On October 30th, IEAI Executive Director Caitlin Corrigan delivered a presentation highlighting the work of the recently published UNESCO Women for Ethical AI: Outlook Study on Artificial Intelligence and Gender in Paris. Corrigan worked with a diverse team from the UNESCO Women for Ethical AI Platform to complete this report highlighting fresh insights and actionable data on the intersection of gender and AI development.
The report focused on the state of affairs for AI and gender equality, highlighting critical challenges in terms of the AI gender participation gap, policy mechanisms related to AI and gender equality, and the disproportionate risks that women and gender non-conforming individuals face from AI. Looking at case studies in healthcare, workplace/workforce, GenAI and sterotyping, surveillance and gender-based violence, key exmaples of the impacts of AI on gender equality were identified.
The outlook also reported on approaches and tools for improving AI’s impact on gender equality, including using ethics-by-design and gender transformative approaches. It underlined the current work of UNESCO in their Ethical Impact Assessment (EIA) and Readiness Assessment Metholodogy (RAM) as two examples of actionable frameworks that are a starting point for improving considerations about the impact of AI on gender in discourse, AI development and policy making.
The outlook finally outlined nine actionable recommendations for making progress in this space and for implementing the gender section of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI.
The IEAI aims to continue these efforts towards aligning AI and gender equality goals through working with partners both in and outside academia to produce tangible approaches and tools for implementation.
More information about the conference can be found here: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/women4ethical-ai-conference-advancing-gender-equality-artificial-intelligence
Photo credit: Carla Desobeaux
