Nur 16 Prozent der Arbeitnehmenden im KI-Bereich sind weiblich. Damit sind Frauen in der KI-Szene deutlich unterrepräsentiert. Woran liegt das und wie lässt sich das ändern? Amelie Anders hat sich in ihrer Masterarbeit mit Gender in der KI-Industrie beschäftigt und ist selbst in der IT tätig. Im ARIC-Interview spricht sie über ihre Forschungsergebnisse und den Verein Women in AI and Robotics.
ARIC: You wrote your master’s thesis on women in the AI sector. Why do you think this topic is important?
Amelie Anders: Two years ago, the topic didn’t affect me. I didn’t identify as a “woman in the tech scene”, but it was pointed out to me. I took part in courses at university, everything was online because of the pandemic. In a course on machine learning, we had to peer-review anonymously. My peers commented on my essays with “He writes blablabla”, “I would do it like him”. I don’t identify as he/him and I didn’t feel seen at all. And I thought to myself: What’s happening here? It’s the default to write about a man. That was the beginning of my Rabbit Hole.
What did you find out in your Master’s thesis?
The research question was: How is gender problematized in the AI industry? I conducted interviews with women in the AI scene. The issue is that they are denied expertise. We come into the room and are not recognized at all or only as secretaries or assistants. It takes a long time and a lot more work than for men to be recognized as an AI or robotics expert. Role models were also an issue.
These are issues that affect all people who find themselves in so-called marginalized groups. This is not just a tech problem. There is a lot of work to be done in all sectors.
What can we work on to change this situation?
There are many different levers and all of them are important.
I am involved with Women in AI and Robotics. It is very important to build communities. We want to offer people a space to network there. Only 16 percent of employees in AI professions in Germany are female. It is important that this figure increases. But parity is useless if the structures don’t change and there is still toxic masculinity or competition, for example. It’s not just the job of women to tackle this. For example, we have a systemic problem with emotional labor. In teams, it is usually the women who organize gifts. But that’s not the issue of getting exposure and benefits.
How does your association work?
The overarching mission is gender equality and inclusion of women* in AI and robotics. As an association, we are most present in Germany, but we are also growing steadily in Canada, for example. We organize hackathons together. The community is large and growing fast. We organize locally, e.g. with meetups. We show Germany-wide with events: Here we are, the women, the players, the experts. For example, we have an event about AI and sustainability coming up soon, which is about carbon accounting. We’re giving women who are familiar with this a stage. At last year’s automatica hackathon in Munich, there were only men on the jury and in the teams. We say “no” to that. We are in the process of setting up our own teams. We’re not just complaining, we also want to do something, for example with mentorships and by going into schools. We need to start earlier. And we run workshops with people who want to come to Germany. The community is very international.
What positive examples are there?
If you look at other countries, you can see great prospects. According to the World Economic Forum, 32 percent of employees in the data and AI sector worldwide are women. And then you look at Germany – 16 percent.
There are other countries that are much better. These are many countries in Asia: India, Malaysia, Singapore. The assumption is that these stereotypical gender dynamics play a greater role in our societies, which have a lot of prosperity. As a woman, you are told at a young age: “Boys are much better at technology anyway”. That’s why there’s a divide later on, women here tend to say “I can’t do math anyway, I’ll opt for the humanities.” Men also suffer from these stereotypes. In other countries, computer science and AI are more dominated by female players.
What other issues besides gender equality are important to you?
Racism, classism. I also find the topic of social advancement very important. I come from a working-class family in East Germany and live in Munich. I experience some really strange things there. Such discriminatory factors can also have an impact in technologies like ChatGPT.
And what an energy consumption LLM has! Python is also not a resource-saving programming language. I think technology is great, but technology is not the solution to everything.
What does your career path actually look like?
I did a bachelor’s degree in the humanities and then realized during the transition to the master’s degree that I wanted to go in the direction of technology. And then I opted for the Master’s in Responsibility in Science, Engineering and Technology in Munich, which has an interface concept. I used this to go into software development first. It was all about SCRUM and agility. Along the way, I learned programming and gradually went deeper and deeper until I had more to do with AI. You can also work with AI without being a programmer. There are many jobs around it that deal with it. I can only encourage anyone who is interested to do so. After my Master’s degree, I went into IT project management.
What does March 8 mean to you?
It should be normal to have different people on stage and Women’s Day contributes to that. But it shouldn’t stop there. In the long term, it has to develop in such a way that AI is made for everyone, by everyone, with everyone.
Links to the focus: Women* in AI
