Why AI Businesses Need Neurodiversity Inclusion 🗣️

Why building a neurodiverse team is a Good Thing for your AI business, and how being more inclusive of neurodivergent people benefits all. (Audio; 9:02)

Readers, many of you are probably working with (or sharing part of your life with) a neurodivergent person, without knowing it. They may not even know it, especially if they are a woman. (Women tend to be under-diagnosed even more often than men, particularly for autism.)

Data is scarce, in part due to biases and obstacles that impede people from self-identifying or getting diagnoses. However, overall, about 1 in every 5 people is neurodivergent in one or more ways¹.

If you work in AI and software (which is likely, since you’re reading this 6 ‘P’s in AI Pods newsletter), it’s even more probable that you have at least one neurodivergent colleague. Neurodivergence is reported to be significantly higher among people who work in AI than in the general population. This post shares insights into why, why it’s a good thing, and how we can all benefit from building more neuroinclusive environments at home, school, and work.

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See the References below for some quick links on what “neurodivergence” means and what it encompasses. It’s much more than autism. ²

In brief: “Neurodivergence is the idea that some brains function differently than the "typical" brain, and that these differences should not necessarily be considered a mental illness.” “The word for people who aren’t neurodivergent is “neurotypical.” That means their strengths and challenges aren't affected by any kind of difference that changes how their brains work.”

3 tips and terms:

• A person may be neurodivergent (ND).

• A person who is not neurodivergent is neurotypical (NT).

• Groups of people can be neurodiverse (all ND or a mix of ND and NT).

ND Relevance to Software Technology

“NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity” ³ was a 2016 blockbuster. By 2017, neurodiversity was recognized as a potential competitive advantage for any company. HBR noted that companies like “SAP, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, and Microsoft, have reformed their HR processes in order to access neurodiverse talent”. They also reported that HPE’s “neurodiverse testing teams are 30% more productive than the others” and recommended that companies consider increased neurodiversity to gain “the ability to compete on the basis of innovation” ⁴.

But insights about the connections between ND and software technology businesses aren’t new. NeuroTribes author Steven Silberman first wrote about increasing autism rates in Silicon Valley children in a Wired article in 2001 (that year is not a typo) ⁵. At that time, it was already “a familiar joke in the industry that many of the hardcore programmers in IT strongholds like Intel, Adobe, and Silicon Graphics—coming to work early, leaving late, sucking down Big Gulps in their cubicles while they code for hours—are residing somewhere in Asperger's domain.” 

What’s new-ish is growing awareness of the relevance of ND to AI businesses.

ND Relevance to AI Businesses

AI companies have realized in recent years that ND people’s strengths can align well with their business. As a result, more companies are actively seeking to hire them for AI-related roles. For example, the WSJ reported in 2019 that ND employees outperformed in machine learning testing, and companies were actively recruiting ND people for new ML testing roles ⁶.

Data annotation roles are another example. Bloomberg News reported in 2022 that “Research indicated that neurodiverse intelligence officers on the autism spectrum exhibit the ability to parse large data sets and identify patterns and trends “at rates that far exceed folks who are not autistic” and were less prone to cognitive bias.” ⁷

However, whether ND or NT, people shouldn’t be pigeonholed into a small subset of roles (such as ML testing or data annotation). Everyone has different strengths, and ND people can outperform in many critical roles in AI businesses. For example, “modeling and data science, where recognizing patterns and understanding quantitative concepts is essential, can allow neurodiverse talent to shine.” ⁸

A recent Big Think article summarizes well why AI and ND have important synergies that extend to roles across an organization ⁹. Here are some key excerpts (bold emphasis added):

“The world now sits on the precipice of transformational change driven by the emergence of new technology. Perhaps counterintuitively, as this transformation carves out a very special and complementary place for human neurodivergence, it will serve to powerfully elevate the crucial importance of neurodiversity inclusion as an organizational asset. […]

As we blaze ever faster toward a world inextricably entwined with the incorporation of artificial intelligence, these properties—lateral thinking, intuitive insight, inductive leaps of creativity, resistance to manipulation or social pressure—will become increasingly important because they represent pathways of thought capable of being complementary to those produced by AI systems, which are inescapably chained to linear progressions of reason. […] it may well be that the only source of sustained differentiating edge, of tapping into the N+1 axis that extends perpendicularly out of Flatland, lies in building an organizational culture fundamentally committed to the proactive and authentic inclusion of different kinds of minds.”

The Challenge

The benefits of neurodiverse teams are two-fold.

