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Gender bias in artificial intelligence: the need for diversity and gender theory in machine learning

Published: 28 May 2018 Publication History

Abstract

Artificial intelligence is increasingly influencing the opinions and behavior of people in everyday life. However, the over-representation of men in the design of these technologies could quietly undo decades of advances in gender equality. Over centuries, humans developed critical theory to inform decisions and avoid basing them solely on personal experience. However, machine intelligence learns primarily from observing data that it is presented with. While a machine's ability to process large volumes of data may address this in part, if that data is laden with stereotypical concepts of gender, the resulting application of the technology will perpetuate this bias. While some recent studies sought to remove bias from learned algorithms they largely ignore decades of research on how gender ideology is embedded in language. Awareness of this research and incorporating it into approaches to machine learning from text would help prevent the generation of biased algorithms. Leading thinkers in the emerging field addressing bias in artificial intelligence are also primarily female, suggesting that those who are potentially affected by bias are more likely to see, understand and attempt to resolve it. Gender balance in machine learning is therefore crucial to prevent algorithms from perpetuating gender ideologies that disadvantage women.

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cover image ACM Conferences
GE '18: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Gender Equality in Software Engineering
May 2018
62 pages
ISBN:9781450357388
DOI:10.1145/3195570
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 28 May 2018

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  1. gender bias
  2. machine learning
  3. text analytics

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  • (2024)Futuristic ChatbotsDesign and Development of Emerging Chatbot Technology10.4018/979-8-3693-1830-0.ch018(317-345)Online publication date: 15-Mar-2024
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