Episode 43 Where are the Women in AI?

Tech Uncensored - An Altitude Accelerator Podcast

Theodora Lau recently wrote a Linkedin post called "Where are the Women?"

This was a timely post that responded to the slap in the face to many women, who have made incredible strides to affect substantive change in AI, who saw the NYT article that snubbed the work of prominent women like Fei Fei Li, Timnit Gebru, Kate Crawford, Joy Buolamwini, Meg Mitchell and others too numerous to mention.

This article came off the week of drama that saw Sam Altman re-installed as the CEO of OpenAI, when 5 days before, he had been fired.

What we’re witnessing is an increasing polarization within the industry where, despite the significant efforts of women engineers, data scientists, policy makers and professionals in AI, there continues to be a lack of recognition and respect for their work and their voices in industry, and in the media.

This continues to be contentious and women across the AI world are rightfully angered at this perpetual lack of respect for the cumulation of work that has been done by women, and the non-binary community – the perpetual underrepresentation of these critical voices.

This comes at a time when everyone– researchers and mainstream– are worried about the further development of AI technology and its implications for humanity: jobs, lack of access (knowledge, skills, economic, geography, income), where representation matters as these technologies are built.

Theodora Lau is the founder of Unconventional Ventures, a public speaker, and an advisor. She is the co-author of The Metaverse Economy (2023) and Beyond Good (2021), and host of One Vision, a podcast on fintech and innovation. Through her work, she explores the intersection of financial services, tech, and humanity.

Theo’s recent blog post had me nodding my head and questioning why this is happening? I reached out for a much-needed conversation.