Our daily interactions with AI-driven technologies are becoming increasingly normalised. A prime example is the use of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) in the home such as Siri (Apple), Alexa (Amazon), and Cortana (Microsoft).
Yet, while policy documents on artificial intelligence have highlighted the potential ethical impact of such technologies, little thorough critique has examined how they technologies work to create and reproduce asymmetries of power that fall across, in particular, lines of gender. And the unprecedented walk-out in protest of Google’s treatment of women in November 2018; the biases toward women ingrained in Amazon’s AI-driven recruitment system, all point to the critical need to undertake this kind of inquiry and to critically consider how the development and use of AI technologies intersect with issues of gender.
In response, the Information Law and Policy Centre (ILPC) at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies will be hosting an evening seminar on the 7 March to discuss these and other issues relating to the intersection of women, AI and the law. Dr Nóra Ni Loideain, ILPC’s director, will be chair the event, while Dr Rachel Adams, early career researcher at ILPC and IALS is the discussant.
Organisers seek to canvass a range of issues. They include biases in algorithmic processing, the invisibility of women’s labour in the production and even design of technology, representation of women in information and communication technologies, and the gendered design of AI technologies, such as VPAs.
Confirmed panellists are Dr Nina Power (University of Roehampton); Dr Sarah Dillon (Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence); Dr Reuben Binns (University of Oxford and the Information Commissioner’s Office); and Dr Jedrzej Niklas (University of Leeds).
When: 7 March, 5.30–6.45pm
Who: Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
Where: Conference room, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, 17 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DR
This event is free but advance booking is required.