Activities of Maria-Manuel LEITÃO-MARQUES related to 2020/2017(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on artificial intelligence in education, culture and the audiovisual sector
Amendments (13)
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas gender equality is a core principle of the European Union enshrined in the Treaties, and should be reflected in all EU policies, not least in education, culture and the audiovisual, these being key channels for changing attitudes and challenging stereotypes;
Amendment 8 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes that the Commission has proposed to rapidly deploy products and services that rely on AI in areas of public interest and the public sector; emphasises that in the education sector, this deployment should involve educators, learners and wider society and take their needs and the expected benefits into account in order to ensure that AI is used purposefully and ethically; stresses the importance of this deployment for reskilling and upskilling the European labour market, and particularly those of the culture and audiovisual sectors, which will be severely impacted by the COVID crisis;
Amendment 11 #
Draft opinion
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas the media and the cultural sectors have considerable influence in shaping people’s beliefs, values and perception of reality and thus have the ability to perpetuate and amplify gender inequalities and discrimination have been reproduced throughthrough its reproduction in the design, input and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems; whereas incomplete data sets, the lack of gender segregated data, and incorrect bias can distort the reasonprocessing of an AI system, and jeopardise gender equality in society by further exacerbating already existing negative gender norms and stereotypes;
Amendment 18 #
Draft opinion
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas gender inequalities are also created and replicated through the language and images disseminated by the media and AI-powered applications; whereas education, culture programmes and audiovisual contents are a fundamental tool for combatting gender stereotypes and the digital gender divide;
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Recital C a (new)
Recital C a (new)
Ca. whereas science and innovation can bring life-changing benefits, especially for those who are furthest behind – such as women and girls living in remote areas; whereas scientific education is important for obtaining skills, decent work, and jobs of the future, as well as to break gender stereotypes that regard them as stereotypically masculine fields; whereas science and scientific thinking are key to democratic culture, which in turn is fundamental for advancing gender equality;
Amendment 25 #
Draft opinion
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas women are significantly underrepresented in the AI sectors, either as creators or consumers; whereas the full potential of women’s skills, knowledge and qualifications in the digital, AI and ICT (information, communication and technology) fields, along with their re- skilling, can contribute to boosting the European economy; whereas globally only 22 % of AI professionals are female; whereas the lack of women in AI development not only increases the risk of bias, but also deprives the EU of talent, vision and resources, and is therefore an obstacle to innovation;
Amendment 28 #
Draft opinion
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas past experiences in many technical fields, such as medicine, car safety design and others, have shown us that developments and innovations are often based mainly or solely on male data and that has had negative effects, including death, for women[1].[1] D’Ignazio/Klein, Data Feminism, MIT Publications, March 2020
Amendment 30 #
Draft opinion
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas in the European Union 1 in every 10 women (10%) has already suffered some form of cyberviolence since the age of 15; whereas cyberviolence is often directed at women daring to speak out, like activists, women politicians and other public figures; whereas AI, and other emerging technologies, can play an important role in preventing cyberviolence against women and girls and educating people;
Amendment 32 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Considers that AI has great potential to promote gender equality provided that the already existing conscious and unconscious bias are eliminated; stresses the need for AI to respect the principles and values of equality and non-discrimination between women and menurges the Commission and Member States to collect gender segregated data in order to feed datasets in a way that promotes equality; further urges the Commission to, in its consideration, approval, and implementation of ethical guidelines for the use of AI, take into account gender equality; stresses the need for AI to respect the principles and values of equality and non-discrimination between women and men, and of non-discrimination of LGBTI+ people, and people belonging to ethnic minorities, especially Roma, and black, indigenous and people of colour; stresses, further, the importance of a risk- based approach and ofin terms of both the applications and the sectors in which AI is used, alongside continuous monitoring of existing and new algorithms;
Amendment 39 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Calls for policies targeted at increasing the participation of women in the fields related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and AI, and the adoption of a multi-level approach to address the gender gap in all levels of education and employment in the digital sector, highlighting the importance of upskilling and reskilling for this purpose; calls for the Commission and Member States to implement public procurement policies/guidelines that stimulate companies to hire more women and girls for STEM jobs; asks the Commission and Member States to promote a minimum threshold of women researchers to be part of STEM and AI projects; encourages the Commission and Member States to purchase education, cultural and audiovisual services from providers that apply gender balance in their companies;
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Calls on the Commission and Members States to provide appropriate funding to programmes aimed at attracting more girls and women to study and work in STEM; urges the Commission and Member States to set up programmes that finance women and girls who start AI-related projects or companies in the education, culture and audiovisual sectors; asks the Commission and Member States to grant a privileged access to funds to companies in the education, culture and audiovisual sectors that are gender balanced; encourages the Commission and Member States in public procurement procedures regarding the education, culture and audiovisual sectors to review the selection criteria used to check if they are male biased; stresses that the Commission and Member States should provide appropriate funding for the development of AI solutions that prevent and fight cyberviolence against women and girls and help educate young people;
Amendment 58 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Calls on the Commission and Member States to devise policy measures that fully incorporate the gender dimension, such as awareness-raising campaigns, training and curricula, which should provide information to citizens on how algorithms operate, and their impact on citizens’ daily lives; highlights that genderless images of AI and robots should be used for educational and cultural purposes, unless gender is a key factor for some reason; urges the Commission and Member States to include digital skills and AI training in the school curricula and make them mandatory for all, as a way to close the digital gender divide;
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Highlights the importance of the development and deployment of AI applications in the educational, cultural and audiovisual sectors in collecting more accurate and sex-disaggender-segregated data, and applying modern machine learning de- biasing techniques, if needed, to correct stereotype gender bias, which may have negative impacts; calls on the Commission and Member States to measure the impact of the public policies put in place to incorporate the gender dimension by analysing the data collected; stresses the importance of using unbiased, non- discriminatory and gender sensitive data in the development of AI; emphasises the necessity to ensure that the design and use of artificial intelligence in the educational, cultural and audiovisual sectors does not disadvantage women and their lives.