in that training to, use a product that had the high status financial services firm, a name or the non high status. And they didn't know that there was another condition. So there were no demand effects where they said, Oh, I get, you know, a choice between one firm or the other. They were randomly assigned to one or the other. They trained with it and then they were tested it with their performance.
Renee: 27:53 And, we were able to identify repeatedly through a variety of different domains, a variety of different brands, differences in their performance, even though they use the identical product, identical training apps and programs. And the only thing different was the name on them. So what this really sort of may sound familiar to, to your listeners is placebo effects, right? Where there really is no substantive difference as in the case of a placebo. But you think there is. And in this case, there was no difference between these two, financial services programs. The only difference was the name. And what we found was that repeatedly through a variety of domains, financial services, cognitive improvement, language, engineering, so on and so forth, the people who were assigned to the high status from condition performed worse. And that was a little odd, frankly, because while they were performing worse objectively, when tested subjectively, they reported feeling more prepared, having a higher willingness to pay for the training software.
Renee: 29:16 And so there was this interesting paradox whereby what people were saying as a result of kind of the associations that were evoked by the names of the companies, was quite different than how their actual performance was suffering. And the way we understood this with our research, and our studies is that there is a potential for a company to improve and to help you with your goals. If, for example, you want to be better at investing for example, but if you believe that that company is high status and you, in turn are somewhat inferior or subordinate, then the relationship you have with the firm that's offering to help you can start to pervert actually the benefits that you might experience. Whereby though you say, yeah, this is a better firm and I'm willing to pay more money for their services, you actually perform worse with them because you feel somewhere deep down inside that, that they're better than you and that you're not quite worthy.
Renee: 30:34 And we describe this and find these, these results and it builds upon, research that talks about how we can have relationships with the companies that we work for or the companies that create products that we purchase. And those relationships can mirror the dynamics that humans have with one another. Everything from enemy to confidant, you know, loyal friend, flirtatious. And because you can have all of these types of relationships, we have to be very careful when we have high status firms that are attempting to help people, particularly people who have felt like they're not, you know, sort of worthy or they haven't been, sort of able to, to sort of make inroads in these kinds of realms. We need to cultivate relationships that bring these high status brands and these sort of intimidating settings like finance, down to earth. We need to, we need to bring them down the down to earth if we're actually going to have a positive effect.
Rianka: 31:48 I totally agree with you. And finances in general can just be intimidating and. And so, yeah, I, I try to always, especially with my clients, I try to approach it with education. And just again in the environment saying, acknowledging that a lot of people have shame around money or just saying, ah, I should know about this or I should, you know, and it's like, it's OK if you don't, and it was not taught to us in, in school. And so, but by you choosing for this self-improvement and to be better when it comes to your finances, you are taking the correct steps. And so, and kind of shifting really quickly, so I know that there are some people who like to talk to other people and then there are some people who are opting for robots. And so I know that you are also doing some research, in the technology space about technology over humans. And, I'm so excited for you to share with the listeners your findings with this. And, you know, I have my thoughts about the robo advisers and me and, and how I do not think my job will ever be obsolete. But again, that's probably emotion talking there. So let's, let's, let's hear it from the researcher, right, about the facts. And so what are, what is your research showing you?
Renee: 33:26 Yeah, so I am one of many people at MIT and beyond who are trying to understand what's going to happen when our robot robot overlords to take over. But I'm looking at this with regard to, I said, I think it's a perfect segue because I'm trying to understand, when these things help and who they help and what kind of sort of positive impact and what kind of inadvertent negative impact could come. So this research is my latest research and actually was inspired in part by a conversation I had at that very Quad-a, that very same Quad-a conference that you referenced earlier where I was speaking with someone and they were talking about people who have this sort of dearth of knowledge around finance, primarily due to exclusion from ownership and investment due to historical barriers and what kind of works best for people like that and, and how technology can play a role and what role would those people want technology to play.
Renee: 34:38 And so that and other things really sparked a question in my mind. And so, you know, what do I do? I'm a nerd. I go and try to find data to answer the question of course, what keeps me up at night, that and my toddler. And anyway, so I, am working on a paper right now with a doctoral student here at MIT that looks at this very thing, right? So, you know, there are no longer is an either or question in front of us where either I will speak with a human or I will speak with a robot. The fact is that technology, artificial intelligence is integrated so widely that we don't even realize it. In fact, I'm working on a book on this very topic right now. And so the question becomes what not. The question is not what can technology do. The question is what are human beings comfortable with and what, where can sort of make a proper match between the, the capabilities of the technology and where humans are at in terms of what makes them comfortable.
