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TECHNOLOGY Monday 18 SepteMber 2017

Insider Q&A: Steve Ballmer

on data for the people

By MATT O’BRIEN ognition. Speech recogni- are a variety of things now
AP Technology Writer tion’s a form of AI. We were that are popping.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — doing computer vision. It’s But it’s an investment Mi-
Steve Ballmer says he start- a form of AI. We’ve been crosoft was making, cer-
ed his new venture, USAFa- doing machine learning. tainly when I was there,
cts, as a way to “suck out It’s a form of AI. and, by everything I read,
all the data” collected by Before all that, we were as an external, third-party
government agencies and actually calling it AI and shareholder, the company In this Saturday, July 15, 2017, file photo, Steve Ballmer, former
CEO of Microsoft, addresses a plenary session on the third day
shoot it back out to the doing a bunch of AI. So continues to make good of the National Governors Association’s meeting in Providence,
public in a digestible form. I would say we’ve been and important investments. R.I.
The former Microsoft CEO, working pretty coherently Q: What was your impetus Associated Press
philanthropist and LA Clip- and consistently since the for starting USAFacts? that funding for the U.S. tant.
pers owner talked with The early ‘90s.The thing that has A: I’m a numbers guy. I’m Census Bureau could be Q: Is that something you
Associated Press about really changed in AI is the retired and my wife was scaled back. plan to weigh in on?
data —and the way peo- amount of data you can talking with me about our How would that affect A: I’m going to weigh in
ple and machines collect collect to inform the ma- philanthropic stuff and I what you’re doing? on the fact that we need
it.The interview has been chine so it can get smarter highlighted that govern- A: We use Census Bureau the data. Sometimes you
edited for length and clar- in its learning. Search en- ment has the most signifi- data. We don’t create any need better tools and bet-
ity. gines were really the first cant role. And that just got of our own data. We’re ter systems and sometimes
Q: Microsoft is making a big, high-popularity AI sys- me interested in the broad- mostly repackaging. It’s you need more people,
big push now on artificial tems. Now we have digi- er issue of, where does fundamental for us that we more budget. I don’t know
intelligence. Do you think tal assistants like Cortana, our tax base come from? continue to get the kind about that because I don’t
they’re doing enough? Alexa, Siri. Self-driving cars Where does it go to? Who’s of data that the country run the department. But I
A: We made a huge in- are basically machine- it benefiting? That wound gets, not only out of the do know the outcome. The
vestment. People love to learning AI engines. They up being a separate inter- every-10-year census, but production of census data
change the name over learn to recognize where est from the rest of our phi- there are a bunch of other is super-important.
time. If you go back, we other cars are and what lanthropy. surveys the Census Bureau I will certainly be an advo-
were doing speech rec- actions to take.So there Q: There’s been concern runs that are very impor- cate for that.q
Google hit with class action lawsuit over gender pay

By RYAN NAKASHIMA statement. She says she Charges of gender dis-
AP Technology Writer quit Google in 2014 after crimination have swirled
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) male engineers with simi- at Alphabet Inc.-owned
— Google faces a new lar experience were hired Google since the U.S. La-
lawsuit accusing it of gen- to higher-paying job levels bor Department sued in
der-based pay discrimina- and she was denied a pro- January to bar Google
tion. A lawyer represent- motion despite excellent from doing business with
ing three female former performance reviews. “It is the federal government
Google employees is seek- time to stop ignoring these until it released thousands
ing class action status for issues in tech.” of documents related to
the claim. Google spokeswoman an audit over its pay prac-
The suit, filed Thursday in This Monday, Aug. 7, 2017, photo shows a Google sign at a store Gina Scigliano said the tices. The sides have been
San Francisco Superior in Hialeah, Fla. A company will review the battling in court over how
Court, follows a federal Associated Press suit in detail, “but we dis- much information Google
labor investigation that Google disputes those find- them less than their male agree with the central al- must turn over.
made a preliminary finding ings and says its analysis counterparts. The suit aims legations.” The lawsuit also follows
of systemic pay discrimina- shows no gender pay gap. to represent thousands of “Job levels and promotions the firing of male engineer
tion among the 21,000 em- The suit, led by lawyer Google employees in Cali- are determined through James Damore, who wrote
ployees at Google’s head- James Finberg of Altshuler fornia and seeks lost wages rigorous hiring and promo- a memo circulated on in-
quarters in Mountain View, Berzon LLP, is on behalf of and a slice of Google’s tion committees, and must ternal message boards
California. The initial stages three women — Kelly Ellis, profits. pass multiple levels of re- that blamed inherent dif-
of the review found wom- Holly Pease and Kelli Wisuri “I have come forward view, including checks to ferences between men
en earned less than men in — who all quit after being to correct a pervasive make sure there is no gen- and women for the under-
nearly every job classifica- put on career tracks that problem of gender bias der bias in these decisions,” representation of women
tion. they claimed would pay at Google,” Ellis said in a she said. in engineering roles. q