Representing Women

Three good reasons why women need to start a career in AI

- Kriti Sharma

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been unequivocally recognised as a technology that can solve some of the world’s most complex issues. In Malaysia, the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) are collaborating with Alibaba Cloud Computing to deploy the Malaysia City Brain, a smart city AI-powered platform that potentially reduce urban traffic, a perennial hassle of city living.

However, the rise of AI can also have unintended consequences on workforce demographics, and in particular, for women in business.

I’ve been responsible for building the AI application Pegg, the world’s first accounting chatbot. In my line of work, I have been privileged to collaborate with some of the greatest minds in the AI industry. Unfortunately, the narrative has been heavily dominated by one gender, leading to the assumption that there is limited opportunity for young girls in the field. This damaging perception needs to be changed.

At the same time, women are more at risk of being affected by automation and AI in their careers – recent research from PwC has demonstrated that potentially 23% of women’s jobs are at risk, around 7% more than men. Risks of job displacement must be addressed alongside the serious skills shortage we are seeing in the tech sector amongst women.