Renee: 35:46 Because there are technologies that surpass what we have available daily right now, but frankly, we're just not ready for it. And so in the idea of financial services and other questions and other areas where we may be wanting some guidance, some input, what's the relative input you want from a human over a bot or a, an algorithm, when making choices about, for instance, your investment portfolio. And so my methodology here as always is experiments, to really get us panel of, you know, the sort of causal relationship between these variables. And so my colleague and I are looking at this and have looked at this and we've, we've identified some interesting, some interesting insights now in behavioral economics. You know, we talk about system one and system two thinking system one being our sort of automatic kind of gut thinking and system two thinking being far slower and more deliberate, more sort of, you know, I, I would say laborious as compared to system one.
Renee: 36:58 So system one thinking the example of this would be you're driving on a road at night, a deer pops out, what do you do? You don't have to, you know, look at encyclopedias or, or looking at resources, you know, you slammed the brakes where most people would without thinking anyway. And so that's system one in action, right? And that's good that system one is in action because you don't want to have to use system two and, and sort of think this through because by the time you thought it through, you probably would make contact with the deer. Now though system one is, is appropriate for decisions like that. There are many more decisions that really would benefit from more deliberate system two thinking like, you know, should I buy or sell, what should I do within this market? And, and sort of the kind of reactions that investors have, for example, in a financial marketplace or even for example, you have a goal for retirement you're trying to save. And although you know that you should probably put aside more money, you know, it's, really appealing this new car or these shoes or eating out. And so system one takes over when really you should be thinking through this with the system two,
Rianka: 38:14 Oh Renee, are you talking to my clients?
Renee: 38:15 I'm not talking about anyone in particular and certainly not myself.
Renee: 38:23 So given this system one and system two thinking what my colleague and I did was we were able to measure, the propensity of someone's, likelihood of using system one versus system two, thinking using an established kind of measure. And this measure sort of, essentially gives us your cognitive style and when, whether you're more of a system, one dominant thinker or a system two dominant thinker, mind you, everyone has both systems but some people tend to over rely on system one and while others tend to be more system two thinkers. And essentially what we found is that system two thinkers, the deliberate slower processors, have a preference for algorithms as measured by the relative proportion of their investment advice that they would want to receive from a human versus from this robot. And it's not just interesting because of the finding and it's significant, but it's also important because system two thinkers, have been shown to be the ones who are really quite successful.
Renee: 39:39 They're heads of firms. They are making decisions that effect a bunch of other people including system one thinkers. And so if these system two thinkers tend to rely heavily on algorithms or to be as we're calling it as others call it algorithmic appreciative, then that means that the algorithms that we have pervasive, we need to take a closer look at. Because if those algorithms are replicating and amplifying the cognitive biases that we have and we know that they are, we know that algorithms are learning the bad habits and the bad biases from us, then an over-reliance on algorithmic advice by leaders could mean that we would be essentially reifying and amplifying the cognitive biases that reflect the structural inequities that we see that are the goals of DE&I efforts. So it is not only relevant from a financial advisor standpoint, it's really relevant from a societal standpoint.
Rianka: 41:00 And I'm happy you brought this up, because you know, another conversation that we've had is our algorithms less bias than humans. And the answer is absolutely not because who are creating these algorithms.
Renee: 41:18 That's right. That's right.
Rianka: 41:19 So if system two thinkers are having this huge and large dependency on algorithms and we know that these algorithms are bias or could have some biases to them, because they are being produced by humans. What, what should we be looking out for? What should we be, you know, afraid of? I'm thinking of I robot right now. You know, how Will Smith tries to save the world again in yet another movie because, these robots are taking over?
Renee: 41:56 Yeah. No, I think it's a very important, it's a crucial question, right? Because the pace at which technology is developing and being adopted, it outpaces our understanding of the implications, right? I mean, when Facebook and other social media platforms were created and people were posting, you know, cat pictures and videos and taking silly, you know, personality tests and things of that nature, we had no idea that that would then lead to, influencer behaviors that would affect the us presidential election. And that is now being sort of handled and addressed, by, by leaders around the world. So yes, the technology moves very, very quickly and we kind of are playing catch up. And so that's really important because once that genie's out of the bottle in terms of firms, outsourcing evaluative or judgements to algorithms with regard to who gets a loan, you know, whose insurance is improved for medical procedure, and, and so on and so forth.
