Agosto, 2021

“Farmers feed the entire world — so how might we support them to be resilient and build sustainable systems that also support global food security?” It’s a question that Diana Akrong found herself asking last year. Diana is a UX researcher based in Accra, Ghana, and the founding member of Google’s Accra UX team.

Across the world, her manager Dr. Courtney Heldreth, was equally interested in answering this question. Courtney is a social psychologist and a staff UX researcher based in Seattle, and both women work as part of Google’s People + Artificial Intelligence Research (PAIR) group. “Looking back on history, we can see how the industrial revolution played a significant role in creating global inequality,” she says. “It set most of Western Europe onto a path of economic dominance that was then followed by both military and political dominance.” Courtney and Diana teamed up on an exploratory effort focused on how AI can help better the lives of small, local farming communities in the Global South. They and their team want to understand what farmers need, their practices, value systems, what their social lives are like — and make sure that Google products reflect these dynamics.

One result of their work is a recently published research paper. The paper — written alongside their colleagues Dr. Jess Holbrook at Google and Dr. Norman Makoto Su of Indiana University and published in the ACM Interactions trade journal — dives into why we need farmer-centered AI research, and what it could mean not just for farmers, but for everyone they feed. I recently took some time to learn more about their work.

How would you explain your job to someone who isn’t in tech?

Courtney: I would say I’m a researcher trying to understand underserved and historically marginalized users’ lives and needs so we can create products that work better for them. 

Diana: I’m a researcher who looks at how people interact with technology. My superpower is my curiosity and it’s my mission to understand and advocate for user needs, explore business opportunities and share knowledge.

What’s something on your mind right now? 

Diana: Because of COVID-19, there’s the threat of a major food crisis in India and elsewhere. We’re wondering how we can work with small farms as well as local consumers, policymakers, agricultural workers, agribusiness owners and NGOs to solve this problem.

Agriculture is very close to my heart, personally. Prior to joining Google, I spent a lot of time learning from smallholder farmers across my country and helping design concepts to address their needs. 

Courtney: I’ve been thinking about how AI can be seen as this magical, heroic thing, but there are also many risks to using it in places where there aren’t laws to protect people. When I think about Google’s AI Principles — be socially beneficial, be accountable to people, avoid reinforcing bias, prioritize safety — those things define what projects I want to work on. It’s also why my colleague Tabitha Yong and I developed a set of best practices for designing more equitable AI products.

Can you tell me more about your paper, “What Does AI Mean for Smallholder Farmers? A Proposal for Farmer-Centered AI Research,” recently published in ACM Interactions? 

Courtney: The impact and failures of AI are often very western and U.S.-centric. We’re trying to think about how to make this more fair and inclusive for communities with different needs around the globe. For example, in our farmer-centered AI research, we know that most existing AI solutions are designed for large farms in the developed world. However, many farmers in the Global South live and work in rural areas, which trail behind urban areas in terms of connectivity and digital adoption. By focusing on the daily realities of these farmers, we can better understand different perspectives, especially those of people who don’t live in the U.S. and Europe, so that Google’s products work for everyone, everywhere.

Why did you want to work at Google?

Diana: I see Google as home to teams with diverse experiences and skills who work collaboratively to tackle complex, important issues that change real people’s lives. I’ve thrived here because I get to work on projects I care about and play a critical role in growing the UX community here in Ghana.

Courtney: I chose Google because we work on the world’s hardest problems. Googlers are  fearless and the reach of Google’s products and services is unprecedented. As someone who comes from an underrepresented group, I never thought I would work here. To be here at this moment is so important to me, my community and my family. When I look at issues I care about the most — marginalized and underrepresented communities — the work we do plays a critical role in preventing algorithmic bias, bridging the digital divide and lessening these inequalities. 

How have you seen your research help real people? 

Courtney: In 2018, we worked with Titi Akinsanmi, Google’s Policy and Government Relations Lead for West and Francophone Africa, and PAIR Co-lead and Principal Research Scientist Fernanda Viegas on the report for AI in Nigeria. Since then, the Ministry of Technology and Science reached out to Google to help form a strategy around AI. We’ve seen government bodies in sub-Saharan Africa use this paper as a roadmap to develop their own responsible AI policies.

How should aspiring AI thinkers and future technologists prepare for a career in this field?

Diana: My main advice? Start with people and their needs. A digital solution or AI may not be necessary to solve every problem. The PAIR Guidebook is a great reference for best practices and examples for designing with AI.

Every day, billions of people come to Google to search for questions big and small. Whether it’s finding a recipe, looking for a local coffee shop or searching for information on complex topics like health, civics or finance, Google Search helps you get the information you need — when you need it. 

But part of accomplishing our mission also means making information open and accessible about how Google Search, itself, works. That’s why we’re transparent about how we design Search, how we improve it and how it works to get you the information you’re looking for. 

Like many of the topics you might search for on Google, Search can seem complicated — but we make it easy to learn about. Here are a few ways you can get a better understanding of how Google Search works:

A one-stop shop

Today, we’re launching a fully-redesigned How Search Works website that explains the ins and outs of Search — how we approach the big, philosophical questions, along with the nitty-gritty details about how it all works. 

We first launched this website in 2016, and since then, millions of people have used it to discover more about how Search works. Now, we’ve updated the site with fresh information, made it easier to navigate and bookmark sections and added links to additional resources that share how Search works and answer common questions.

