What do Women in AI Really Want?

"We are underfunded, and we are exhausted. Women [in AI] do not want private jets and yachts. What we deserve is equal and equitable financial support , not just applauds and kudos" explained Mia Shah-Dand in a recent interview with AIM. "There is an imbalance in how the money is distributed. It is a self-fulfilling cycle of men getting more attention, which gets them more funding, which in turn leads to more attention and subsequently even more funding." the founder of the Women in AI Ethics initiative added. 

Notably, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has asked for a $7 trillion investment to build the future of AI collectively. The number is unfathomable and makes one wonder if it's just another episode of Altman messing around. But then, what could the potential investors from the Middle East and Southeast Asia be talking about to the OpenAI founder? 

"Funding shifts the power dynamic," Dand firmly stated. 

She mentioned Altman's fame: "He is talked about because he has clout and access to billions in funding. Likewise, there are so many women doing great work but barely getting a fraction of that funding. Even though their work is lauded, the money lands in the hands of the men in the field," she said. 

The (uncomfortable) truth is: Female-founded AI startups get just 2% of funding deals (at least in the UK and the US). 

Fortunately, in the US, the scene is changing gradually as AI companies with at least one female founder have steadily increased over the past few years, according to Crunchbase data. But usually, all-women teams are much, much lesser paid. Platforms giving a voice to these women building technology have certainly helped.

One of them is WAIE, which Dand started when she realised only women were talking about AI ethics, and nobody was talking to those women doing all this work. "Fast forward to five years later, everybody's talking about AI ethics and adding it to their LinkedIn profiles," she pointed out. 

The problem persists as everybody has started talking about ethical AI but what is rarely mentioned are the sacrifices made by that the pioneers in this field like Dr. Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, who were fired  for raising awareness about the issues in AI, Dand mentioned. The team of AI ethicists co-led by Gebru were forced out of Google four years ago for writing a research paper about the risks of large language models. 

It was Dr.Joy Buolamwini’s research that showed that commercial facial recognition systems areto be less accurate at identifying women and people of colour, which can end up discriminating against them. Half a decade later, the companies have also started working on the issues and continue to sift throughbut progress remains slow.

"If we can't survive today, how are we even going to make it to the dystopian future that these tech billionaires are planning for us?" she chuckled quipped. "We have a long way to go before their doomsday scenario of robots coming to life, and the rich moving to Mars. For the average person today, AI is in the surveillance camera on the street," Dand added.

"Whether you get hired or get a kidney transplant depends on an algorithm. You can't even find love without an algorithm today," she laughed wryly. 

Change the Narrative

The New York Times’ list of the who's who of AI, where only a dozen men were named, is a classic example of sidelining female researchers in AI. The issue is stubborn since several researchers have been deprived of credit for their work across history.  

"You have to give credit where it's due," Dand asserted. Disserting how the media covers AI researchers, Dand noted, "When men are interviewed, they are not asked questions about their role as a father or a brother; the default perception is of men as experts. Women have to work much harder to be acknowledged and perceived as technology experts." 

The white male saviorism is not a new phenomenon in Silicon Valley. "There's a tendency to assume that if a man does something it benefits everybody. When women do something, they are pigeonholed into DEI or diversity bucket," Dand said. "There are two things: recognition of women’s contributions in the field of AI and change the narrative  to “women’s issues are humanity’s issues.” she suggested.

Focus on Deepfakes

Speaking about the most problematic tech for women today, Dand points to deepfakes. "We are talking about it, but we need more than talk. We need serious funding for research and development of tools to address this ongoing crucial issue." she said. 

"Taylor Swift is a high profile example, but there are many more women out there who are not celebrities, and AI is being weaponised against them," she rightly said, since women are targeted even more often than politicians through deepfakes.

Advising about how to address the challenges, the tech entrepreneur said, "Educational institutions and philanthropic organisations can play a vital role." She added that these institutions must act as more than an extension of the tech companies and billionaire’s pet projects. By championing a technosolutionist agenda, the whole space becomes problematic and loses sight of their human-centric mission.

At the end of the interview, Dand suggested that "We should celebrate women’s accomplishments, but individual success is not a substitute for collective progress.” We need to reject the need for women to be “one of the boys” and make it easier for them to help other women without being accused of favouritism. People underestimate the power of solidarity and equitable funding in overcoming systemic barriers."