Renee: 43:12 We may, we need to look at this now because we might find ourselves unable to put the genie back in the bottle. So I think that from my perspective, it's imperative that firms create almost like a buddy system of, of sorts whereby all of these data scientists and data analysts that firms are, running to hire, so that they can compete in a world characterized by data and information being King. I think they also need to have a buddy system whereby behavioral scientists are also hired to have an understanding of the cognitive biases that exist and that may be programmed inadvertently, into these, into these algorithms. I also think that there needs to be external, you know, guidance with regard to the place of algorithms and what role they play in making these decisions. I think just as difficult as it is for us to stamp out bias in humans, imagine how difficult it would be to do so with algorithms when the vast majority of people are not programmers and don't know how the sausage is made.
Renee: 44:31 Right. So I think it's really a crucial issue of our time and though it's not legislated at this time, I think that leaders need to take it upon themselves, until such time as, as it is legislated, take it upon themselves to really be responsible with, how and when these algorithms are deployed and what rules. I mean, algorithms are really just merely a set of rules of decision rules and you know, what are the rules then that we're telling these machines to follow and where did that come from? And it's important, right? I mean we have facial recognition technology for instance, that is biased. We know because the programmers used far more white faces to train those technologies than they did black faces. Now on the surface it might think, okay, well then that means that from a privacy or invasion standpoint, white actors or white individuals may be far more susceptible to facial recognition than black individuals possibly.
Renee: 45:42 But what it likely more likely means is that there may be a higher incidents of mistaken identity because these algorithms aren't well-trained on black faces. And so that means there may be far more instances of innocent people potentially being identified and detained and who knows what else by algorithms that were biased, you know, at the beginning. So this is, this is really a major issue that is larger than any one industry, but that I hope that as different organizations deploy these things, they start to understand, understand, collect evidence and, and even collaborate with scientists, who are trying to understand these issues.
Rianka: 46:33 Yes. Wow. I mean, everything that you're doing is so important. Technology is moving at, at lightspeed now and I'm so happy we have researchers and just good people like you at the forefront that has a seat at the table that has a voice that speaks up because what, what you are doing you, your team is so important. So I just want to say, you know, thank you for, you know, dedicating your, your career to this. It's, I mean, I keep up with you, or I tried to keep up with your research and it's just always mind blowing at how much I learn. And so I'm definitely gonna put as much as possible in the show notes so that we can all become just more aware of, of the research that is out there. And so for some of the people who are of why diversity, equity and inclusion, is, is important or not important, especially as we look through the lens of the financial service industry. They can see some of the facts and the research that you have done to and bring that to the forefront.
Renee: 47:46 Thank you.
Rianka: 47:46 I know you have to get back. You probably have some classes today that you have to teach over there. So before I let you go, is there anything else you want to share with the listeners?
Renee: 47:57 I guess I would only say that you know, many of these terms in these items, algorithms and machine learning and deep learning and big data, there's a bit of a buzz and a fashion around them and they may seem frankly hard to penetrate at the very beginning. But, I would say that I think it's up to my colleagues and I to make these things more transparent because they do affect everyday people, not just the people within the kind of ivory tower of academia. But then I would say, and I would recommend to your readers to, to share and to read and to, you know, take the effort to try and penetrate sometimes dense research around this because, it's a job that all of us need to take on. And, there aren't that many people within academia and we need to sort of be able to work together to solve these, to solve these problems. And so I, I seek, you know, you're listening public, and I hope that they can reach out to me if they have any sort of ideas around how to kind of understand these phenomenon better and if they have any learnings of themselves. I'm always interested in learning more.
Rianka: 49:16 And for those listeners, and let me tell you, I have some active listeners. So for those active listeners who want to reach out to you, what's the best way to getting in contact with you?
Renee: 49:24 Well, I'm on Twitter and Instagram at Renee Gosline, one word handle, R, E, N, E, E, G, O, S, L, I, N, E.
Rianka: 49:32 and she responds,
Speaker 3: 49:34 I do
Rianka: 49:37 busy schedule and raising a toddler and family. You know, she, she still responds. So thank you so much Renee. And just know you have the 2050 TrailBlazers platform. If there's anything that you wanna share, you know, after this episode is something in the future that you want to share and we can share out on, on our, you know, to our listeners and via social media. So thank you so much for your time.
Renee: 50:04 Oh yeah, my pleasure. Did you just ask me for homework, cause I'm happy to assign. That's not a problem.
Rianka: 50:13 thank you so much. Oh my gosh. That, that, was definitely the lecturer coming out right there
Renee: 50:19 I never get asked for homework. So that's a plus. That's not a problem.
Rianka: 50:24 Thank you so much Renee, for joining us.
Renee: 50:27 My pleasure. Thank you.
