These Women are Leading in Artificial Intelligence and Want to Influence it For Good

Sue Daley, Head of Programme, Cloud, Data, Analytics & AI, TechUK, Tabitha Goldstaub, CognitionX, Zoe Webster, Head of Portfolio, InnovateUK, Eleonora Harwich, Head of Digital and Technological Innovation, Reform, Huma Lodhi, Principal Data Scientist, Direct Line Group

Whether you know you are using Artificial Intelligence, or not, the fact is that this technology is going be embedded, and probably is already embedded, in every part of our lives — and after a day discussing the impact that this has on women not only personally, but professionally, socially, and economically it’s clear we need to be clearer.

Why are women so worried?

Few women are working in Artificial Intelligence. Not only does this make it difficult to represent female views equally, it raises other ethical questions. For example, take the situation where there may be bias within the data used to train an AI. Is it possible that there may be poor representation of female data because it doesn’t exist yet? We know any answer that an AI gives will be based on the information put into it. Who will be responsible for checking what the machines are learning?

Catherine Colebrook, IPPR, Chief Economist and Associate Director for Economic Policy highlights research that suggests that women are less likely to look for different jobs. Their attachment to the labour market is less intense. In reality, this translates to them being unlikely to retrain to seek out new types of work. As women occupy a significant proportion of low skilled jobs…