 Live from San Francisco, it's theCUBE, covering Micron Insight 2018, brought to you by Micron. Welcome back to San Francisco Bay everybody. You're watching theCUBE, the leader in live tech coverage. We're covering Micron Insight 2018. It's just wrapping up behind us. It's a day long of thought leading content around AI. AI for good, how it's affecting the human condition and healthcare and the future of AI. I'm Dave Vellante, he's Peter Burris and that's the Golden Gate Bridge over there. You used to live right up that hill. I did. D. Mooney is here. Do they kick me out? D. Mooney is here. She's the executive director of the Micron Foundation. D, thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule and coming on theCUBE. You bet, very pleased to be here with you today. So you guys had some hard news today. We heard about the $100 million fund that you're launching, but you also had some news around the foundation. That's right. You announced two winners of the grant. Tell us about that. That's right. So it was a great opportunity for Micron to showcase its goodness and what a great platform for us to be able to launch the Advancing Curiosity Grant. It is all around really focusing on that, on advancing curiosity in the hopes that we can think about how might AI help for good? Whether that's in business and health or life and it's really a great platform for us to be able to be a part of today. So what are the specifics? It was a million dollar grant? So it was a million dollar fund and today we announced our first recipients. It was to the Berkeley College of Engineering, specifically their bear, which is Berkeley A Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, then also Stanford Find Lab, which is the Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Lab and then also a non-profit called AI for All. And really their focus is to get the next generation excited about AI and really help the underrepresented groups be exposed to the field. So AI for All is so underrepresented groups as in the diversity. Females, underrepresented groups that might not actually get the exposure to this type of math and science in schools and so they do summer camps and we are helping to send students there next summer. How do you decide, what are the criteria around which you decide who gets the grants and take us through that process? Today because we are all about goodness and trying to enhance and improve our communities, this was all around how can AI do some good? And so we are taking a look at what problems can be solved utilizing AI. The second thing we're taking a look at is the type of technology we want students and our researchers to take a good look at how the technology can work. And then also what groups are being represented? We want a very diverse group that bring different perspectives and we really think that's our true ability to innovate. Well there's some real research that suggests a more diverse organization solves problems differently, gets to more creativity and actually has business outcomes. Now that may not be the objective here but certainly it's a message for organizations worldwide. We certainly think so. The more people that are being involved in the conversation, we think the richer the ideas that come out of it. One more thing that we are taking a look at in this grant is we like the recipients to think about the data collection, the privacy issues, the ethical issues that go along with collecting such massive amounts of data. So that's also something that we want people to consider when they're applying. Well one of the big challenges in any ethical framework is that the individuals that get to write the ethical framework or test the ethical framework, the ethics always works for them. And one of the big issues that you just raised is that there is research that shows that if you put a certain class of people and make them responsible for training the AI system, that their biases will absolutely dominate the AI system. So these issues of diversity are really important, not just from a how does it work for them, but also from a very starting point of what should go into the definition of the problem, the approach and solution, how you train it. Is that, are you going to full scope? Are you looking at just segments of that problem? We'll take a look at, we hope to solve the problems eventually. But right now just to start with, it's the first announcement of the fund. It's a million dollars, like we mentioned, the first three recipients were announced today. The other recipients that come along were really excited to see what comes out of that, because maybe there will be some very unique approaches to solving problems utilizing AI. What other areas might you look at? I mean, how do you determine curiosity and AI? How'd you come up with that? And how do you determine the topics and the areas that you go after? So the Micron Foundation's mission is to enhance our lives through our people and our philanthropy, and we focus on STEM and also basic human needs. So when Micron is engaged in large business endeavors, like today, talking about AI, it was a perfect opportunity for us to bring our goodness and focus on AI and the problems that can be solved utilizing it. It's a pretty good day today, I thought. I mean, I have to say, I mean, I've followed Micron for a while, you guys can get pretty down and dirty on the technical side, but it was an up-level conversation today. The last speaker in particular really made us think a little bit, talking about are we going to get to, you know, people refer to- Max Tegram, right? Was that, Max Tegram? Oh, they got you. And I didn't catch his name, I popped in late, but he was talking about artificial general intelligence and sort of reaching, I guess, a singularity, and then what struck me is he had a panel of researchers, AI researchers, all male, by the way, I think. Yes. And I noticed that. Yeah, yes, we did, too. The last one, which was Elon Musk, of course, we all know, thinks that there's going to be artificial general intelligence or super intelligence. And he asked every single panel member, will we achieve that? And they all unanimously said yes. So either they're all dead wrong or the world is going to be a scary place in 20, 30, 50 years. Right. What were your thoughts on that? Well, it was certainly thought-provoking to think about all the good things that AI can do, but also maybe the other side. And I'm actually glad that we concluded with that because that is an element of our fund is we want the people that apply to it or that will work with to think about those other sides. If these certain problems are solved, is there a downside as well? So that is definitely where we want that diverse thinking to