You’ve probably incorporated some form of AI technology in your workflow in order to make your process more efficient. And in general many of the conversations around AI have been about making operations faster or automating them all together. But for Nura Mahmod, a consultant manager within AI and Software Engineering, these new tools could have different focus. “What if we use AI technology to create a healthy working environment?” Mahmod and her team asked themselves when conceptualising the product “Equalizer.” The product is based on research that shows that 28-40% of women experience microaggressions, such as being interrupted or talked over, in their daily work life. It is hard to become a leader when you don't have a voice, Nura’s team reasoned. That is why “Equalizer” provides direct feedback on how much each meeting participant is talking, giving feedback to the human moderator of the meeting who can balance out the conversation to make sure the underrepresented voices of the team are heard.


Yet as they were developing the tool, the team encountered some clear obstacles when working with AI. The software they have been using was trained with predominantly male voices, which resulted in the database not being able to distinguish Nura from her female colleagues in the testing. “It was easier to realise this as we were a diverse team which is not always the case.” she points out. Working on this project taught Nura and her team about what pitfalls there might be when working with AI in the future and to make sure the technology is not discriminating against people. The experience helped them to establish possible principles for responsible AI. If we can follow these principles and apply them to our AI-powered products, Nura believes we can create better and healthier workplaces.