1. Specific skills and strengths ND people can bring to a team are invaluable.

2. Practicing neuroinclusion can strengthen an organization’s culture for everyone.

So it should be a no-brainer to build a a neuroinclusive environment, especially in AI-focused workplaces.

Whether as leaders or technical contributors, we all want our businesses to stay competitive now and in the brave new future AI world. How can you help to achieve this “proactive and authentic inclusion of different kinds of minds”?

What You Can Do

The many obstacles to interviewing and hiring for ND people are well-recognized and can be surmounted. This is what SAP, HPE, and the others began doing in mid-201x. Achieving neuroinclusion requires thinking and going well beyond the hiring process, though.

Here are four excellent books that I recommend ¹⁰. (No commissions, referrals, or affiliate codes involved.) They will help you understand how neurodivergence impacts colleagues, friends, and family. And they will guide you on how to build neuroinclusive work, school, and home environments.

• Maureen Dunne, Ph.D, “The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization”. Listed by SHRM among the Top 12 Books to Read this summer for 2024.

• Ludmila Praslova, Ph.D, “The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work”. Listed among the 2024 Top 10 Best New Management Books by Thinkers50.

• Becca Lory Hector, “Always Bring Your Sunglasses: And Other Stories from a Life of Sensory and Social Invalidation”. An outstanding, engaging memoir by a woman diagnosed as autistic at age 36.

• Devon Price, Ph.D, “Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity”.

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Good luck in building your diverse, inclusive AI business! Have questions? Let us know if we can help!

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References and Credits

Thank you to DEIB leader Tom Thomas for sharing relevant links to include in this article, and to

Rose G.

and

Autumn Chadwick

for their advance feedback!

1. The listing for this 2021 book says that “2 in 10” in the UK are neurodivergent. Similar statistics have been reported in the US. The book includes case studies from Microsoft and other tech companies.

“Neurodiversity at Work: Drive Innovation, Performance and Productivity with a Neurodiverse Workforce”, Amanda Kirby and Theo Smith, 2021-08-31.

2. What’s “neurodivergence”? Some quick info and links:

• VeryWellMind.com:
  “Neurodivergence is the idea that some brains function differently than the "typical" brain, and that these differences should not necessarily be considered a mental illness. In the past, we may have considered autism, for example, to be an inherently bad or abnormal condition that needed to be treated like other mental illnesses.

  As we come to learn more about how the human brain works, and the differences that can occur from person to person, we now look at the topic of neurodiversity in a completely new light. The more we learn, the more we can push back against the stigmas that have harmed many individuals in the past.”

• Cleveland Clinic:
  “Neurodivergent isn’t a medical term. Instead, it’s a way to describe people using words other than “normal” and “abnormal.” That’s important because there’s no single definition of “normal” for how the human brain works.

  The word for people who aren’t neurodivergent is “neurotypical.” That means their strengths and challenges aren't affected by any kind of difference that changes how their brains work.”

3. “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity”, Steve Silberman, 2016-08-23.

4. “Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage: Why you should embrace it in your workforce”, Robert D. Austin and Gary P. Pisano / Harvard Business Review Magazine, May–June 2017.

5. “The Geek Syndrome”, Steve Silberman / Wired Magazine, 2001-12-01.

6. “People With Autism Are Hot Hires for AI Jobs”, John Murawski / WSJ, 2019-08-01 (paywalled).

7. “Neurodiversity Emerges as a Skill in Artificial Intelligence Work”, Data Center Knowledge, Bloomberg News, 2022-10-19.

8. “Neurodiversity in Artificial Intelligence”, Jun Wu, COGNITIVE WORLD Contributor Group / Forbes Magazine, 2019-12-27.

9. “Why a neurodivergent team will be a golden asset in the AI workplace”, Maureen Dunne, Ph.D / BigThink, 2024-04-09.

10. Our 4 book recommendations:

• Maureen Dunne, Ph.D, “The Neurodiversity Edge: The Essential Guide to Embracing Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, and Other Neurological Differences for Any Organization”. Listed by SHRM among the Top 12 Books to Read this summer for 2024.

• Ludmila Praslova, Ph.D, “The Canary Code: A Guide to Neurodiversity, Dignity, and Intersectional Belonging at Work”. Listed among the 2024 Top 10 Best New Management Books by Thinkers50.

• Becca Lory Hector, “Always Bring Your Sunglasses: And Other Stories from a Life of Sensory and Social Invalidation”. An outstanding, engaging memoir by a woman diagnosed as autistic at age 36.

• Devon Price, Ph.D, “Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity”.