come in so we can approach the problems in a good way that helps us all. So limited time left. Let's talk a little bit about women in tech. So through California, Jerry Brown just signed a law into effect that, I believe it's any public company has to have a woman on the board. On the board. What do you think about that? Well, personally, I think that's fantastic. Whoa, you're biased. I might be a little biased. I guess it's a little unfortunate we now have to have laws for this to, because maybe there's not enough or I'm not exactly sure, but I think it's a step in the right direction. That really aligns well with what we try to do, bring diversity into the workplace, diversity into the conversation. So I think it's a good step in the right direction. Yeah, and you know, let's face it, this industry has had a lack really of women leaders. Now we just, we lost Meg Whitman at a huge Fortune 50 company in terms of a woman leader replaced by Antonio Neary, great guy who know him well, but that was sort of one, if you're counting one down, Ginny Rometti obviously huge presence in the industry, but I'm going to ask you, what do you think about, I'm going to use the word quotas, I hate to use it, but if you don't have quotas, what's the answer? I don't know about quotas either. We do know that we help our foundation grants span the pipeline from young students all the way up through college, and we see this pipeline, it starts leaking along the way. Fifth grade, we start seeing girls fall out, eighth grade is another big in the US. Not so much in other countries, which is pretty fascinating. But it is, we are a global foundation, and when we talk with our other partners, they're also interested in having STEM outreach into their schools, because they want to bring in the critical thinking and problem solving skills. So I used to think it was quite just a US problem, but now being exposed to other cultures and countries, definitely they have a different approach, but I think it's a problem that we all strive to overcome. Well there's some pretty good research that shows that governance that includes women is generally more successful, it reaches better decisions, which is decisions that lead to, in the case of boards, greater profitability, more success. So if you can't convince people with data, you have to convince them of the law. And so at the end of the day, it would be nice if people recognized that a diverse governance or a diverse approach to governance usually ends up with a better result, but if you can't, you got to hit them over the head. I guess so, I guess so. Well, I mean obviously with the Kavanaugh confirmation there's been a lot of talk about this lately. There's been some pretty interesting stuff. I got two daughters, you have a daughter, and some pretty interesting stuff in our family chat that's been floating around. I saw, I think it was yesterday, my wife sent me a little diddy by a young woman who was singing a song about how tough it is for men, you know, sort of tongue in cheek and singing things like, well I can't open the door in my pajamas, I can't walk down the street on my phone at night, I can't leave my drink unattended, you know, so tough for men, so tough for men. So you have, in the one hand, you have the Me Too movement, you have a lot more, since Satya Nadella put his foot in his mouth at the Grace Hopper event, I don't know if you saw that. I didn't. He said it a couple years ago. Said a couple years ago, a woman in the audience, Grace Hopper, you know, big conference for women, asked, you know, we're underpaid, should we say anything? And he said, no, I think you should just, that's bad karma, you should wait and be patient. And then of course, you got a lot of work for that. And then he apologized for it, he did the right thing, he was, you know what, I'm way off base, and then he took proactive action. But since then, you feel like there's been, certainly much more attention paid to it, the Google debacle of last summer with the employee that wrote that Jerry McGuire told him. Right, right. And then now the Me Too movement, and now then you see the reaction of women from the Kavanaugh appointment. So you feel like we've made a lot of progress, but then you go, well, maybe we haven't. It sometimes feels like that. It sometimes feels like that. In my career, over 20 years, I have had a very positive experience working with men, women alike, and have been very supported. And I hope that we can continue to have the conversations and raise awareness that everyone can feel good in their workplace and walking down the street. And like you mentioned, I think that it's very important that we all have a voice and we bring, all of us bring a different unique perspective to the table. So do you feel that it's sort of two steps forward, D, and maybe one step back every now and then, or are we making constant progress? It kind of feels like that right now. And I'm not sure exactly why, but it seems like we're talking a lot about it more now. And maybe just with a lot more attention on it, that's why it's seeming like we're taking a step back. But I think progress has been made and we have to continue to improve that. Yeah, I think if you strip out the politics of the Kavanaugh situation and then focus on the impact on women, I think you take a different perspective. That's a discussion that's worth having. In the cube last week, I interviewed somebody, she called herself, I'm a fixer. And I said, you know, here's some adjectives I think of as a fixer. It's a good listener, somebody who's a leader, somebody who's assertive, somebody who takes action quickly, you know, were those the adjectives that were described about you throughout your career? And the answer was not always, right? Sometimes it was, you know, aggressive or, right? I mean, you know that whole thing when a woman takes a swift action and is a leader sometimes she's, you know, called derogatory names, when a man does it, he's seen as a great leader. So there's still that bias that you see out there. And so two steps forward, one step back maybe. Well, the last thoughts on today and your mission. We really hope to encourage the next generation to pursue math and science degrees, whether they are female or male or however they identify and we want them to do great and hopefully have a great career in technology. Well, so I'm glad you mentioned that because it's not just about women, it's about people of color and however you identify. So thanks very much for coming on theCUBE, really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, keep right there everybody back with our next guest right after this short break. We're live from Micron Insight 2018 from San Francisco, you're watching theCUBE.