Including women in developing and implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning is critical. Women's underrepresentation results in lower-quality AI products. The AI consumer group is very diverse, and the lack of diversity within the AI leadership and workforce creates a crisis within the AI industry. Additionally, because AI is fast-paced and has a high societal impact, not addressing this disparity has the potential to increase stereotypes, underrepresentation, and discrimination in career fields everywhere.  

Women may experience increased discrimination in fields of underrepresentation, and this can discourage their desire to pursue these career paths. The workplace needs to be aware of these struggles, provide resources for both men and women to address this, and invest in support for women to encourage their participation. As an emerging industry, AI has an opportunity to address this gender gap before it becomes more pervasive and ingrained into its culture. Together, we can significantly impact the future of AI, the community, and the products that consumers use. 

Globally, studies show that women in the labor force are paid less, hold fewer senior positions and participate less in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. As the use and development of AI continue to mature, it's time to ask: What will tomorrow's labor market look like for women? Are we effectively harnessing the power of AI to narrow gender equality gaps, or are we letting these gaps perpetuate or, even worse, widen? 

"I believe that there is a silver lining with the progress of AI and its impact on women in the tech industry. With AI-assisted and enabled tools, there is an opportunity for working efficiently", says Jyoti Joshi, Founder and CEO of Kroop AI.

Impact of generative AI 

As more applications are integrated into everyday life, AI is predicted to have a globally transformative influence on economic and social structures similar to other general-purpose technologies. How novel technologies like generative AI will impact our future work is one of the major concerns of the world.  

STEM is a field largely dominated by men. It was not until recently that more female leaders began to acquire positions of power. A 2019 UNESCO report found that women represent only 29% of science R&D positions globally and are already 25% less likely than men to know how to leverage digital technology for basic uses. 

 A report by McKinsey Global Institute titled 'Generative AI and the Future of Work in America' states that the rise of AI will disproportionately replace more female employees than male employees, particularly in industries traditionally dominated by women. It is a relief that Indian female tech leaders believe these statistics might not apply to the Indian scenario.  

 "The Indian and American landscapes are quite different. However, there will be challenges. With the rising number of female students in STEM courses and acceptance of AI and related areas as courses in colleges and universities, I see job creation opportunities, " says Jyoti. 

 In her opinion, some job sectors, where the job task is monotonous, and women are in the majority, may feel the heat. However, newer job descriptions will be created, so we don't need to fear but upskill and reskill. 

Blooming tech leaders  

The world is constantly evolving, and there is a strong need to upskill ourselves regularly. Building a passion for learning and quickly adapting according to the demands of the industry will help people survive the job loss crisis in any domain/industry.   

Jyoti asks young women to stay updated in the changing world. As the saying goes, "Change is the only constant in life." We should embrace these new tools, which are AI-enabled. Many good online resources are available for understanding AI, machine learning and related technologies. Platforms such as the Government of India's Swayam-NPTEL provide free, high-quality resources by eminent professors.  

"There are huge numbers of job cuts across industries where automated chatbots and other generative AI products replace humans. On the other hand, Generative AI also opens doors to interesting job openings across multiple industries", says Usha Rengaraju. 

What should we do? 

 In Jyoti's opinion, bias in AI is a non-trivial problem. Bias, such as against age, gender or ethnicity, can stem from multiple stakeholders involved in creating and implementing Generative AI tools.   

Usha Rengaraju points out an article on bloomberg.com, an analysis of more than 5,000 images created with Stable Diffusion had extreme racial and gender disparities. Many of these biases are because of the lack of gender representation in the open-source datasets on which these models are trained.   

 Therefore, for the creation of an industry free of gender disparity, women should not be skeptical about joining the tech field due to the uncertainties that developing AI technology brings in the areas of future work. Instead, understand that skilling and upskilling will be a requirement for every profession. Technology will always be a step ahead of humans. We will have to work on building our skillset every day. That is how societies grow. 

 "Some job sectors, where the job task is monotonous, and women are in the majority, may feel the heat. However, newer job descriptions will be created, so we don't need to fear but upskill and reskill", remarks Jyoti Joshi.