The website gives you a window into what happens from the moment you start typing in the search bar to the moment you get your search results. It gives an overview of the technology and work that goes into organizing the world’s information, understanding what you’re looking for and then connecting you with the most relevant, helpful information.

On the site, you can find details about how Google’s ranking systems sort through hundreds of billions of web pages and other content in our Search index — looking at factors like meaning, relevance, quality, usability and context — to present the most relevant, useful results in a fraction of a second. And you can learn about how we go about making improvements to Search. (There have been 4,500 such improvements in 2020 alone!) As you’ll read about, we rigorously test these changes with the help of thousands of Search Quality Raters all around the world — people who are highly trained using our extensive guidelines. These rater guidelines are publicly available, and they describe in great detail how Search works to surface great content.

Watch and learn

You also can watch our How Search Works video series, a set of easy-to-understand explainers about how Search connects you to helpful, relevant information. Here, you’ll find the answers to common questions like how Autocomplete works (no, it’s not mind-reading), how Google keeps you safe on Search, how ads appear in Search and more. 

And if you’re really in the mood to learn all about Search — and the real people behind the scenes who are working hard to make it better every single day — you can watch our “home movie,” “Trillions of Questions, No Easy Answers.” Grab your popcorn!

Trending worldwide

It’s also easy for you to get a view into what people are searching for around the world using Google Trends. For more than 15 years, we’ve made this tool publicly accessible for anyone to gain more insight into how people are using Search to find information. Google Trends is the largest publicly available data set, using anonymized search interest across different geographies to highlight trending topics, questions and societal shifts. You can think of it as a window into what the world is searching for on the web.

In 2013, the Google Earth Outreach team reached out to me with a request. They had been invited to partner on a mapping project in western Canada, and were looking for a Googler who could contribute an Indigenous perspective on cultural protocol. They asked if I would  be interested in helping. “Absolutely!” was my immediate response. I’m  Kanien’kehá ka, (Mohawk) and there have been times in my life and my workplace where it felt like there wasn’t space for me to be Indigenous. This was a great opportunity to lean in. There was also pressure: I could bring my perspective from my community but Indigenous communities are incredibly diverse. I hoped my Indigenous Studies degree would help me.

But the experience was a success and led to more participation in projects in the Indigenous space at Google.  Since 2015, I’ve been one of the five people who lead Google’s Aboriginal and Indigenous Network (GAIN), an employee-run group that gives Indigenous Googlers a safe place to nurture our communities. 

Finding belonging in a workplace with a large, diverse population can be difficult. We often bend and mould ourselves to fit others’ expectations. It’s hard to be authentic. It’s hard to hold to our core values, and what truly makes us who we are. But I found this in GAIN.

GAIN is a place where we can  grow and support one another. But it’s more than that. This group ensures that our communities outside of Google thrive, too. GAIN understands that the individual, family and community are all connected. No one thrives in isolation, and that’s what powers GAIN.

Some work GAIN has done that we’re proudest of involves creating and launching initiatives in areas like hiring, recruiting, retention, wellness, cultural events and internet connectivity in Indigenous communities. We work to shed light on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls campaigns , support Indigenous small businesses, and promote racial equity and justice initiatives. GAIN has also helped highlight educational tools such as training with ComIT, online STEMprogramming and Grow with Google, which worked with elementary school students in their local library and makerspace in Iqaluit.

We’re also working to make space for the Indigenous community internally. We have film screenings of independent Indigenous films, and have invited film makers from Wapikoni to host a discussion. Bob Joseph spoke to Googlers about what we may not know about the Indian Act, and the Cloud Sales team purchased his book for their entire team. More than 80 people in the Canadian offices are attending the University of Alberta’s free course on Indigenous Canada together. 

But it was with that original Google Maps project that I found a true home. The purpose of this work is to identify Indigenous territories on Google Maps, and recognizing Indigenous independent sovereignties in the same way as other governments do on Google Maps. We also encourage Indigenous populations to take ownership of how their bands and cultures are presented online through StreetView, Earth and Maps. 

When the Firelight Group (an Indigenous-owned consulting group) founded the Indigenous Mapping Workshop in 2014, they invited Google Earth Outreach as a partner and I was a member of the inaugural planning committee. We brought together 100 participants from Indigenous communities to teach them the tools needed to map out the locations their families rely on for hunting, gathering, trapping and fishing. In these workshops, we taught them how to put their own stories on their own maps, and encouraged them to take what they learned back to their communities. Maps are incredibly powerful tools in the hands of Indigenous communities, especially when they allow for our Indigenous worldview, and our Indigenous stories to be told.

This work was about self-determination, and starting the process of decolonization through community empowerment. We’ve supported Indigenous Mapping Workshops throughout Canada each year since 2014. Last year, the Indigenous Mapping Workshop went virtual and had more than 400 attendees. We expect more than 500 virtual attendees at this year’s conference, with over 100 training sessions. We’ve supported Indigenous Mapping Workshops in Australia and New Zealand as well. 

This opportunity was amazing. It is an honour to spend time with other First Nations, Elders and community members. Being welcomed into communities and sharing their stories is not a gift I’ll soon forget. I am so humbled to be able to help bring these tools, stories and Indigenous voices together.