Finalist in the Women in Governance, Regulation and Compliance as Chief Technology Officer of the Year 2021, Sudha Jamthe has proven to be a reference figure when it comes to Ethics in Artificial Intelligence
Finalist in the Women in Governance, Regulation and Compliance as Chief Technology Officer of the Year 2021, along with other leading women in the area, expert Sudha Jamthe has proven to be a reference figure when it comes to Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. And the proof is not only this latest nomination, but also the one she received earlier this year at the third annual Women in AI Awards.
On the occasion of this new nomination, the NGI community carried out this interesting interview with her about the role of women in traditionally male-dominated sectors, such as Artificial Intelligence and other leading areas in technology and innovation.
So in the tech industry we see bias but that does not mean that the average person thinks less of women. It is systemic bias that leads to more men in the teams and an expectation of the women to behave more assertively.
Personally I am outspoken and the low female ratio forces us to work harder and be smarter and I have used that to like many women in tech to excel in my job to be at the top of the game.
“In the tech industry we see bias but that does not mean that the average person thinks less of women”
How can women receive more visibility and recognition in such fields?
Women are not waiting for anyone to get them visibility. They have begun self organising into women in AI. Women in AI, Women in big data or women in Machine Learning groups run globally to educate, support and uplift each other.
I hosted this womansplaining event where women who are experts in their fields explained a tech topic in 3 minutes.
Do public-funded initiatives like NGI contribute to a more equitable and inclusive AI sector? If so, how?
Initiatives like NGI serve a very important function. They get a diverse set of people to have an open, transparent conversation. This serves two purposes.
- One, it educates people about different points of view on ethical issues of technology usage.
- Second, it brings people together to collaborate and solve problems across countries.
For example, there is AI being used in the court system or by governments. If citizens of each country have to understand the unethical issues with such AI and push to pass laws it will take many years for each country. Data privacy and algorithmic transparency are global issues. NGI brings people to understand common issues and challenges in solving these issues to arrive at standards to solve for AI usage to be ethical globally.
“Initiatives like NGI serve a very important function because they get a diverse set of people to have an open, transparent conversation”.
How do other initiatives like the Women in Governance, Regulation and Compliance Awards boost the acknowledgment of women’s work in AI?
It is refreshing to be honoured as a woman in AI Ethics. I am humbled not only to be nominated but to look around and see the fellow nominees and their achievements.
Unlike typical awards where people want to be the winner, women tend to cheer for each other. That is how I found out about being nominated from fellow women who got nominated.
Such awards normalises women leaders in AI by showcasing our achievements to inspire other women to get into the field of AI and to do so ethically.
I teach courses to teach people to learn about building AI ethically and find roles in technology industry. My approach is not to create conflict and call out bias but to educate a diverse pool of professionals to learn about bias in AI and regulation and compliance issues to take up new exciting AI jobs to career pivot to AI ethics.
I focus on creating unique courses such as a new one coming up at business school of AI called “AI Ethics: Responsible and Inclusive AI” where we go deeper into how to identify if an AI used in hiring or facial recognition or even in language translation is biased and mitigate that bias. My hope is for my students to take up tech jobs and drive innovation ethically.
How challenging is it to be a woman in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as AI and deep tech?
Technology today is predominantly built by young white male and there is a lot of unconscious bias in tech. There is this concept of feedback loop in Machine Learning, which says that if you start with a biased dataset and build an AI it will prove your bias is right. For example in tech there are more men than women. So if you select top performers they will likely be men. So if you model after that to hire more people you will hire more men. And it will lead to more men as high performers. Amazon built an AI hiring algorithm that was biased and did not even select women to get interviewed because of such training data.
So in the tech industry we see bias but that does not mean that the average person thinks less of women. It is systemic bias that leads to more men in the teams and an expectation of the women to behave more assertively.
Personally I am outspoken and the low female ratio forces us to work harder and be smarter and I have used that to like many women in tech to excel in my job to be at the top of the game.
“In the tech industry we see bias but that does not mean that the average person thinks less of women”
How can women receive more visibility and recognition in such fields?
Women are not waiting for anyone to get them visibility. They have begun self organising into women in AI. Women in AI, Women in big data or women in Machine Learning groups run globally to educate, support and uplift each other.
I hosted this womansplaining event where women who are experts in their fields explained a tech topic in 3 minutes.
Do public-funded initiatives like NGI contribute to a more equitable and inclusive AI sector? If so, how?
Initiatives like NGI serve a very important function. They get a diverse set of people to have an open, transparent conversation. This serves two purposes.
- One, it educates people about different points of view on ethical issues of technology usage.
- Second, it brings people together to collaborate and solve problems across countries.
For example, there is AI being used in the court system or by governments. If citizens of each country have to understand the unethical issues with such AI and push to pass laws it will take many years for each country. Data privacy and algorithmic transparency are global issues. NGI brings people to understand common issues and challenges in solving these issues to arrive at standards to solve for AI usage to be ethical globally.
“Initiatives like NGI serve a very important function because they get a diverse set of people to have an open, transparent conversation”.
How do other initiatives like the Women in Governance, Regulation and Compliance Awards boost the acknowledgment of women’s work in AI?
It is refreshing to be honoured as a woman in AI Ethics. I am humbled not only to be nominated but to look around and see the fellow nominees and their achievements.
Unlike typical awards where people want to be the winner, women tend to cheer for each other. That is how I found out about being nominated from fellow women who got nominated.
Such awards normalises women leaders in AI by showcasing our achievements to inspire other women to get into the field of AI and to do so ethically.
I teach courses to teach people to learn about building AI ethically and find roles in technology industry. My approach is not to create conflict and call out bias but to educate a diverse pool of professionals to learn about bias in AI and regulation and compliance issues to take up new exciting AI jobs to career pivot to AI ethics.
I focus on creating unique courses such as a new one coming up at business school of AI called “AI Ethics: Responsible and Inclusive AI” where we go deeper into how to identify if an AI used in hiring or facial recognition or even in language translation is biased and mitigate that bias. My hope is for my students to take up tech jobs and drive innovation ethically.
- This interview was originally published on the NGI Community. If you are interested in topics related to the human-centric internet, join us at the NGI Community!
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