Cloud Hosting

Women are the key piece to the puzzle of realizing the highest maturity levels of digital enterprises, but unless we realize this, our progress in AI and technology will remain stagnant. To close the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and to accelerate advances in artificial intelligence and the sciences, we must encourage and support women on all levels, from the government to enterprise and establish equal employment opportunities for all.

Women make up a fraction of the artificial intelligence workforce, whether in the form of research and development or as employees at technology inclined firms. According to the World Economic Forum, Non-homogeneous teams are more capable than homogenous teams of recognizing their biases and solving issues when interpreting data, testing solutions or making decisions. In other words, diverse teams and especially those that emphasize women at their epicenter, are a necessary provision for enterprises to adopt, build, realize and accelerate enterprise AI maturity levels. At present, unfortunately, few enterprises understand the criticality of women to boost AI maturity levels.

STEM, data science, and AI fields experience a lack of female role models. Without female role models for girls to look up to, it becomes difficult for young women to envision future careers in science, technology, and engineering fields. A 2018 Microsoft survey shows that female STEM role models boost the interest of girls in STEM careers from 32 percent to 52 percent. Therefore, we must showcase the achievements of women in the sciences and engineering across the world to capture the attention of females everywhere.

One of the biggest pressures that females face in STEM careers is cutthroat competition amongst male counterparts and the toxic workplace culture that it creates. An HBR article found that three-fourths of female scientists support one another in their workplace to ease tensions. Moreover, women are likely to be demoted as inferior by men holding equivalent positions, whether those jobs are in engineering, data science, or AI. All of these factors contribute to females swiftly dismissing STEM jobs to avoid such disquieting workplace circumstances.

According to a survey conducted by BCG, when it comes to STEM, Women place a higher premium on applied, impact-driven work than men do: 67% of women expressed a clear preference for such work, compared with 61% of men. This finding highlights a significant fact: women are vastly more likely to pursue STEM roles that provide them with meaning, purpose and produce impactful results, but many women dont perceive this purpose and impact in STEM jobs. Therefore, without a clear high impact-driven pathway insight, females tend to turn their heads on STEM, data science, and AI-related careers.

Studies have shown that communication is of the utmost importance when it comes to getting more women involved in STEM careers. According to BCG GAMMA, just 55% of women feel like they know enough about employment opportunities in data science. Furthermore, vague explanations of job qualifications, such as being strong in data science, and, conversely, incredibly in-depth job descriptions in search of data wizard talent, tend to steer females clear of STEM-related jobs. Moreover, an HBR study found that female engagement with STEM employers falls far behind men and that this should come as no surprise as, Given the selection bias that accompanies personal work networks, especially in a young and still male-dominated field.

It isnt enough to pique the interest of girls and young women to pursue STEM careers: the goal is to maintain, foster, and grow that interest. A study published in the Social Forces journal found that women in STEM are much more likely to abandon their jobs than if they held other careers. More precisely, the study highlights that some 50% of women holding STEM careers left after 12 years on the job, whereas that number dropped to 20% for women in other fields. On average, females tend to distance themselves from STEM after 5 years of industry involvement. But why? According to the same study, Women with engineering degrees said they left engineering because of lack of advancement or low salary, along with other working conditions. These facts show that retention of women in the STEM, data science and AI workforce is chief among challenges to address.

Share This ArticleDo the sharing thingy

About AuthorMore info about author

Analytics Insight is an influential platform dedicated to insights, trends, and opinions from the world of data-driven technologies. It monitors developments, recognition, and achievements made by Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Analytics companies across the globe.

Here is the original post:

The Role of Women in Scalping up AI and Data Science - Analytics Insight

The trouble started in mid-September, when the Wall Street Journal published an expos titled Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show. The article revealed that Facebook had identified disturbing information about the impact of their Instagram service on young users. It cited an internal company presentation, leaked to the paper by an anonymous whistle-blower, that included a slide claiming that thirty-two percent of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. Another slide offered a blunter conclusion: Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rate of anxiety and depression. This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.

