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A top computer scientist advising Jersey on its digital future has spoken out about the "toxic culture" in big tech – and why having a "diverse workforce" contributing to the evolution and development of artificial intelligence is vital.
Computer scientist Dame Wendy Hall – a Digital Jersey Non-Executive Director who was last year appointed to United Nations high-level advisory body on artificial intelligence – said that the lack of women in the tech industry is a "deeply cultural" problem.
"Ever since I've been in computing, I've advocated and led projects and government investigations into why there aren't enough women in computing," she explained.
"It’s a deeply cultural thing. If you go out to India or Malaysia and walk into a computer science classroom in a university, it would be over half women."
Dame Wendy explained: "In the west in the 80s, computers were sold as ‘toys for the boys’ and we've never recovered from that – it's got this geeky image.
"Southampton University has one of the biggest computer science departments in the UK. We now take 350 students a year on computer science, it's huge, but only 18% will be women. So we're not even feeding the pipe enough."
Pictured: "In the west in the 80s, computers were sold as ‘toys for the boys’ and we've never recovered from that – it's got this geeky image."
The computer scientist admitted that there is a "toxic culture" in many of the big tech companies.
"Silicon Valley is really quite toxic for women, and it's still very much a man's world," she said.
"It gets even worse when you go to AI – especially if you only think about AI from the technical point of view."
Dame Wendy explained that many people do not consider how the artificial intelligence revolution that we are are currently experiencing is "much broader" than just the latest tech trend.
"It's socio-technical," she said. "You’ve got to think about how it affects society."
However, the Digital Jersey NED admitted that it is "almost all men" who are running companies, and building AI products and tools.
"My world is still a completely male-dominated world," she said.
"I'm one of the few women – there are some in the UK – but there are less women in tech and AI percentage wise today than there were in the 80s."
Pictured: Computer science "is still a completely male-dominated world".
Dame Wendy explained: "My worry about that is that AI needs is to be used by the whole of society and will affect all of society, so we need the whole of society contributing to its evolution and its development.
"That doesn't mean everyone has to be a machine-learning coder. [AI] will require people with skills in finance, law, business, psychology, that are not just about coding, because AI will lead to all these new jobs in society.
"We have to think how we use it and make it safe and get the best out of it.
"There'll be lots of new types of jobs, but it's so important that the core design of the technology has a diverse workforce – and it doesn't."
The computer scientist added that there needs to be more representative on AI governing bodies and boards.
"If you look at the pictures of the tech leaders, they're basically all men," she said.
"They're not like regular men, either – they're very, I don't want to say geeky necessarily, but very tech-oriented.
"Everything is through a very technical lens, and I feel like when you're having this sort of revolution that has such an impact on society, you have to widen out from just the tech aspect of it."
Dame Wendy concluded: "With Digital Jersey we're working on a whole new skills agenda for Jersey, and I think it's very important we get that right, and we start preparing people for this data AI world, and we make sure it's a diverse workforce."
This is an extract of an interview with Dame Wendy Hall for the March edition of Connect Magazine, which you can read below...
Pictured top: Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton and a Digital Jersey Non-Executive Director, who was last year appointed to United Nations high-level advisory body on artificial intelligence.
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