UNESCO’s Women4Ethical AI Calls for Global Cooperation to Promote Gender-Inclusive AI

The statement emphasizes aligning AI technology with human rights principles, implementing robust assessments and liability mechanisms, ensuring human oversight, redefining data management with a focus on data rights, and integrating a gender perspective across all AI initiatives.

“We call on governments to deploy all the instruments at hand and be innovative to shape the direction of the technological revolution. This is not only about regulations. They are important, as well as the policies and institutions in charge to make them count. But it is also about incentives, investments, and policies to direct the developments towards the public good.”

Women4Ethical AI statement at the Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, 5-6 February 2024

Established by UNESCO, the Women4Ethical AI Platform was launched during CSW63 to foster the integration of gender equality into the development and deployment of AI technologies, thus contributing to the global conversation on the role that women can and should play in shaping AI.

It advocates for significant policy actions across various fields, ranging from closing gender gaps, to empowering women in tech, promoting female entrepreneurship, and enhancing participation and leadership in the AI domain.

Panel Discussion: “Bridging the Gap: Thematic Discussion on Gender and AI”

During the Global Forum, the W4EAI highlighted its commitment to the gender chapter of the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. A panel discussion on “Bridging the Gap: Thematic Discussion on Gender and AI”, moderated by Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences, and Alessandra Sala, Shutterstock’s Sr. Director of AI and Data Science and Co-Chair of the Women4Ethics of AI Platform, brought together leading experts including Emilija Stojmenova Duh, Minister for Digital Transformation, Slovenia.

Constanza Gomez Mont, Ana Prică-Cruceanu, Arisa Ema, Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, Elena Estavillo, Emma Wright, Sara Ratner and Jana Javornik — key members of the W4EAI platform — discussed a certain number of approaches and concrete actions that can help enhance gender diversity and empowerment in AI.

The panel highlighted a series of strategies to help bridge disparities, boost women’s roles in technology, and to put in place policies and resources to assure that training data reflect women’s needs, perspectives, and preferences.

The conversation also touched on the broader economic and societal effects that gender gaps trigger, discussing actionable steps that governments and other relevant stakeholders may pursue to foster inclusivity.

In addition to focusing on the kind of AI policies and governance structures governments should consider, panelists noted the importance emphasizing diversity and inclusivity by considering how AI policies are designed and implemented, and who they will impact.

Comments are closed.