Invisible barriers stop Singapore women from joining AI boom

Gender imbalance could impact nascent tech's potential biases, applications: Experts

- Ng Wei Kai

Nanyang Technological University computing student and IT security consultant Seraphina Chua, 21, has often experienced a subtle prejudice that assumes technical roles are more suited to men.

She said: "I've experienced times when I felt overlooked or underestimated, and much of this might stem from gender biases - whether intentional or not.

"In such cases, I often felt that I had to prove myself more than my male counterparts, even when I was equally qualified."

This issue is one invisible barrier standing in the way of more women such as Ms Chua exploring the rapidly expanding field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Getting more women to break down these barriers has become a priority for educational institutions, companies and the Government, as well as women who are already working in the field.

While many of these barriers are already prevalent in the wider areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem), in the emerging field of AI, the stakes go beyond equal representation and good jobs.

The gender imbalance in the field does not just mean capable women may be missing out on potentially lucrative employment, but it also has implications on the nascent technology's potential biases and applications, said practitioners, students and experts.

Various studies have shown that AI models can absorb and amplify the biases of their human creators.

At Singapore's institutes of higher education, there is a lower rate of women signing up to study AI and machine learning (ML) - a subfield of AI broadly defined as the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behaviour - compared with their male counterparts.

Female students comprised about a quarter of enrolment in AI and ML programmes at Singapore's polytechnics and universities over the past five years, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing told Parliament in November 2024.