Theoretical neuroscientist, Vivienne Ming has turned her talents to writing algorithms that solve real world problems like diabetes, autism, even job satisfaction. Ming’s rags to riches story might explain why she has the answers to some of the toughest questions: Will I lose my job to AI and how can I ensure that my child’s future is ‘robot-proof’?
Dr Ming is tall, almost too tall, blonde and speaks in a low voice that suggests she might once have been a heavy smoker. She has a strong Californian twang and is dressed in black leather jacket and leggings. In short, she looks more like a route 66 biker than a neuroscientist. But once she starts talking, it becomes clear that one is in the presence of a formidable intellect. Vivienne Ming speaks fast and low because she has a lot to say, and all of it is relevant. This is a woman who has an answer, a good one, to every question posed. The problem is whether one can absorb all the high-level information that pours forth so effortlessly.
‘Purpose is everything.‘ – Vivinne Ming
Vivienne Ming is a one-of-a-kind in many ways. Owner of five successful AI companies, she has been offered Chief Scientist jobs by Amazon, Uber and Netflix. But turned them all down. But it is the road that lead to her remarkable success that is perhaps most impressive. Dr Ming speaks candidly of the ‘fifteen wasted years’ of her life. Some some of which were spent homeless, living in her car. At one point she bought a gun and seriously contemplated suicide. But on that fateful night, she recalled the words of her father, ‘Live a life of substance’. Vivienne Ming decided that if happiness was out of her reach, she would aim instead, to make a difference to the lives of others. ‘ Purpose is everything’she came to realise. Once she had made this decision, she set about achieving her goal.
Vivienne Ming is happier as a woman.
But it took her ‘five years of hell’ working at a convenience store and then at an abalone factory, to save enough for the college education she had rejected. Dr. Ming went on to ace her studies in computational neuroscience and completed her bachelors degree in just one year. She also met and fell in love with her wife-to-be. Yet still the deep seated sense of self-loathing persisted. Beginning when Vivienne was as young as ten or eleven, she found it increasingly difficult to care about anything.
Finally, on the eve her 34th birthday, Vivienne Ming admitted to her fiance that she would be happier as woman. The couple went on to marry, Ming in tux, in 2006. But shortly thereafter she began the long journey of transition. In 2008, at age 37, Vivienne Ming finally underwent the 46 hours of surgery that would change her biological gender. What comes through most clearly in this incredible story is Ming’s perseverance. As she puts it, ‘for 10 years, still profoundly unhappy, I kept going.’
A unique perspective.
Vivienne Ming’s journey gives her a unique perspective. She has made up for lost time by involving herself in a huge variety of initiatives. All of them have one thing in common however, they are dedicated to making the world a better place. A statement such as this might seem trite coming from anyone else. But Ming’s confidence and sincerity comes from hard-won life experience. She lacks all traces of self-pity, and instead agrees that growing up as a white middle class male in California, gave her every advantage that life could offer. Having experienced life as both a man and woman places her in a fairly unique position of being able to compare the advantages and disadvantages of both. But she admits that she prefers being a woman.
Dr. Ming’s book, The Tax on being Different, explores exactly this issue from an economic perspective. Her research into the gender wage gap involved the analysis of data from 60 000 companies using AI, and revealed that women in leadership positions within companies was the biggest single predictor of a reduced wage gap. In her book, Vivienne Ming discusses how big data provides numerical evidence for the significant role played by factors like race and gender on hiring decisions and ultimately affect one’s life chances. These biases are quantifiable in terms of opportunities and salary level, hence her use of the term ‘tax’. However, unlike other taxes, the tax on being different benefits no one. It simply represents a loss to both individual and society.
‘AI tests our ability to well articulate a problem’ – Vivienne Ming.
The neuroscientist and tech entrepreneur insists that it is life experience that teaches one resilience and this is one of the biggest predictors of success. She designed a bunch of algorithms that trawled through huge sets of raw data on job candidates. The goal; to identify which qualities were the best predictors of success. Results showed that the college you attended and years of experience on the job were not so important. But resilience and problem-solving ability came up time and again. Dr Ming is clear, ‘AI is not about data. If you know how to fix the problem, AI can change the economics.’ The big problem, she maintains, is that many of those hired, based on traditional recruitment methods, don’t know how to solve problems.
Vivienne Ming admits that the first company she started with her wife, dedicated hundreds of hours to researching problems for which no ready solution was available. Often they failed. Now they focus on smaller bits of big problems. They also found that work on one project can lead to unexpected break-through’s in other fields. For example, a small emoticon project that they worked on years ago, resulted in the creation of a facial recognition tool. This was used to help autistic children improve their ability to correctly identify facial expressions. They found that this process also improved empathy in these same children. This same technology would later be used to develop what Dr Ming terms, ‘an incredibly sleazy game’ called Sexy Face. Which formed the basis for technology used to help identify orphan refugees and reunite them with their lost relatives, worldwide. All within three minutes.
‘‘I want to make better people.’ – Vivienne Ming
So what of the future? Dr. Ming’s independent think tank, Socos Labs, focuses on a range of areas, including education, inclusive economics and the future of work. The goal that underlies research in all of these is simple: the maximization of human potential. ‘I want to make better people.’ she says with calm conviction. So Project Muse is technology that allows parents to monitor and become more pro-active in their child’s everyday development. Using feedback from a child’s daily activities, the app creates a short, tailor-made activity that parents and children can do together.
Her book, How to Robot- Proof your Kids, focuses on how parents can help prepare their children for a future. A place where, the only job description will be ‘creative, adaptive problem-solver’. And changes in public and private policy will produce ‘a society of explorers’. In short, Vivienne Ming predicts a future job market that will be ‘radically de-professionalized by automation and AI’. But there is reason to believe these changes will produce an even richer set of jobs, if we are prepared!
‘Transition should be celebrated’ – Vivienne Ming
Dr. Ming finishes by pointing out, with a hint of her trademark dry humour, that if you’re a strawberry picker or a real-world problem-solver, there is no need to fear AI. The likes of consultants and legal professionals may well find themselves losing against the ability of algorithms to analyse spreadsheets or find holes in contracts more quickly and cheaply. But this is not really what Vivienne Ming is about. There is something evangelical in her devotion to what she clearly sees as her purpose in life. Again she draws our attention to the power of transition, in whatever shape or form it may come – ‘Transition should be celebrated! ‘ And again she invites her listeners to focus on adding value in life. Perhaps it is the hard-won sincerity with which she delivers her message or the ample evidence of her own generosity in this regard that makes her a difficult woman to ignore.
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