Alexa, Not Alexander?

AI and The Future of Gender Equality by Furkan Yavuz

“In short, the rise of powerful AI will be the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which.” Stephen Hawking

Artificial intelligence will surely affect the future of our lives both at home and at work. Including shopping habits, cybersecurity, work safety, work efficiency, environment-friendly consumption, and ethics but most importantly gender equality as well as it’s feared and unknown future which consists of singularity, losing the control of change and many undiscovered circumstances to come with it. 

Opinions shape the way we think, we behave and ultimately the way we live. The biggest influencer of opinions is the information we receive. News, being the most common and powerful source of information seems to be one of the industries AI will change. The first stage (which is already happening) is AI providing Robust Reports for journalists to use (Ball J., n.d). Ai having access to data of businesses and sports events is able to monitor and investigate articles online/offline and create a final document that journalists can benefit from for their articles. The next expected step, however, is full automation of news reporting. This is where AI is capable and allowed to investigate deeper issues including politics and publish a full article by themselves. Meaning human control, as well as human bias is taken out of the subject resulting in objective articles for the public to read. 

After reading our AI published newspaper, our future homes with artificial intelligence will take over our shopping lists. The few last remaining drops of the hand wash in the bathroom will immediately order itself so that in the morning we will not have the trouble of having any soaps in the bathroom. This is due to the high conjoint growth of IoT and AI. AI is the brain of the new bodies, IOT is becoming the language they speak among other AI’s and provide what the human user needs. What is more is that our fridges may even nudge us by ordering new fruits and healthier ingredients as well ordering with the right portions to make us eat healthier as well as reducing waste depending on the regulations and laws of the governments. The intelligent database will be able to personalize diets and meals according to our body needs, allergies, energy levels and even incomes and prepare us the meal we want to have by the time we want it to be ready. Deborah Charatan (2018) suggests it is very high-likely that not only cooking/grocery shopping but also cleaning and even babysitting will be taken care of by artificial intelligence. 

Once the house cleans itself, the kitchen does the groceries and cooks for you, the baby is also taken care of well by AI Technologies, the issue seems to be touching to gender equality issues. Women, in most societies with a conservative background, are expected to perform these tasks. After all, it is Alexa, not Alexander right? No matter how much it seems doom and gloom for women in traditional contexts at the moment, AI will help gender equality improve both at the workplace and in society. Most inequalities at workplaces occur due to manager’s worry that the female worker will fail to perform business tasks due to overload home tasks especially around and after birth. 

Even though we tend to give female/male names to current AI Technologies such as Alexa, the future of AI will make humans understand and get familiar with gender-less names. AI taking over daily activities especially of which consists of gender distinction (heavy lifting at work, babysitting, housekeeping, etc.) The society will begin forgetting about the clear distinctions among the genders apart from the sex itself. 16th Annual U.S Employee Benefits Trends Study (Roe D., 2018) conducted between December 2017 and January 2018 concluded the 6 outcomes below first 3 of which strongly supports gender equality directly/indirectly at work, 

1. AI prediction of human relationships, trustworthiness and other qualities will help recruiters choose the best candidate for a position. Who to be promoted too. Meaning that once evaluations are being done, it will be all numerical and logical without including any biases.
2. Enterprises will move toward self-learning enterprises. Meaning AI will provide additional value to companies where humans can trust and make decisions based on data analysed by AI (similar to Robust Reports being used by Journalists).
3. AI prediction of human relationships, trustworthiness and other qualities will help recruiters choose the best candidate for a position. Who to be promoted too.
4. Fraud detection, billing systems will prevent any corruption within the system making work-environment more trustable and safe.
5. Self-healing IT structures. System finding its own abnormalities or parts needing improvements to do it without requiring additional IT Professional involved.
6. Faster, more efficient customer-services without requiring more workers or variable costs of call-centres/online customer services. AI will be way faster and more efficient in keeping customers engaged and happy. Increasing satisfaction and overall company success.
7. AI taking the position of intermediaries. Only key positions such as a technician, a manager etc. remaining, AI will be replacing the position of employees whose duties consist of carrying/analysing/transferring/categorizing information, as well as any work that has clear instructions such as assembly, distribution, cleaning, cooking and even security, will be fully automated.

The first 3 outcomes remove human bias at the workplace, maximizing objectivity towards every employee regardless of sex, age, background and removing gender pay inequalities. The remaining 4 especially number 7 with its controversial ‘unemployment cause’ are also indirect supports to gender equality. They lead to better economies with greater companies with increased efficiency, savings, cybersecurity and minimised waste whilst changing the dynamics in the society such as the disappearance of stereotypes. Phone operators in the 1920’s was a prestigious job that allowed many women to find a workplace in a patriarchist World. With full automation of phones, they sadly lost their jobs. However, the improving technology made companies and economies grow as well as the ethics and morals to change with them. Today’s phone companies not only offer positions for women in every department but for both genders with capacities that are a hundred times bigger compared to those in the past. 

Considering future AI to power products, service, supply chains and organizational operations, it is to be ethical and unbiased. How can AI be programmed to prevent abuse in the workplace? How do we define good and bad and teach it to AI? How do we make jokes, perceive religions/cultures/myths and how much of this should be thought to AI? Not to forget 

‘Weapons of Math Destruction’ by Cathy O’Neil explaining how algorithms which are created by humans represent great biases causing ‘too logical’ systems to make the wrong choices making great teachers in the U.S seem bad (the case of Teacher evaluations using AI in the U.S.A). This could mean the news we read might be easily programmed to censor itself before the journalist reads it, or the algorithm at work to make discrimination without even having a proof of it. 

To conclude, AI will be changing our future by providing optimisation, high-quality data analysis, time efficiency, savings for companies and individuals, higher cybersecurity and most importantly gender equality by decreasing stereotyping in the society. However, it is crucial to understand that AI is a product of algorithms which are also products of humans who are biased. That is why we need to understand the technology almost too well for a better future with better justice. 

References 

Ball, J. (2018, April 16). Robot Wars - How artificial intelligence will define the future of news. Retrieved from https://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/resources/publications/trust-ethical- journalism/robot-wars 

Charatan, D. (2018, April 16). How more women in AI could change the world. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/15/how-more-women-in-ai-could-change-the-world/ 

O'Neil, C. (2017). Weapons of Math Destruction. S.l.: Penguin Books.

Roe, D. (2018, April 17). 16th Annual U.S EmployeeBenefit Trends Study. Retrieved from 

https://www.cmswire.com/information-management/6-ways-artificial-intelligence-will- impact-the-future-workplace/ 

This article was first published on https://www.fyconnected.com/artificial-intelligence