Girl Trouble: Breaking Through The Bias in AI

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UNESCO and the World Economic Forum present Girl Trouble: Breaking Through The Bias in AI on International Women's Day, 8th March, 3:00 pm - 5:30 pm (CET). This timely round-table brings together a range of leading female voices in tech to confront the deep-rooted gender imbalances skewing the development of artificial intelligence. Today critics charge that AI feeds on biased data-sets, amplifying the existing the anti-female biases of our societies, and that AI is perpetuating harmful stereotypes of women as submissive and subservient. Is it any wonder when only 22% of AI professionals globally are women?

Our panelists are female change-makers in AI. From C-suite professionals taking decisions which affect us all, to women innovating new AI tools and policies to help vulnerable groups, to those courageously exposing injustice and algorithmic biases, we welcome:

1. Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General of Social and Human Sciences, UNESCO, leading the development of UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, the first global standard-setting instrument in the field.
    
2. Kay Firth-Butterfield, Keynote speaker. Kay was the world’s first chief AI Ethics Officer. As Head of AI & Machine Learning, and a Member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum, Kay develops new alliances to promote awareness of gender bias in AI;
    
3. Ashwini Asokan, CEO of Chennai-based AI company, Mad Street Den. She explores how Artificial Intelligence can be applied meaningfully and made accessible to billions across the globe;
    
4. Adriana Bora a researcher using machine learning to boost compliance with the UK and Australian Modern Slavery Acts, and to combat modern slavery, including the trafficking of women;
    
5. Anne Bioulac, a member of the Women in Africa Initiative, developing AI-enabled online learning to empower African women to use AI in digital entrepreneurship;
    
6. Meredith Broussard, a software developer and associate professor of data journalism at New York University, whose research focuses on AI in investigative reporting, with a particular interest in using data analysis for social good ;
    
7. Latifa Mohammed Al-AbdulKarim, named by Forbes magazine as one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics, and as one of the women defining AI in the 21st century;
    
8. Wanda Munoz, of the Latin American Human Security Network. One of the Nobel Women’s Initiative's 2020 peacebuilders, she raises aware-ness around gender-based violence and autonomous weapons;
    
9. Nanjira Sambuli, a Member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel for Digital Cooperation and Advisor for the A+ Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms;
    
10. Jutta Williams, Product Manager at Twitter, analyzing how Twitter can improve its models to reduce bias.
     

There's an urgent need for more women to participate in and lead the design, development, and deployment of AI systems. Evidence shows that by 2022, 85% of AI projects will deliver erroneous outcomes due to bias.

AI Recruiters searching for female AI specialists online just cannot find them. Companies hiring experts for AI and data science jobs estimate fewer than 1 per cent of the applications they receive come from women. Women and girls are 4 times less likely to know how to programme computers, and 13 times less likely to file for technology patent. They are also less likely to occupy leadership positions in tech companies.

Building on UNESCO’s cutting edge research in this field, and flagship 2019 publication “I’d Blush if I Could”, and policy guidance on gender equality in the 2020 UNESCO Draft Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, the panel will look at:

1. The 4th industrial revolution is on our doorstop, and gender equality risks being set back decades; What more can we do to attract more women to design jobs in AI, and to support them to take their seats on the boards of tech companies.
    
2. How can AI help us advance women and girls' rights in society? And how can we solve the problem of algorithmic gender bias in AI systems?
    

Women’s leadership in the AI Sector at all levels, from big tech to the start-up AI economy in developing countries will be placed under the micro-scope.

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Disclaimer: The interpretation of proceedings serves to facilitate communication and does not constitute an authentic record of the proceedings. Only the original speech is authentic.

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