Women4Ethical AI
Expert platform to advance gender equality
UNESCO's Women4Ethical AI leverages the knowledge, contribution and networks of leading Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts to advance gender equality in the AI agenda. This new multi-stakeholder collaborative platform supports governments and companies’ efforts to ensure that women are represented equally in the design, use and deployment of AI, and to promote trustworthy, gender-friendly and inclusive AI systems.
Women4Ethical AI’s experts further contribute to advance all the other policy chapters and to implement the provisions contained in the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, from education and research, to economy and labour, and the environment and ecosystems.
With this network of dynamic and committed women, we will make real progress to ensure inclusive and fair outcomes in Artificial Intelligence, as set out in UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI.
Women4Ethical AI's core objectives are to:
- support the implementation of the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,
- share research and contribute to a repository of good practices,
- drive progress on non-discriminatory algorithms and data sources, and
- incentivize girls, women and under-represented groups to participate in AI.
Context
While artificial intelligence promises to bring about enormous potential for societal advancement and economic dynamism, AI developments are also accompanied by many challenges, including inequalities and gender discrimination, particularly considering that women are under-represented in the tech field.
Gender imbalances in AI may lead to increase or create discriminations and biases, thus curbing AI's potential to offer solutions to key societal challenges at the same time as it harms women, both at present and in the future.
We must place ethics and equality at the forefront of the AI governance discussion and commit to implementing ethical recommendations as a vehicle to protect human rights, fundamental freedom, and human dignity.
In relation to gender, the UNESCO Recommendation encourages Member States to:
- have dedicated funds from their public budgets linked to financing gender-responsive schemes.
- ensure that national digital policies include a gender action plan, and develop relevant policies targeted at supporting girls and women to make sure they are not left out of the digital economy powered by AI.
- invest in providing targeted programmes and gender-specific language, to increase the opportunities of girls’ and women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), including information and communication technologies (ICT) disciplines.
- ensure that AI does not exacerbate already existing (and often wide) gender gaps, such as the wage gap.
- develop policies that ensure harassment-free environments and concrete actions aimed to promote diversity throughout the AI system life cycle.
- encourage female entrepreneurship, participation and engagement in all stages of an AI system life cycle by offering and promoting economic, regulatory incentives, among other incentives and support schemes.
Members
- Gabriela Ramos - Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO
- Mariagrazia Squicciarini - Chief Executive Office, UNESCO
- Dafna Feinholz - Chief of the Section for Bioethics and Ethics of Science and Technology, UNESCO
- Alessandra Sala - Sr. Director of AI and Data Science at Shutterstock
- Ana Prică-Cruceanu - Chief SDG Strategy Officer-AFIST (Association of Women in Engineering, Science, and Tech)
- Arisa Ema - Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo and Visiting Researcher at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project in Japan.
- Beverly Thompson - Member of the International Alliance for Women; Senior Scientist in the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Accelerator for Leidos
- Carissa Véliz - Associate Professor, University of Oxford
- Cecilia Danesi - Researcher at the Institute for European Studies and Human Rights (UPSA)
- Christina Colclough - Founder of The Why Not Lab
- Constanza Gomez Mont - Founder of principal C Minds; Founder of AI for Climate; AI for Humanity GFC WEF
- Elena Estavillo Flores - Founder and CEO of the think tank Centro-I for the Society of the Future. Harvard ALI Fellow 2023. Member of the Expert Group for UN Women CSW67
- Elizabeth Renieris - Senior Research Associate, Oxford’s Institute For Ethics In AI; Founder and CEO of Hackylawyer consultancy
- Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem - Head of Philosophy, University of Pretoria; AI ethics lead at the Centre for AI Research (CAIR); Chair of the Southern African Conference on AI Research (SACAIR); Chairperson of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST)
- Emma Wright - Director, Counsel, and co-founder of the Interparliamentary Forum on Emerging Technology, a global network of legislators focused on the regulation of AI and emerging technology
- Hanan Salam - Co-founder of Women in AI, an international organization whose mission is to increase female representation and participation in the field of AI
- Joanna Bryson - Professor of Ethics and Technology, The Hertie School of Governance
- Paola Pisano - Professor of Innovation and Disruptive Technology, Director of The Smart City Lab-Center for Technological Innovation (IcXT); Member of Dish center - Interdepartmental center of Digital humanity- The University of Turin
- Veronica Zavala Lombardi - Independent Director in companies and organizations; Independent Director, Chair of the ESG Committee - Calisto Cobre Resources Corp; Independent Director, Chair of ENGIE Perú; Former Minister of Transport and Communications from(2006- 2008)
- JOANNA Bryson - Professor of Ethics and Technology
- H.E. Ms Emilija Stojmenova Duh - Minister of Digital Transformation of Slovenia
- Yuko Harayama - Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Association for the Advancement of Science (JAAS), a Japanese non-profit organization established in 2022
- Branka Panic - Founding Director of AI for Peace, a USA based think tank ensuring artificial intelligence benefits peace, security, and sustainable development
- Miriam Vogel - Chair of National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) CEO of EqualA
- Nita Farahany - Distinguished Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke Law School
News and articles
Contact
Eleonora Lamm - UNESCO
e.lamm@unesco.org