Gabriela Ramos on Gender, Inclusivity and Technology

On Thursday, February 3, 2022, the Office of AUP’s President Celeste M. Schenck hosted the fourth event in its Presidential Lecture Series: a lecture by Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO. The lecture series, titled “Technology and the Human Future,” invites speakers to participate in live online events, so they might engage with both theory and practice in responding to the question of how technology will continue affecting our lives beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. Ramos focused her lecture on gender and inclusivity in technology.

After an introduction from President Schenck, who reiterated the need to martial technology for good, Ramos began her lecture by discussing UNESCO’s First Draft Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. She explained that these recommendations seek not to stifle innovation but rather to protect fundamental human rights and organize technology in a different way, moving away from current trends of mass data collection. However, she noted that the promises of AI’s benefits are too great to ignore: for example an increased pace of innovation in varied fields, leapfrogging in developing countries, and the ability for AI to bring people together.

She explained how AI technological solutions have been deployed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic and natural disasters, allowing responders to have more efficient access to information. AI was also used in the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine and to implement countermeasures to combat the virus. Ramos noted that these benefits are not evenly spread throughout the world and asked how we can achieve equal access. Given that AI solutions are often developed by those who experience problems firsthand – as in the example of the California wildfires – problems in developing countries may continue to be overlooked without access to AI in the Global South.

Human rights are central to the ongoing conversation around AI due to the potential for biases to be incorporated into AI programming: examples include automated cars that don’t recognize people of color or discriminatory practices experienced through AI’s use in sentencing or hiring. Ramos argued that policies and regulatory frameworks must therefore be put in place to eliminate such abuses. Such policies need to be implemented evenly across the world, in a way that means AI can act as a force to uplift individuals by enhancing the rule of law in digital spaces.

UNESCO’s recommendations are wide ranging and are based on four key value groupings: 1) the protection of human rights and dignity; 2) the protection of the environment and ecosystems; 3) the promotion of peaceful, just and interconnected societies; and 4) diversity and inclusiveness. Focusing on the latter value, Ramos highlighted issues in terms of diversity both among AI engineers and within the datasets they use to train AI. Internet use is higher among men than women, and only 25% of tech jobs are held by women. Ramos concluded by discussing potential gender equality measures, from dedicated funding and encouraging female entrepreneurship to educational programs and affirmative action.

Significant contributions to this news piece were made by Jackson Vann, a graduate student studying for AUP’s MSc in Human Rights and Data Science.