Accelerating innovation through diversity in Artificial Intelligence

Editor's Notes

• #3: https://syncedreview.com/2020/03/13/exploring-gender-imbalance-in-ai-numbers-trends-and-discussions/ Diverse and inclusive cultures are providing companies with a competitive edge over their peers.” This quote summarizes conclusions from The Wall Street Journal’s first corporate ranking that examined diversity and inclusion among S&P 500 companies. The Journal’s researchers’ work joins an ever-growing list of studies by economists, demographers, and research firms confirming that socially diverse groups are more innovative and productive than homogeneous groups. There is ample evidence that gender diversity drives results. Women are well situated to know and understand market opportunities. Women control 51% of U.S. wealth (40% globally), and women either directly make or influence up to 80% of all purchases. No wonder that Bloomberg reports that companies with gender-balanced teams have a higher return on equity. Credit Suisse Research Institute found that companies with one or more women board members had higher average ROI and better average growth than companies with male only boards. With such benefits from gender diversity, one wonders why 77% of S&P500 company boards are more than two-thirds male, and only 2% have more than 50% women members. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2020/01/15/diversity-confirmed-to-boost-innovation-and-financial-results/#5594e76cc4a6
• #4: According to a report by WEF , Only 22% of AI professionals globally are female, compared to 78% who are male. This accounts for a gender gap of 72% yet to close. http://lcfi.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/AI_and_Gender___4_Proposals_for_Future_Research.pdf Cross-functional teams with a broad skill set as well as different work and behavior styles will lead to more innovative thinking
• #17: In her excellent article “Men Systemize. Women Empathize. Is Your Website Optimized for Gender?”, Liraz Margalit, head of behavioral research at Clicktable says “Girls watch faces, boys watch objects.”i n general, females are stronger empathizers and males are stronger systemizers At first glance, it’s clear that many more women were engaged with the top menu bar – clicking into the various categories to view the different food recipes. Also, women were more likely to click on the left-side icons rather than stay solely on the recipe. Men, on the other hand, tended to be far more limited in their clicks – they search exactly for what they came for and then leave the site when they are done. See the side-by-side Attention-Heatmaps comparing men attention on the web page (left) and women attention (right). As seen by the narrow ‘hot’ band in the center of the page, men were very focused on the ingredients of a recipe and how to prepare it, women, on the other hand, browsed up and down the page more and were less focused – as seen by the wider, more diffused ‘hot’ band. Both heatmaps confirm that men were far more systematic in their behavior on the site while women fit far more the empathizing cognitive style.
• #18: According to the research, teams outperform individual decision makers 66% of the time, and decision making improves as team diversity increases. Compared to individual decision makers, all-male teams make better business decisions 58% of the time, while gender diverse teams do so 73% of the time. Teams that also include a wide range of ages and different geographic locations make better business decisions 87% of the time. “This research highlights the potential value of team diversity as a practical tool for architecting decision-making processes,” said Harvard Business School Professor Francesca Gino. “That our decisions get sidetracked by biases is now well established. While it is hard to change how our brains are wired, it’s possible to change the context of decisions by architecting the composition of decision-making teams for more diverse perspectives.”
• #19: Credit Suisse Research Institute found that companies with one or more women board members had higher average ROI and better average growth than companies with male only boards. With such benefits from gender diversity, one wonders why 77% of S&P500 company boards are more than two-thirds male, and only 2% have more than 50% women members.
• #21: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/male-and-female-brains-really-are-built-differently/281962/ The hemispheres of women's brains are more interconnected. Does that matter? By analyzing the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania found that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres.
• #23: Statistics, neuro-science, creativity, empathy, art, leadership etc.
• #27: Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash
• #28: Different customer personas