A professor at MIT issued two public apologies following an uproar about comments she made about a “Chinese student” during an appearance at the NeurIPS AI conference in Vancouver, CN this month.

TechCrunch reports that MIT Media Lab professor Rosalind Picard’s presentation included an anecdote about a “Chinese student who is now expelled from a top university” for using AI and blaming the disciplinary action on the school for not teaching students “morals and values.”

The specific reference to the student’s race has been blasted as “offensive” and the conference organizers have since issued a statement saying her comment “is something that NeurIPS does not condone. It doesn’t align with our code of conduct. We are addressing this issue with the speaker directly.”

In an open letter signed by more than 1,100 mostly students and researchers, the MIT Graduate Student Union wrote “Like all students and workers at MIT, our Chinese colleagues deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in our workplace and beyond; they are part of our community and contribute to the research fabric that makes MIT what it is,” the letter stated.

It called for the “MIT administration to act in defense of the dignity and respect of the Chinese members of the MIT and broader academic community.”

Picard issued a public apology the very next day following her talk, writing “During my keynote presentation at NeurIPS, I shared a story in which I mentioned nationality—a detail that I regret including. I see that this was unnecessary, irrelevant to the point I was making, and caused unintended negative associations.”

The union thanked her for her statement but asked that she amend her original apology to affirm “MIT’s commitment to supporting its Chinese community members and their right to work and learn in an environment while being treated with dignity and respect.”

Four days later, she addressed what she has learned since the incident in a follow up statement that acknowledged the “significant pain” she has caused and “the depth of the damage” she caused.

“Our students and colleagues who are Chinese or Chinese American frequently contend with deliberate ethnic stereotyping that feeds an atmosphere of mistrust. That mistrust can lead to many kinds of problems, which in recent years have included outright discrimination and abuse.”

So far the MIT administration has not commented on Picard’s comments. The union updated its open letter following Picard’s apologies and again urged MIT to release a statement reaffirming its commitment to the values of dignity and respect.

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