Page 88 of The Proving Ground
“Okay, so you came out to California to escape from this man, and then what happened?” I asked.
“I worked and I went to school up in the Bay Area,” Kitchens said.
“What school?”
“My first degree was from USF and—”
“USF?”
“Sorry, University of San Francisco. I then got a master’s at UC Berkeley and later a doctorate from Stanford.”
I walked her quickly through her degrees in order—computer science, psychology, and finally sociology.
“I guess I should be calling youDr.Kitchens,” I said.
“I prefer just Naomi,” she said.
“Okay, Naomi. And did you pay your way through all these schools?”
“Yes. I worked and I got some scholarship money, a few research grants. But I also had student loans that I’m still paying off.”
This brought a low murmur of laughter in the courtroom.
“You are apparently not alone in that,” I said. “When you worked, what was the job or jobs you took?”
“I was a coder for various companies,” Kitchens said. “I worked for Microsoft, Apple, a few others.”
“What’s a coder do?”
“Writes operating code for various apps.”
“Okay. And you did all of this while being a single mother and going to school?”
“Yes.”
“What was your career goal with all these degrees?”
“I wanted to be a teacher at the college level. I wanted to be a professor.”
“And did you accomplish that?”
“Yes. My first job was at USF, and after I got my doctorate I stayed at Stanford for the next three years.”
“What happened that made you leave Stanford?”
“I got a job offer from Tidalwaiv that would almost double my income. I took it so I could provide a better life for my daughter.”
“Can you tell us what that job entailed?”
“I was an ethicist primarily assigned to Project Clair.”
I smiled and raised my hands from the lectern in aWhat gives?gesture.
“I have to say, I’m not sure what an ethicist is or does,” I said. “Can you explain it to us?”
“Clair was a generative artificial-intelligence project,” Kitchens said. “At the time, it was the new frontier of AI technology. There weren’t many rules and there was almost zero government oversight. It was very competitive, and the tech companies started hiring people to make sure these programs and apps were created in a responsible way. Generative AI was going to change the world—it already has. The ethicist was sort of the human conscience of the project. I was supposed to help make sure there were guardrails in place to protect the people these systems would serve.”
“‘Supposed to’?”
