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Winnipeg Free Press

Thinking differently

TEDx, the showcase of speakers with 'Ideas Worth Sharing' and 18 minutes to do so, returns to Winnipeg for its second annual run since the pandemic. On Thursday, 13 thought leaders and changemakers pitch their disruptive ideas, to use TED's signature parlance, at the University of Manitoba's state-of-the-art Desautels Concert Hall. 'I would say that attendees are going to be exposed to a day's worth of new ideas that very often will change their mind on how they think about different topics,' says Kerry Stevenson, TEDx Winnipeg organizer. SUPPLIED TEDx Winnipeg presenter Chioma Onyekpere, a senior software engineer and AI critic, says AI's growth is inevitable but our surrender to it is not. 'These are ideas we believe are worth spreading, because they're going to make you think differently, right? And you will laugh, you will cry and you will be amazed.' TEDx is an independently organized offshoot of TED conferences — the acronym stands for technology, entertainment, design — curated and organized by the eponymous Canadian-American non-profit, typically featuring high-profile speakers. While TED conferences have sometimes been parodied for their 'techno-optimism' and 'solutionism,' their belief in unlimited progress led by the Silicon Valley visionaries that command their stages and our algorithmic-shaped realities, TEDx strikes a rather different tone. For one thing, all the speakers at the Winnipeg event, which started in 2011, are local. 'There was this one moment (in previous years) when we realized, 'Wait a minute, why are we bringing in speakers?'' says Stevenson. 'Ever since then, we've only picked local people to speak at the event, and they bring their amazing world-class ideas onto the stage.' One also detects a rather tempered techno-optimism in TEDx Winnipeg's themes this year, which include immigration, trade, decolonization, AI and more. For instance, one speaker is Johise Namwira, a self-described 'refugee turned PR expert … on a mission to confront the exploitation behind our technology.' Her talk, From Congo's Soil to Your Smartphone: The Human Cost of Critical Minerals, reminds us of the brutalities hidden behind our favourite screens, focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where child and sweatshop labour are entrenched in the mining industry. Another speaker is Chioma Onyekpere, a senior software engineer who's currently engaged in post-graduate studies in predictive analytics. The message of her talk, Biased AI is Already Deciding Your Future, doesn't sound like anything ChatGPT would be permitted to generate. 'AI is not neutral, because it's trained by us,' says the 29-year-old Nigerian, who moved to Winnipeg last August. 'And we human beings are not neutral, even when we claim we are.' Onyekpere says that while there's no defecting from a future that's increasingly AI-driven, the way AI spreads its Sentinel-like tentacles through society isn't inevitable. It's something we can chose. In the immediate term, Onyekpere is worried about AI models trained on insufficient data sets that exert far too much power over our decisions — and a population too complacent to do much about it. 'We vote for leaders in a democratic government. But the thing with AI is that we don't get to vote for the AI leaders,' she says. Biases corrupting AI's output need not be consciously designed, either; they can creep into Alexa or ChatGPT's worldview without the knowledge of their masters. Onyekpere gives the example of an AI-driven applicant training system (AST), previously used in Amazon's hiring practices, that discriminated against women aspiring to join the company because the AST had been trained on data from a period when men dominated the company. 'Once it saw words like 'women' — for example, let's say the phrase 'women's chess club captain,' it was going to penalize the resumé,' she says. Onyekpere's talk outlines what she considers the beginnings of a solution, although one that means accepting and working through AI's continued biases rather than blinding ourselves to them. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Other events at this year TEDx Winnipeg have nothing to do with tech and/or emanate a cheery spirit — exploring the 'power of burlesque,' rural Pride events and the joys of dancing even if you worry that you're too old or have two left feet. Stevenson says the 13 local speakers were selected from 170 formal applications, representing the best in Manitoba thinkers and movers with a regionalist focus. 'This year is all about Manitoba: our stories, challenges and potential,' he says. 'Whether you're an entrepreneur, an artist, a student or a community builder, this is a day to connect with the ideas shaping our future.' Conrad SweatmanReporter Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.