Microsoft, the company behind the some of the most impressive inventions and devices like Hololens, Windows etc says in the coming days Artificial Intelligence (AI) will become the next big thing. Like all the big tech companies including Google and Facebook, Microsoft too is working on making an AI to leap further into the future. But according to the company, working and developing an AI without the inclusion of women in them is most likely to make the AI biased.
According to the World Economic Report 2018, only 22% of AI professionals globally are female. And almost 32% believe that gender bias is still major problem in the recruitment process of the AI industry.
To make the AI non-biased and logical the data sets used to train the Artificial Intelligence need to be assembled by a diverse group of data engineers comprising of both males and females. Else, the AI would result in biased results.
Like most of the industries around the world, the tech industry as well is dominated by males. So, to balance the gender gap in the tech sector, Microsoft along with other technology companies are promoting study of computer science and Information Technology by females in colleges and universities. The report further adds that there are a huge number of people who think that the tech industry is a ‘male’ only or a male dominant industry.
According to the World Economic Forum 2018, India places at 108th globally in the gender gap index. Also, at 27%, it has one of the lowest participation rates of women in the labour market.
The Microsoft executive says, “We believe that attracting, developing and helping women in STEM fields is vital to ensuring a well-rounded, inclusive society without which we risk having hundreds of thousands of jobs left unfilled and decades of innovation absent of female perspectives.”
Its not just the IT and tech world that has a larger male percent than the female percent working in it, corporate sectors, banking and other major business platforms have male domination. Corporate and academic AI teams also have made systems biased against women.
In 2018 Amazon’s ML experts removed a ‘sexist’ AI recruiting tool after they discovered that the recruiting engine ‘did not like women’.
For the latest gadget and tech news, and gadget reviews, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. For newest tech & gadget videos subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
