EAF Expertise: Artificial Intelligence for Greater Equality of Opportunity

EAF expert Lisa Hanstein has examined the potential of artificial intelligence to foster fairness and equality in female entrepreneurship and has published a practical report on potential AI application scenarios as part of the KITE project.

Artificial intelligence, or AI for short, is on everyone's lips. However, regarding equal opportunity and diversity, this forward-looking technology also harbors risks: Be it AI-based recruiting toolsthat learn from discriminatory data and disadvantage women, or facial recognition appsthat are less accurate at identifying Black people, thereby reproducing racist stereotypes. The reason: Artificial intelligence is and remains human-made and can therefore transfer existing inequalities from the analog world into the digital space.

However, it is worth looking at the potential of digital applications and new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to promote equal opportunity and fairness. Unlike humans, properly developed digital applications are not subject to daily moods, fatigue, or drops in blood sugar, and in the best-case scenario, they can make more rational decisions. Furthermore, many AI-based systems can identify patterns in vast amounts of data that would otherwise remain invisible, independently solve problems that were not previously defined, and learn from past experiences—capabilities that standard software cannot provide. Thus, bias-free AI-based tools can also be used to make existing inequalities visible and to make unfair analog processes fairer.

Developing innovative ideas for using AI to promote fairness and diversity in practice requires a basic understanding of what AI actually is and what can be technically implemented. Even though the term AI often remains vague due to its complexity and multifaceted nature—and is not even clearly defined among researchers in the field—AI is not magic. It can be broken down into various technologies and typical fields of application, and illustrated through clear, practical examples.

To make the potential of AI for greater equal opportunity and diversity more tangible, business informatics specialist Lisa Hanstein has, in her report titled "Potential Application Scenarios for Artificial Intelligence in the KITE Project" developed a toolbox with six different scenarios for the use of AI. These can be combined as desired and are all based on the concept of a training app. The report focuses on business startups, an area where gender-specific unconscious biases, stereotyping, and experiences of discrimination still hinder many women on their path to self-employment or complicate the daily (professional) lives of female founders. However, the examples presented can also be applied to other areas—perhaps even for your own future idea for an AI-based application!

The report was written as part of the project KITE – AI Thinktank for Female Entrepreneurship by WeiberWirtschaft eG. This pilot project, commissioned by the nationwide female entrepreneurs agency (bga) and funded by the AI Future Fund of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ), aims to use artificial intelligence to make the discrimination experiences of female founders visible and thereby empower women in the startup process. In the first project phase, running until July 2021, ideas are being developed for what an AI-based application could look like. EAF Senior Expert Hanna Völkle and expert Lisa Hanstein are supporting the project as specialists.

Further information

This expertise, along with five other compelling papers, can be viewed on the KITE project website.