These revelations sparked a media firestorm. Instagram Is Even Worse Than We Thought for Kids, announced a Washington Post article published in the days following the Journals scoop. Its Not Just Teenage GirlsInstagram Is Toxic for Everyone, claimed an op-ed in the Boston Globe. Zuckerbergs public comments about his platforms effects on mental health appear to be at odds with Facebooks internal findings, noted the New York Post. In a defiant post published on his Facebook account, Mark Zuckerberg pushed back, stating that the motives of his company were misrepresented. The very fact that Facebook was conducting this research, he wrote, implies that the company cares about the health impact of its products. Zuckerberg also pointed to data, included in the leaked slides, that showed how, in eleven out of the twelve areas of concern that were studied (such as loneliness and eating issues), more teen-age girls said that Instagram helped rather than hurt. In the background, however, the company paused work on a new Instagram Kids service.

These corporate responses werent enough to stem the criticism. In early October, the whistle-blower went public in an interview on 60 Minutes, revealing herself to be Frances Haugen, a data scientist who had worked for Facebook on issues surrounding democracy and misinformation. Two days later, Haugen testified for more than three hours before a Senate subcommittee, arguing that Facebooks focus on growth over safeguards had resulted in more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Democrat and Republican members of the subcommittee seemed to agree that these social-media platforms were a problem. Every part of the country has the harms that are inflicted by Facebook and Instagram, the subcommittee chair, Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, stated in a press conference following Haugens testimony.

This is far from the first time that Facebook has faced scrutiny. What struck me about this particular pile-on, however, was less its tonewhich was near-uniformly negativethan what was missing. The commentary reacting to the Journals scoop was quick to demand punishment and constraints on Facebook. In many cases, the writers seethed with frustration about the lack of such retribution enacted to date. Both Democrats and Republicans have lambasted Facebook for years, amid polls showing the company is deeply unpopular with much of the public, noted a representative article from the Washington Post. Despite that, little has been done to bring the company to heel. Whats largely absent from the discussion, however, is any consideration of what is arguably the most natural response to the leaks about Instagrams potential harm: Should kids be using these services at all?

There was a moment in 2018, in the early stages of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, when the hashtag #DeleteFacebook began to trend. Quitting the service became a rational response to the growing litany of accusations that Facebook faced, such as engineered addiction, privacy violations, and its role in manipulating civic life. But the hashtag soon lost momentum, and the appetite for walking away from social media diminished. Big-swing Zeitgeist articlessuch as a 2017 Atlantic story that asked Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?gave way to smaller policy-focussed polemics about arcane regulatory responses and the nuances of content-moderation strategies. This cultural shift has helped Facebook. The reality is that young people use technology. Think about how many school-age kids have phones, Zuckerberg wrote in his post responding to the latest scandal. Rather than ignoring this, technology companies should build experiences that meet their needs while also keeping them safe. Many of the politicians and pundits responding to the Facebook leaks implicitly accept Zuckerbergs premise that these tools are here to stay, and all thats left is to argue about how they operate.

Im not sure, however, that we should be so quick to give up on interrogating the necessity of these technologies in our lives, especially when they impact the well-being of our children. In an attempt to keep this part of the conversation alive, I reached out to four academic expertsselected from both sides of the ongoing debate about the harm caused by these platformsand asked them, with little preamble or instruction, the question missing from so much of the recent coverage of the Facebook revelations: Should teen-agers use social media? I wasnt expecting a consensus response, but I thought it was important, at the very least, to define the boundaries of the current landscape of expert opinion on this critical issue.

I started with the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has emerged in recent years, in both academic and public circles, as one of the more prominent advocates for issues surrounding social media and teen-age mental health. In his response to my blunt question, Haidt drew a nuanced distinction between communication technology and social media. Connecting directly with friends is great, he told me. Texting, Zoom, FaceTime, and Snapchat are not so bad. His real concern were platforms that are specifically engineered to keep the childs eyes glued to the screen for as long as possible in a never-ending stream of social comparison and validation-seeking from strangersplatforms that see the user as the product, not the customer. How did we ever let Instagram and TikTok become a large part of the lives of so many eleven-year-olds? he asked.

I also talked to Adam Alter, a marketing professor at N.Y.U.s Stern School of Business, who was thrown into the social-media debate by the publication of his fortuitously timed 2017 book, Irresistible, which explored the mechanisms of addictive digital products. Theres more than one way to answer this question, and most of those point to no, he answered. Alter said that he has delivered this same prompt to hundreds of parents and that none of them seem happy that their teens use social media. Many of the teens he spoke with have confirmed a similar unease. Alter argued that we shouldnt dismiss these self-reports: If they feel unhappy and can express that unhappiness, even that alone suggests the problem is worth taking seriously. He went on to add that these issues are not necessarily easy to solve. He expressed worry, for example, about the difficulty of trying to move a teen-ager away from social media if most of their peers are using these platforms to organize their social lives.

