Professor Nicola Marsden: “Artificial intelligence has what it takes to create a world where everyone can feel at home.”

Ms Marsden, you went to an all-girls secondary school and are now a professor of informatics. At first glance, this seems like an unusual career.

Yet it really isn’t. On the contrary, studies show that girls attending single-sex schools do much better in STEM subjects because they don’t have to battle the stereotype that maths, IT and the sciences are only something for the boys. An environment that encourages girls to explore their interests and nurture their talents is a very positive thing. 

What are some other influencing factors?

We are social creatures and we need to feel comfortable in our surroundings. This is especially true during puberty when gender identity starts coming to the fore. Young people spend much of this time trying to find where they belong and fit in, so if I’m the only girl doing IT, I might end up feeling out of place. 

Is this also something you’re looking at as part of your research?

Yes and no. My focus is predominately on interactions between people and IT or AI. In a nutshell, we create IT and AI products and use them either to create our reality or they become part of our reality. The key question is how we have to design IT and our environment to support gender equality. 

And how do you get to the bottom of that?

Our approach is to go out of the lab and into the companies to see what’s actually happening on the ground. We observe people as they interact with their everyday environment to understand how development happens, how the systems they work with are designed and the impact this has.

One of your most important findings has been that women don’t need any special treatment. They just need the same conditions as men. How did you come to that conclusion?

Women are often told they should act more like their male colleagues, but the same behaviour is viewed very differently when displayed by women.

What does this mean in reality?

We need to create the same conditions for men and women. We know, for example, that women are more frequently interrupted in meetings than their male counterparts, so we need a set-up where that doesn’t happen. But of course there is a lot more to it, particularly in the context of IT and AI. 

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The greatest potential right now in Germany is among highly-qualified women aged between 25 and 35.

Professor Nicola Marsden

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What kind of potential does this harbour, and what strategies do companies employ?

AI is indeed opening the door to a wealth of opportunities—a fact borne out by our research carried out in collaboration with the Fraunhofer IAO in 13 companies that included 219 women. This is mainly because developing, implementing and effectively using AI requires wide-ranging expertise. Interdisciplinary thinking and working isn’t just nice to have—it’s essential. 

Can you give an example?

When we talk about artificial intelligence, we are usually referring to large language models, i.e. systems in which language as a competence is an indispensable requirement, for example when building new types of user interface. AI is different from traditional information technology. That’s why we’re seeing all new roles emerge that can no longer be categorised as technical or non-technical. On the contrary, to achieve the best results, we need to have a complete rethink and combine a range of different skill sets. 

Specifically, what role do women play in this development?

To start with, we’re faced with a fundamental shortage of skilled labour, which is why many businesses are more than willing to think outside the box and do things a little differently. This now coincides with the fact that the greatest potential right now in Germany is among highly-qualified women aged between 25 and 30. 41% of women within this age group hold a university degree, covering the full breadth of disciplines. This is an enormous well of potential that IT organisations can tap into with targeted training programmes, and to make that happen they need to develop the right strategies. 

And then you have to keep women in IT, too …

This is a challenge indeed.  After the age of 30, only 20% of female IT professionals continue to work in their profession, and by 45, that figure drops to just 9%. So we do have women in IT, but we keep losing them along their careers. To do something about this in a male-dominated industry, we need to tackle the culture. In a way this is circling back to what we were talking about earlier about school. Women always need to defy discrimination, they need to prove themselves time and time again as others question their competence.

How can we break out of these patterns?

Leadership, perception and role models all play a critical role here, and they all depend on each other. For one thing, we need female role models, ideally in leadership positions. And then we need teams and departments to stop defining women by their gender and truly accept them as team members. In sociology, when people are perceived as representing a specific group rather than being recognised as individuals, we call this tokenism.  Besides all that, it takes leaders who don’t simply let emerging group dynamics run their course, as these often negatively impact minority groups. And in IT, women are a minority. 

The numbers we discussed are, of course, intrinsic to the stages of a woman’s life including motherhood and childcare …

It is essential that childcare is not hardwired to women, and that’s also something where role models come into play. There are, in fact, large organisations that showcase male role models who make use of parental leave to take care of their families. On the other hand, men who choose to do this are often met with resistance and given to understand that this is a choice that will negatively impact their career.

We’ve talked a lot about women in IT, but diversity is more nuanced than that. 

Absolutely. There’s also age, migrant backgrounds, religion, and much more to consider. In order to maximise the potential of diverse teams, you need people who are ready to learn, and you need to offer them a solid psychological footing. It’s about transparency. You need to be open about mistakes and learn from them. Leaders must allow questions and criticism, and not think of anyone as simply a troublemaker.

All this goes to the core of humans as a social creature, and now AI, a highly complex technology, is supposed to help us elevate our human nature?

Indeed, as a technology, AI is very detached from human beings, but there’s still a lot to it. It has an impact on broad swathes of our society and economy, and in order to exploit its power we need people from all kinds of backgrounds. Artificial intelligence has what it takes to create a world where everyone can feel at home. Conversely, we need to involve everyone when it comes to how we code, use and engage with AI.