Women in AI

Dr Margherita Pagani, from France’s world-leading Emlyon Business School tells Simon Michell why women are set to play an increasing role in the world of artificial intelligence

Dr Margherita Pagani, Professor of Digital Marketing at Emlyon Business School in France ticks all the boxes in terms of female pioneers of the emerging world of artificial intelligence (AI). As founder and Director of the Artificial Intelligence Management (AIM) Research Center on Artificial Intelligence in Value Creation and at one of the world’s premier business schools, she is leading the work into researching, linking and measuring the value of AI tools in real-world business applications. 105

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Events such as WaiCAMP Sydney provide opportunities for young women to engage with and learn more about artificial

intelligence (PHOTO: WOMEN IN AI)

This is becoming a very large task. “There are use cases of AI systems applied to all industry sectors. You can say it is a pervasive phenomenon,” explains Pagani. In a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, Dr Pagani and her colleague, Renaud Champion, revealed that they had undertaken research on over 1,000 use cases for AI being applied in over 14 different industry sectors. The results of this remarkable undertaking are detailed in a forthcoming book, published by Edward Elgar Publishing, entitled Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Value Creation.

Dr Pagani cites two interesting examples – GE and Netflix. The former is applying AI to increase efficiency by monitoring its supply chains and finding ways to make them more productive. As such, the GE use case highlights productivity as the driver, whereas the Netflix example is all about marketing opportunities and creativity. “At Netflix, content producers are able to monitor viewer selections using algorithms and measure these preference rates for specific types of content,” explains Dr Pagani. This enables Netflix to invest in those areas at speed.” In fact, this data and the data science behind it is also a product from which Netflix can derive value by selling it to other production companies.

Another more general use case is in the service industries – banking, insurance, online shopping. Here the emergence of chat boxes is helping to drive value creation by helping potential customers find the answers to their questions faster and more easily.

CHANGING THE AI GENDER BALANCE

When asked about the representation of females in the AI sector, Dr Pagani concedes that there is still an overall imbalance, but points to Emlyon as proof that things are beginning to change. As co-director of a Master of Science (MSc) degree in digital marketing and data science, she has witnessed a growth in women wanting to study data science, and with it, AI. The highly successful MSc degree has 120 students from 38 different nations, of which 60% are female. Dr Pagani says there is a growing understanding among women that although a background in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) is useful, it is not the only quality that can lead to success. “Empathy,

creativity and critical thinking, particularly in decisionmaking, are also extremely valuable,” she says, “and this is where women can make a difference.”

“If you look at whether an algorithmic tool is designed to assist with simple or complex tasks and whether the AI systems replace or complement humans, one thing becomes clear.” The simple tasks, classed as ‘rote’, are often repetitive actions similar to those on a production line. Here, AI may well replace a human, whereas the complex AI tasks tend to veer towards the more creative side, with applications in the arts, medicine and decision support (think chat boxes). Such specializations and sectors are extremely attractive to women.

Dr Pagani is a keen supporter of the ‘Women in AI’ group founded by Dr Hanan Salam and Caroline Lair, which she has found a useful forum for ideas and support, and has attended events around the world. That said, she does not think that the dominance of one gender over another is necessarily a good thing. Instead, she believes that diversity in gender and ethnicity is key to extracting value. It is well documented that diverse teams outperform those that are not.

CAROLINE LAIR, CO-FOUNDER OF WOMEN IN AI (WAI), EXPLAINS THE INSPIRATION FOR AND PURPOSE OF THE ORGANIZATION

Q What was your inspiration for establishing the Women in AI do-tank?

Back in 2017, AI was already spreading

A everywhere, and we were starting to hear about these algorithms biased against women. Let’s remember Amazon’s former recruitment AI algorithm that was only selecting male profiles. Together with Hanan Salam and Moojan Asghari, we felt something needed to be done to bring awareness about this unfairness, whilst also encouraging more women to engage in STEM careers and join engineering teams – especially as the World Economic Forum estimates that only 22% of AI professionals are women.

Q What is WAI doing to promote AI to women and help them join the specialism?

A WAI is a community-based initiative with more than 6,000 members in over 30 chapters around the world. We organize events to promote female experts and role models for the younger generations, as well as deploy education curriculums and acceleration programmes for AI female entrepreneurs.

We’re also actively contributing to studies and collaborative initiatives with local public authorities, such as Vinnova in Sweden, and regional programmes like AI4EU in Europe.

Q What events are you planning next and why should women attend/ participate?

A Our next major event is InnoHUB, which runs online for two days a week from 22 June to 15 July on the Virtual World of Evenness. This is the first immersive programme for women innovators from the Amsterdam region, as well as from all other cities and towns in the Netherlands and the Benelux region.

Find out about more events in our different chapters on our LinkedIn page – WAI. 107