On the more skeptical side of the debate about the potential harm to teen-agers is Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University and one of the worlds leading experts on adolescence. In the aftermath of Haugens Senate testimony, Steinberg published an Op-Ed in the Times that argued that the research linking services like Instagram to harm is still underdeveloped, and that we should be cautious about relying on intuition. Psychological research has repeatedly shown that we often dont understand ourselves as well as we think we do, he wrote. In answering my question, Steinberg underscored his frustration with claims that he thinks are out ahead of what the data support. People are certain that social media use must be harmful, he told me. But history is full of examples of things that people were absolutely sure of that science proved wrong. After all, people were certain that the world was flat.

Continued here:

The Question Weve Stopped Asking About Teen-Agers and Social Media - The New Yorker

As AI adoption increases across industries, the emphasis has shifted heavily to developing and deploying ethical, responsible AI applications.

Responsible Artificial Intelligence is a positive force. According to Gartner, Responsible AI encompasses several aspects of making the right decisions when adopting AI, aspects that are often addressed independently by organizations. A responsible AI framework focuses on bias detection, privacy, governance, and explainability to help organizations harness the power of AI.

Nevertheless, the practical implications of Responsible AI are unclear. Can this be applied across industries and domains? How can we responsibly deploy AI?

During this complimentary fireside, we will discuss the most critical aspects of responsible AI.

To address these queries and more, Tredence is conducting a Fireside Chat session with dignitaries like Professor Balaraman Ravindran, Head, Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and AI, Professor at IIT Madras; Soumendra Mohanty, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Innovation Officer at Tredence Inc.; and Aravind Chandramouli, Head of AI CoE at Tredence Inc. The session would be conducted around the theme of Responsible AI: Decode, Contextualise and Operationalise.

This session is designed to help you learn best practices & techniques for driving Responsible AI in your organization, achieve fairness in AI deployment and gain customer trust.

Prof Ravindran is the head of the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (RBC-DSAI) at IIT Madras and a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. He is also the co-director of the reconfigurable and intelligent systems engineering (RISE) group at IIT Madras, which has nearly 80 members associated with it currently. He received his PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has nearly two decades of research experience in machine learning and, specifically, reinforcement learning.

Soumendra Mohanty is the Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Innovation Officer at Tredence. He has led key growth portfolios (IIOT, Data, Analytics, AI, Intelligent RPA, Digital Integration, Digital Experience, Platforms), bringing in world-class capabilities, innovative solutions, and transformation-led, outcomes-led value propositions to our clients. Under his leadership, Tredence has established a wide range of digital and data analytics capabilities and an enviable client-centric innovation culture to solve problems at the convergence of physical and digital.

With a career spanning over 25 years, Soumendra has held various leadership roles at Accenture (Global Data Analytics Lead), Mindtree (SVP & Digital Lead), L&T Infotech (EVP & CDAO), leading multi-faceted P&L functions, including M&A advisory for technology growth strategies and startup ecosystems.

Dr Aravind Chandramouli has a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Kansas with a focus on Information Retrieval and Machine Learning. He started his career at Google in 2007 and stopped at Microsoft, GE Research Labs, and Fidelity Investments over a 15-year career. Currently, he heads the AI CoE at Tredence with a focus on innovation. At Tredence, his team focuses on solving complex problems for clients using the right AI techniques. These problems span a wide range of data types like text, images/videos and structured data. He has six patent grants based on solving hard industry problems that had a direct impact on the stakeholders. He has won innovation awards at Microsoft, Fidelity Investments and Tredence. In addition to the patent and innovation awards, he also has over ten publications at top international conferences and journals.

Analytics India Magazine chronicles technological progress in the space of analytics, artificial intelligence, data science & big data by highlighting the innovations, players, and challenges shaping the future of India through promotion and discussion of ideas and thoughts by smart, ardent, action-oriented individuals who want to change the world.

Here is the original post:

Do You Want To Deploy Responsible AI In Your Organization? Join This Session To Operationalize Responsible AI - Analytics India Magazine