Artificial intelligence is shaping our future, but who is shaping AI? In this blog, we explore the insights of Megi Mejdrechová, co-founder of RoboTwin, a startup pioneering human-centric automation solutions. She shares why gender balance in artificial intelligence is crucial, how bias in AI affects society, and the role of education and inclusion in driving change. 

Diversity, Power, and the Rise of AI 

We live in a diverse society, where each of us has a place and each of us contributes. Ideally, everyone gets a chance to shine and an opportunity to impact the world around us. Yet, there are mechanisms of power that amplify the impact of ones and weaken those of others. And so we try to ensure the people with power – politicians, teachers, journalists, judges, lawyers – are well educated, trustworthy and fair. They optimally either represent the diverse society directly or are at least aware of the need to advocate also for the underrepresented groups. One of the examples of such efforts is promoting gender balance in powerful posts and roles and decision-making processes. 

But how do we approach the fact that today, it is not only people, but also technology and, namely, AI algorithms, that widely impact our life? AI may be used to summarize documents and data for a politician before a vote, to generate educational homework and exercises, polish news articles, or draft an argumentation for a lawyer. It also decides what content we consume on social media, impacting us not only pragmatically, but also emotionally. 

We need to pose the same requirements on technology and AI as we pose on people with power. It must be trustworthy and fair and represent the diverse society, otherwise it cannot serve us well. Yes, we have to promote gender balance in AI too. 

Why gender balance in AI Development Matters 

AI tools are trained on data, and their results are based on probability. How many success stories of female CTOs are there in the data on the internet? So, if you simply train a model on such data, and ask it “How should a good CTO look like?”, what is the probability it will answer “It is a woman”? This is the most straight-forward example of a bias – unbalanced biased data lead to biased results and thus eventually support the bias even more. Because you would decide based on the result – to hire a man CTO. Which might end up great, and in a success story again. But what if some woman would be even a better fit and excel even more in your particular case? 

Luckily, there is already some awareness of bias being an issue, and we have mechanisms preventing bias built in some AI tools. ChatGPT, for example, points out that skill and talent to be a tech leader is not related to gender, and even explains that the lack of women role models nowadays is given by historical structural and cultural barriers in the tech industry. 

But what about the less straight-forward cases? What about data from health, automotive safety, economic data – is it gender balanced? How do we ensure the AI tools developed in these domains serve men and women equally well? By getting both men and women involved in the development, validation and promotion of these tools. Because our unique experience and point of view are needed to discover and prevent all different forms of bias that might be otherwise hidden.  

Ways to Encourage More Women to Enter AI 

It is not easy to break the self-reinforcing cycle of gender bias. As ChatGPT stated above – we have started building it long time ago when men and women had no equal rights and roles and representation in the society. Today is different, yet we still suffer from legacy. Luckily, the trend towards equity is positive, and there are ways for us to make it stronger and move forward faster when we as women make use of the opportunities out there. 

Education is step one. If we want tech to work for us, it is best to get directly involved, study it, understand it, and contribute to it. Apart from formal pathways like universities, online courses, and trainings, platforms like EIT Campus, which collaborate with initiatives such as Girls Go Circular, play a key role in supporting women in AI and STEM fields and lowering the barrier to entry. 

Achieving gender balance in AI isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s essential for developing technology that reflects the diversity of the world it serves. By bringing more women into AI, we unlock new perspectives, uncover hidden biases, and build more ethical, human-centered solutions. 

If you’re inspired to be part of this shift, explore the EIT Campus courses in Artificial Intelligence and join a community dedicated to inclusive innovation.