With the Trump administration’s attacks on so-called “woke AI,” it’s becoming even harder to make technology fairer and more diverse. Influential voices had already begun to speak out.
The conference is taking place this week Women and the future of science na Royal Society, em Londres.
Catherine de Langejournalist at Complains: “I’m finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the speakers because my AI transcription software – which is supposed to make my life easier – keeps insisting on spelling someone’s name incorrectly. Whenever someone mentions a Julie, it writes Julian. The irony is not lost on me: this is the session about artificial intelligence, and specifically about how women are being erased from the latest AI technologies“.
A proof that the AI algorithms carry the biases of the datasets they are trained on, including gender biases.
The focus of the conference session, chaired by computer scientist Wendy Hallwas to seek to address a more cross-cutting issue: the fact that new AI technologies, which will have a transformative effect on society as a whole, are being designed almost exclusively by men.
A technology has always been an overwhelmingly male sector.
“In the last two years, there has been a setback,” he said David Leslieresponsible for research into ethics and responsible innovation at the Alan Turing Institute.
Last year, the US president, Donald Trumpissued an executive order addressed to the so-called “IA woke” and recommended that the US National Institute of Standards and Technology review its AI risk management framework to “eliminate references to misinformation, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and climate change.”
One of the panelists, Rumman Chowdhurydata scientist and former US science envoy for artificial intelligence, was responsible for ethics and accountability at X before Elon Musk took control and fired his team. She points out that the Woke AI concept was born out of misogynistic attitudes within Silicon Valley even before Trump’s order.
There is a long history of technologies developed for men’s bodies and needs – from crash test dummies to office air conditioning, astronaut space suits and the vast majority of medical research. This is known as the gender data gapand the impacts can range from inconvenience to life-threatening.
AI will impact everything from jobs to how we educate our children to the diseases we can treat. However, “currently only 2 percent of venture capital funding goes to women,” Chowdhury points out.
Additionally, less than 1 percent of health research and innovation is directed toward women’s health conditions.
“We need to make technology work for 8 billion people, not eight billionaires”points Rachel Coldicuttwhich investigates the social impacts of new and emerging technologies.
