NEW YORK -- As Silicon Valley and beyond is gripped by the fervor of artificial intelligence, Melinda French Gates is raising the alarm that more women must be involved in developing these tech tools.
The philanthropist and longtime advocate for women and girls said she is 鈥渧ery nervous鈥� about how the current AI arms race, and the rush to implement this buzzy technology into as many products as possible, will ultimately play out for women.
鈥淚鈥檓 very nervous because we don鈥檛 have enough women, again, who are computer scientists, and who have expertise in artificial intelligence,鈥� Gates told CNN鈥檚 Poppy Harlow, 鈥渁nd without that, we will bake bias into the system.鈥�
鈥淭he system needs to take all people鈥檚 points of view, and see society, and quite frankly, see the world writ large as it is,鈥� she said. This is why having women in the room and in decision-making positions when it comes to the deployment of AI 鈥渋s just so vitally important,鈥� she added.
AI models have long taken heat for their ability to perpetuate biases, especially around women and people of colour. The new crop of generative AI tools like OpenAI鈥檚 ChatGPT and Dall-E are trained on vast troves of online data 鈥� data that often carries the same biases as humans. Meanwhile, some researchers in the field are raising new concerns that the powerful AI tools can now spread bias and discrimination at a much larger scale, and with less accountability because the responses are generated by a machine.
Gate鈥檚 comments on AI come following a renewed commitment to helping more women run for office in the United States via a Time Op-Ed that published on the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
In her interview with Harlow, Gates also revealed that she never endorses specific candidates because she votes for both sides of the aisle. 鈥淪ometimes I vote Republican, sometimes Democratic,鈥� Gates said. 鈥淚鈥檓 a very independent voter and I don鈥檛 want to be pegged as one or the other. I think that the best policy is made when we reach across the aisle.鈥�
But Gates emphasized that her focus right now is on uplifting women candidates.
鈥淭oo often we have decisions being made for women, not by women,鈥� Gates said. 鈥淎s Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, I believe women should be every place that decisions are being made, and we鈥檙e just not there yet as a country.鈥�
