When IT and security leaders convene for Zenith Live ‘23 in Las Vegas on June 13-15 and Berlin on June 27-29, it will be in the shadow of one of the most significant technological advancements since the invention of the internet, to paraphrase Bill Gates.
These days, it’s hard not to be swept up in conversations about generative AI models’ potential to transform everything about how we work, play, and organize. Large language models are snapping up investment dollars, gaining followers faster than our most popular social media platforms, and being proposed for applications ranging from classrooms to operating rooms, factories to foreign influence campaigns.
AI is the topic du jour not least because it introduces a host of ethical concerns, from cheating in academia to spying on large populations. I want to suggest that women’s voices can and should be critical to shaping our response to these issues. Otherwise, the world runs the risk of AI's future being determined by leaders of a handful of other blue-chip tech companies, the overwhelming majority of which are led by men.
For instance, among the heads of companies with major initiatives underway who visited the White House to speak on AI safety this May, none were women. Meanwhile, research suggests women are less enthusiastic about certain AI applications than men, a trend that should arguably be reflected in the development and deployment of these technologies.
What’s at stake
Women’s voices must reach beyond combating gender bias in AI training data, though I believe that is important, too. (Because, when training data reflects a male-dominated society, outputs will too, which risks creating a self-perpetuating cycle of chauvinism that may not even be intentional.) They should extend to every corner of the debate, from the feminization of chatbots to surveillance, unemployment, and beyond.
Regulation is another important area that calls for representative input. According to a major Stanford study, AI-related laws jumped from 1 in 2016 to 37 in 2022. Here, encouragingly, women do better, holding senior leadership positions in both the U.S. and EU.
Issues on the table for legislative bodies around the world include automation and joblessness, facial recognition in policing, pharmaceutical development, and the potential for human rights abuses. Europe’s Artificial Intelligence Act is being hailed as a model for such legislation but it must be continuously informed – at all sectors of society – as new AI-related capabilities emerge.
Women may also prove best able to protect against the most dystopian of AI outcomes – manipulating elections and exacerbating wars. Writing in the MIT Technology Review about his decision to leave Google to sound the alarm on generative AI capabilities, Geoffrey Hinton said that he feared how political strongmen and other anti-democratic forces might seek these tools to use.
I found this point both astute and important. Former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg famously said, “No two countries run by women would ever go to war.” This is a difficult hypothesis to test, but academic research does suggest women leaders tend to be more empathetic, more collaborative, and less overconfident than their male counterparts. Clearly, there is an argument that women could act as an offramp preventing the “killer robot” future that preoccupied AI researchers nearly a decade ago.
A whole-of-society approach
Representative democracy, by definition, requires input from underrepresented groups. If we expect the debate on AI and its future role in our societies to be anything approaching democratic, women must feature prominently in the discussion.
All this is not to say there are no women doing important work to advance the responsible development of AI tools. Individuals like Claudia May Del Pozo and organizations like Women in AI Ethics are doing important work in this field. I suggest fellow IT and cybersecurity women leaders elevate their work and work like it, insisting on its inclusion when these matters are being discussed, from product development to the boardroom.
Ultimately, it comes down to the need for more women leaders in every sector of society, but especially in technology and government. Leadership in these areas will ultimately play a decisive role in how AI-based technologies are developed and deployed, respectively.
The coming years will be marked by fierce debate about the role AI plays in society. Its cybersecurity implications alone will act as a powerful force shaping the industry as the technology develops. Outcomes will be more measured, democratic, and informed the more underrepresented groups are brought into the discussion.
Leading female IT and security executives will be discussing issues including the need for responsible AI development, protecting the modern enterprise, defending against state-backed actors, and more contemporary topics at the Women in IT & Security Executive Events taking place at Zenith Live ‘23 in Las Vegas and Berlin.
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