Now, contrary to how we've been feeling
over the past year or two, right now there's a lot
of reasons to be excited about living
compared to any other time in the past.
Why? Technology.
Imagine our ancestors that spent the whole day
hunting and gathering all day just so they could eat,
and here I am getting groceries delivered to me fresh
just so they can sit in my fridge
and get moldy after two days-- ugh, the privilege.
But this technology boom isn't perfect.
A ton of new tech has serious issues when it comes to gender,
ethnicity, ableism, class, age, appearance.
I could go on and on, okay?
But today I want to focus on tech's biggest issue--race.
To start, let's talk about self-driving cars.
This has been the dream
of every futuristic cartoon I grew up on.
If I get drunk, my car will drive me home.
It's just like "The Jetsons" intended.
But then it's, like, self-driving cars
also are less likely to see people with darker skin
and thus crash into them-- minor details.
Yeah, that sounds like technology
that could exist in a world with only white people.
So, again, just like "The Jetsons."
Then there's facial-recognition software.
In theory, it's supposed to help keep communities safe
and catch criminals-- like, totally dope "CSI" stuff.
But facial recognition keeps
misidentifying and targeting people of color.
And I'm just saying your tech has to be pretty innovative
to find a way to make America's
racial-profiling problem even worse.
But let's talk about stuff that's even super minor.
Let's talk about automated soap dispensers.
That--I mean, those can't be problematic, right?
Are you serious?
Even soap dispensers treat darker skin differently.
Excuse me, how did we manage to make airport bathrooms
just as racist as airport security?
Now, I admit that last one isn't as important,
but it's the principle behind it,
because as this tech evolves,
it will become more and more part of our everyday life.
And new technology is supposed to make everyday life easier,
but what we're seeing is a two-way split.
People who already have relatively easy lives,
their lives are just getting easier.
And people who have it kind of hard,
if we don't figure this out, their life is gonna get harder.
Let's talk about social media, for example, okay?
These apps should make it easier than ever
to participate in political activism.
And yet, Black Lives Matter activists were buried
under an algorithm and told that it was a "glitch"
that silenced their hashtag.
And not too long ago, Twitter had to apologize yet again
because of a racist photo-cropping algorithm
that basically focuses on white faces over Black ones.
Twitter users actually tested this out
by posting photos like this.
And every single time, Twitter would crop
to just show the white face.
It even happened with cartoon characters.
This got cropped to this.
It even cropped out black dogs.
This got cropped to this.
What? At this point,
I'm shocked I ever saw a "Black Panther" ad on Twitter.
There was even one study that said
if your activity on Instagram suggested that you were Black,
there was a 50% more chance
that your account would be disabled.
What does it even mean to have
"activity" that suggests you're Black?
What does that mean? That you post hilarious memes
that get co-opted by white people?
Once again, this is proof
of how much representation matters.
Because these tech giants, week after week,
have reports coming out like...
discrimination in the workplace,
employees quitting because of lack of diversity,
or people just quitting
because they don't want to be part of the problem.
A lot of these issues would be resolved
if these tech companies actually had people of color
in the room when testing these products
that are eventually gonna run the world.
The soap dispensers don't work because you never bothered
testing them on people with darker skin.
So frustrating-- I've been living my entire life
just assuming that soap dispensers
were always empty in public bathrooms.
I didn't realize getting liquid soap to come out
of one of those things was like trying to get
into a country club, but now I know.
Tech companies, you need to hire people of color
with diverse perspectives.
And then you need to give them a platform to speak up.
Then you need to actually listen to them.
And if you do, I promise your tech will do better.
Otherwise, you're just token-izing them.
You know, like they're an Asian character
in a Wes Anderson film.
It's time for tech to stop being racist.
Or you know what? To put it in words
you'll understand, let's disrupt white supremacy market
with blockchain capable of not being a jerk.
#Bitcoin.