North Idaho Alliance Women of Impact: Is Artificial Intelligence gender biased?
Marilee Wallace
“Hey Siri, find articles on AI and women.” This is how I started down the AI and gender wormhole as I researched this month’s article. Here’s some interesting details I came across:
According to Harvard Business Review, there have been many incidences of AI adopting gender bias from humans. It cites an example of natural language processing that is present in Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. I have both in my home and both set to a women’s voice. (Bias? Maybe.)
It also cites word-embeddings as a bias aspect of AI. Like a game of word-association, these systems can often associate "man" with "doctor" and "woman" with "nurse." These don't reflect modern society, or at least how we want modern society to progress. Although AI appears neutral, it's made by humans, which means it internalizes all the same biases as we have — including gender bias.
AI equality experts at the annual LivePerson conference revealed how bias in AI can impact society. If AI that is used to screen potential job candidates is encoded by data scientists with gender bias, our workplaces could be entirely male.
“Can you imagine if all the toddlers in the world were raised by 20-year-old men? That’s what our AI looks like today. It’s being built by a very homogenous group," said Frida Polli, chief executive officer of Pymetrics at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Next Generation Summit and conference speaker.
Gender bias could also cause problems for facial recognition software that uses AI, such as security applications at concerts, airports and sports arenas, a concern that also extends into gender binary. If AI sees gender as simply male and female, this doesn't align with modern perspectives of non-binary and transgender expression, causing potential harm for these communities. (CNN Business)
“In this bleak depiction of our future, decades of fights for civil rights and equality have been unwritten in a few lines of code,” said EqualAI Executive Director Miriam Vogel. Bias may be an unavoidable fact of life, but let's not make it an unavoidable aspect of new technologies.
New technologies give us a chance to start afresh — starting with AI — but it's up to people, not the machines, to remove bias. Hopefully women, together with men, will play a large and critical role in shaping the future of a bias-free AI world. (credit internationalwomensday.com)
Local women pushing for bias-free technology include staff and leaders at GIZMO-CDA — Coeur d’Alene’s community makerspace. Their mission is to build creative confidence and curiosity through programs that give all people access to tools, technologies and mentors. Located on the North Idaho College campus, it is a multi-media workshop where community members can unleash their creativity and bring their visions to life though technology. The Women of IMPACT Leadership Roundtable toured this facility at our February session and encourage any community members who wishes to know more to check them out at https://www.gizmo-cda.org.
NIA’s Women of Impact Annual Onward & Upward Women’s Conference 2024 will be held May 22 at the Best Western Plus Coeur d'Alene Inn. This year’s theme is “Communicating. Let’s Talk about it.” Follow us on Facebook or at www.thenialliance.com for NIA’s offerings to Impact women in our region.
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Marilee Wallace, IOM, president/CEO of the North Idaho Alliance Women of Impact. The Women of Impact Leadership Roundtable meets once a month for a nine-month series, and we base our monthly agenda on the word IMPACTED.
