Despite having the fifth-largest artificial intelligence workforce and one of the most forward-thinking nations when it comes to its ever-improving tech sector, Canada is still a long way away when it comes to closing its gender gap in the sector and others, per the recently released rankings from the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Aside from this announcement, the WEF also revealed last Monday that the country ranked 16th in its yearly gender gap ranking, marking the second time Canada has been placed on the same spot in the international organization’s list.
It’s not just in the artificial intelligence sector of Canada as well, as earlier this year, a report produced by the Ottawa-based Information and Communications Technology Council (with support from Microsoft) revealed that although Canadian employment in the larger digital economy grew by five percent between 2016 and 2017, women only represent a quarter of the ICT workforce even though they represent half of the overall workforce in the country. This number has been stagnant for the past decade.
Furthermore, the disparity only increases when you go up the corporate ladder, as according to national organization Women in Communications and Technology, there are only five women CEOs and one woman co-CEO among the top 100 tech firms currently operating in Canada.
What’s the risk?
According to WEF, the risk comes for the country continually progressing with its AI pool without much diversity, thus limiting innovation and overall capacity for inclusivity, a risk that’s been ever-present across all sectors in numerous countries all over. Per WEF, the low integration of women in Canada’s AI pool is a “significant missed opportunity in a professional domain where there is already insufficient supply of adequately qualified labor.” The organization also warned that the gap can widen further if it isn’t addressed soon.
Sarah Kaplan, who’s the director of the University of Toronto’s Institute for Gender and the Economy, said, “if we don’t have a diverse workforce working in AI, we risk not only perpetuating existing biases but actually amplifying them and leading to really negative outcomes for the most vulnerable people in our society.”
Why diversity matters
According to Kaplan, diversity is an integral part of innovation, especially in something as large and disruptive as Canada’s AI system because it will largely determine how the system will act. For example, a wider talent pool will do much to help situations that we as a society has already encountered before, such as a phone’s face recognition system not being able to identify people of color.
“No one has ever thought ‘does this work on someone other than a Caucasian person? The fact that we have an AI technology developed by a non-diverse workforce is hugely problematic,” said Kaplan, who says she has grown tired of diversity being treated as more of an afterthought simply because the existing system has ignored it for the longest time.
It’s been an uphill battle for women for far too long, and it’s time the current generation do something about it.