If AI is the future, gender equity is essential

• 26 June 2023
• grainroot
• News GRAIN

As the world faces many serious challenges — from climate change and poverty to displacement and social injustice – women and girls are key to tackling those issues and shaping future prosperity for all. Artificial Intelligence (AI), along with other digital tools, has the potential to help us address those challenges and open new opportunities. Seizing that potential requires us to take meaningful action to mitigate the risks AI poses to women and girls, and to use AI to advance gender equity.

By Leila Toplic, Head of Emerging Technologies Initiative at NetHope

Adoption of AI is accelerating, and the potential is significant. Today, AI is being integrated into nearly every industry, from healthcare and finance to education and manufacturing. It’s being used to decide everything from who gets hired, to who is offered credit and how much, to who gets access to healthcare first. What this means is, AI systems are critical to women’s participation in all sectors of society. The ability to access, use, and shape AI is essential for the future of women's human rights.

While AI has the potential to help us tackle some of the toughest problems and transform how we live and work - AI could also further exacerbate inequity and digital divides. We already have an alarming digital gender divide. According to UN Women, women make up more than two-thirds of the world's 796 million illiterate people. Of the estimated 2.9 billion unconnected, the majority are women and girls. Women are 25% less likely than men to know how to leverage digital technology for basic uses. Women and girls lack access to, and participation in, science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. They are 4 times less likely to know how to program computers. With such a significant gap in education, it’s no surprise that women are underrepresented in technology fields in the workforce. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2021 Global Gender Gap report, only 32% of those in data and AI roles are women.

The results of this digital gender gap are two-fold. First, barriers to the access and use of digital technologies (including AI) prevent women and girls from accessing the opportunities in education, economy, and society. Second, underrepresentation of women and girls in the technology industry, including in the development of AI systems, only reinforces and amplifies existing gender biases and stereotypes in our society because AI does not reflect their needs, contexts, experiences, and ideas.

So, it’s no surprise that women and girls are disproportionately affected by AI. There are numerous cases of AI systems discriminating based on gender. For example, facial analysis software reported higher error rates for recognizing women, specifically those with darker skin tones (1-in-3 failure rate with identifying darker-skinned females). There’s an infamous case of a large tech company using a hiring tool that was discriminating against women. Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri have been found to entrench harmful gender biases. A recent study into how an algorithm delivered ads promoting STEM jobs showed that women were less likely to be shown the job ad due to the cost-effectiveness. Word embedding, which is one of the most important concepts in natural language processing (NLP) and widely used by commercial companies, reinforces gender stereotypes by offering words that reflect the same old biased perception of women that is not based on facts or centered on equity. It’s important to note that these are mostly Global North examples and we lack evidence from the Global South.

In summary, without an intentional focus on gender equity, AI may be deployed as a tool of discrimination, oppression, and control.

Read more : https://nethope.org/articles/if-ai-is-the-future-gender-equity-is-essential/ https://nethope.org/articles/if-ai-is-the-future-gender-equity-is-essential/