Artificial intelligence experts from Rey Juan Carlos University have called for more women to be included in the teams working on this technology, otherwise there is a risk of widening the gender gap and perpetuating structural discrimination.
“Women must be placed in AI teams, in jobs, in education, in innovation, in everything related to this,” said URJC Professor María Pérez Eugena Corominas, during her speech at the international conference “Social Justice and Sustainability” “Development and Women” organized On Tuesday, November 21 in Salamanca.
This expert added, “The percentage of women in artificial intelligence is small, and if there are no women working on developing these systems, the female perspective will not exist.”
The fifth edition of this forum, organized by Professor Inmaculada Sánchez Barrios at the Equality Unit of the University of Salamanca (USAL), was a novelty in incorporating the discussion on how artificial intelligence affects inequality between men and women, reports Efe. .
URJC professors Pérez Eugena Corominas and Ana Felicitas Muñoz Pérez, who work on gender approaches and artificial intelligence, were responsible for revealing the challenges and risks that the development of artificial intelligence can present. For the issue of equality.
Professor Muñoz warned that artificial intelligence, in general, poses “several risks to human rights, security, justice and privacy,” as well as “a significant gender risk.”
“The gender perspective is essential. While technology advances brutally, organizations for the protection and defense of women lag behind, and structural discrimination occurs, both direct and indirect, and this is the most dangerous, it comes without us realizing it.” Eugena Corominas said.
He added: “There is talk, for example, that with artificial intelligence we will work more remotely. Well, this also happened to us with the pandemic and in the end women took over work at home and outside it.”
The professor gave examples of how AI shows biases that “reflect structural discrimination that already exists”: “It provides many images where the surfers are men and where the women are in the kitchen.”
URJC professors pointed to the algorithm as the piece the work should focus on, because “in many cases they are black boxes that collect opaque data,” Eugena Corominas noted. “There is a lack of transparency in the systems, and the data is biased because it is entered by human beings living in a society with structural discrimination, meaning bias adds up to the discrimination that already exists.”
Technology, a man’s thing
In another conference entitled The role of women in the future of Europe At the Women’s Leadership School held in Valencia in cooperation with Huawei, the experts gathered there also concluded that artificial intelligence has a “central role in protecting women’s rights” if the truth is that “many algorithms sometimes have a role in intensifying social gaps such as Gender gaps.
Incorporating professional women into the development of AI algorithms would avoid discriminatory biases that “further widen gender gaps” and has the potential to “transform Europe” as it moves toward a “technology-based society.”
“Technology can have all the biases that people have because it is created by humans,” said Cecilia Danesi, a professor at the University of Salamanca and an artificial intelligence researcher.
That’s why “AI with women, with more diversity and an ethical human rights perspective” is important. This approach should be based “on insight, not sanctions,” which is why he highlights the importance of European AI law, which he refers to as “an example of excellence in the development of ethical AI.”
“There is progress, but it is still very small,” said Tamara Tavra, Ministerial Advisor for Cyberspace and Disinformation at the Permanent Representation of Croatia to the European Union, in the field of opening the technology sector to women.
“In all this time that Croatia has been a member of the Union, I have been able to see some changes in technological matters,” Tavra, for whom technology has traditionally been a “male-dominated field,” said during the conferences.
There are now some women in positions of power, but “not many, honestly.” He added that this number still represents progress compared to his father’s generation, where technological professions included classes designated for men only.
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