Media, AI: Time’s Top 100 AI Innovators List
When you see a “Top 10” or “Top 100” or “Best 10” or “Worst 10” headline title, you are looking at an article designed as click-bait.
Time published their list of the “Top 100 AI Innovators“. Time does a lot of stories about “top” or “Person of the Year” type topics. The panel that makes these choices is a group of people with backgrounds in English literature and history, for the most part.
The proportion of women in software development is low (less than 21% in the U.S., and less than 5% globally), yet 37% of those on the Top 100 list are women. Time’s definition of AI Innovator is broad, and includes writers, artists, philosophers, marketeers and managers.
Imagine if Time created a “Top 100 Creative Writing Innovators” list and included software and computer engineers who developed word processor and computer hardware that made writing more efficient than it was decades ago. Creative writers would likely be disappointed to see engineers on the top 100 writing innovations list. There do not appear to be software or computer engineers on Time’s short Best Author’s list or on Time’s own Top 100 Novels list or on Time’s Best 100 Children’s book list.
Imagine if Time created a “Top 100 Health Innovators” list and included writers, artists, philosophers and marketing folks. Those in health care would likely be disappointed in such a list.
The “Top 100 AI Innovators” is not what you probably thought it was. It’s a list made with an undefined selection and qualification process such that we have no idea what the list measures.
Who did the selection? Reviewing the list of Time’s Editors and Writers who participated in the selection process not one has a STEM degree. 100% have degrees in the humanities and arts. Journalism is an unusual field where 27 year olds with a BA in English are given titles such as “Senior Climate Correspondent” or “Senior Technology Reporter”. Imagine if that approach was applied to other fields – say, power engineering, biochemistry, or medicine. It is doubtful there are many 27 year olds with a BA in English who have the title “Senior Power Engineer”. Would we have better reporting if reporters had solid backgrounds in the fields they cover? The presumption is they “learn by interviewing experts” and perhaps self study of difficult subjects (doubtful any have done self study of differential equations). Is this approach adequate for expert level understanding?
Compare to Business news reporting – many business beat reporters have degrees in business, business administration, economics, and finance. Similarly, most media meteorologists have a degree in the subject.
Why does the media expect those in business/finance and weather reporting to have degrees in those subjects, but not reporters for any other field?
Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos was convicted of fraud and sentenced to Federal prison. The media created Elizabeth Holmes – one of the first writers to report on her, later retracted his own article in a major publication, and subsequently testified against her at trial. If reporters had a background in STEM, especially biology/microbiology or biochemistry, might at least one have been skeptical of her claims? The media swallowed her lies and promoted her to a super star. In hindsight, some in the media acknowledged they had created Holmes and were enablers of her fraud. And this may have occurred for many reasons, one of which is those who write news stories lack the technical training to skeptically question people like Holmes.
How Time Selected The Top 100
Time’s own explanation of how they selected the top 100 says nothing of the metrics or qualifications used to make the selections.
Who Did the Selecting?
Here is the brief background of the Editors and Writers listed by Time, who did the selection process. The Top 100 list has, at the very bottom, the list of staff who created it.
Their selection team has diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity/nationality, but has almost no diversity in training or skill sets. There appears to be not a single person with a STEM background.
Imagine if a group of scientists and engineers got together and put out a Top 100 list of authors? You can hear the screaming from the authors about the lack of diversity …
Here’s their backgrounds, listed in alphabetical order – illustrating little diversity in training and zero training in STEM. Rather shocking.
(22) Alejandro de la Garza | LinkedIn
BA, English Literature, journalism and creative writing
No background listed.
BA, History and Literature.
BA, Journalism and sociology
Ayesha Javed
No biographical information available.
MS, Journalism. Undergrad degree not specified.
BA, History
(22) Chad de Guzman | LinkedIn
BA, Film/Cinema/Video Studies, MA, International Journalism
(22) Charlie Campbell | LinkedIn
MA, Philosophy. Undergrad not specified.
BA, Political Science, History and Environment, MA, Journalism, Print/Online, and MA, Specialized Journalism (Science/Environment) from Columbia (this is not a STEM degree)
(22) Issie Lapowsky | LinkedIn
BA, Journalism and Africana Studies
(23) Jeffrey Kluger | LinkedIn
BA Political Science, JD/Law.
BA, Journalism
MS, Journalism. Undergrad degree not specified.
BA, History, MA, Journalism.
BA, English and Modern Languages (French)
BA, Media Studies, Politics and Entrepreneurship
BA, History, MS, Journalism
(23) Vera Bergengruen | LinkedIn
BA, Political Science and Government
No degree listed.
(23) Astha Rajvanshi | LinkedIn
BA, Media and Communications, MS, Journalism
(23) Justin Worland | LinkedIn
BA, History
BA, English language and literature
(23) Yasmeen Serhan | LinkedIn
BA, International Relations