NeurIPS Speaker Apologizes After Keynote Slide Draws Bias Accusations
MIT professor Rosalind Picard faces backlash after highlighting a Chinese student's nationality during an AI ethics presentation. Both Picard and NeurIPS organizers issue formal apologies for the unnecessary reference.
MIT Media Lab professor Rosalind Picard sparks controversy at the NeurIPS AI conference by including a slide that highlights the nationality of a Chinese student. The slide quotes an excuse supposedly given by the expelled student for using AI, stating that nobody taught them morals or values, while adding a note that most Chinese people Picard knows are honest.
Attendees and AI researchers quickly criticize the presentation on social media, pointing out that this is the only time Picard references a person's nationality during her talk. Google DeepMind scientist Jiao Sun and Meta researcher Yuandong Tian publicly condemn the slide as explicit racial bias, prompting a conference attendee to directly urge Picard to remove the reference in future talks.
Both Picard and NeurIPS organizers respond with formal apologies. The conference organizers state that the comment does not align with their code of conduct, while Picard expresses regret, acknowledging that mentioning the student's nationality is unnecessary, irrelevant to her point, and causes unintended negative associations.