Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been the talk of the town for a while, but it seems it can walk that talk too, with AI being potentially able to influence gender parity in the workplace.

What AI can bring to the workplace was one of the topics explored and debated during 'The Future of Work - Accelerating Gender Parity' Conference held by Harvard Business School (HBS) Club of India at Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai on September 21. HBS faculty, industry leaders and other experts spoke at the conference to encourage the strategic importance of gender diversity in a changing environment.

"Technology by itself is neutral, so technology can't favour women. But it can be utilized to mitigate the inherent biases against women. What we have started to see in organisations is that AI is being used to look at patterns, along with algorithms, to see if we are biasing some of our decisions, be it decisions concerning entry, promotions or the jobs that they get, against women," said Rekha Menon, Chairman and Senior Managing Director at Accenture in India, during the conference.

"Putting a philosopher or social scientist next to your AI tool can be one of the smartest things that businesses can do," quipped Pual Roehrig, Chief Strategy Officer at Cognizant Digital Business, while he explained how to be a ‘good parent’ to AI so that our biases and prejudices aren't embedded in the coding required in the machines we use.

Roehrig used the analogy of raising children to explain the kind of responsibility that AI necessitates. He explained how children can be exposed to extraneous factors that we may or may not want them to be privy to. Similarly, it is necessary to ensure that AI is "trained the way we expect our children to be trained", so that they do what you want them to, as opposed to "amplifying, accelerating and enhancing what you don't want them to do".

Making AI responsible through good parenting is indispensable so that it not only talks the talk, but walks the talk as well. As all the speakers cautioned, as much as it can garner respect, it can earn wrath as well, exemplified by the fleeting reference to the U.S. elections Roehrig made.

"We build the AI system; so it's up to us to make the tools that make the society that we want," he said. He emphasized how humans should be made the focal point of technology and reiterated the significance of social scientists in the actual development process. Whether this system becomes amplifiers of inclusion versus amplifiers of toxic behaviour is a decision we have to take, said Roehrig.

"AI has the potential to ensure inclusion in workforce, but we need to ensure that it leads there....It can be used as a part of the solution to bring about gender parity, but it is absolutely not the only solution; the real power lies with humans to assert agency and make the tools that we need, to have a better society," he elaborated.

The other panellists at the conference including Ipsita Dasgupta (President Strategy & Incubation at Star India), Ganesh Natarajan (Executive Chairman and Founder at 5F World) and Anjali Bansal (Founder Avaana Capital, and Non Executive Chairperson Dena Bank), among others. 'Spousal lottery' or the choice of a husband who can help in ensuring work-life balance for women, calling over mothers-in-law of women workers to the office to dampen their wrath towards their working daughters-in-law, and educating men on how to curb professional jealousy vis-a-vis their wives are some other anecdotes they quipped and quibbled over to discuss the rather sombre reality facing working women in India.

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