Speaking on the Diversity and Inclusivity Finance Forum (DIFF) podcast, Yaiza Luengo, group chief operating officer at Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB), said AI was not neutral and reflected the data it was trained on, “and historical data reflects bias”.
Responding to the question from host Bharat Sagar, who asked if it was too late to correct biases that negatively impacted underrepresented groups of people, she said leadership data skewed towards males, so AI data on performance and promotion patterns could unintentionally reinforce that.
“That is what happens in real life… we all have our inherent biases in how we have decision-making, and for a very long time, women had to almost exhibit more male behaviours at work in order to fit in with what was expected of a leader,” Luengo.
She said there was a risk of “subtle reinforcement of inequality at scale” because AI amplified this and the bias became more efficient at being discriminatory.
She said the technology could be trained in the same way people were educated on their unconscious bias.
When asked if she was aware and doing something about these biases, Sue Hayes, chief executive of Nottingham Building Society, said it was still early days, but the mutual did have an AI working group led by a female executive.
She said AI did demonstrate “a massive exaggeration of what is already out there” and the challenge was how to train both the people and models to not be biased.
Hayes said one example was found in prompting AI to produce an image of a CEO and requiring up to 10 attempts at prompting before it produced an image of a woman.
Progressing towards gender equality
The podcast discussed the attitudes and experiences of women in the workplace and how much progress had been made to tackle inequalities and prejudices.
Hayes said in many ways, the sector had changed, but in other ways, not so much.
When Hayes first entered the sector, she did not see many senior female leaders, but one woman was leading a team of men in the savings division, which was “quite unusual”. Even where women were in senior positions, the sentiments towards them were clear, as Hayes heard comments like “Rosemary’s knitting circle” when referring to a woman called Rosemary who held a senior position and her female peers were at the same level.
Luengo said the overt barriers women had to battle stood out to her the most. Earlier in her career and working in a more technical and commercial environment, Luengo was often the only woman in the room.
She said the competitive environment demanded she demonstrate particular traits, making Luengo “conscious of how she showed up” as she felt there was a “cast to fit into” and she found herself preparing, self-editing and feeling a need to prove her credibility. Luengo said it felt like she needed to be exceptional to gain a position where others could get away with being mediocre.
“Over time, you build that confidence, you build that resilience. You also need to recognise that confidence shouldn’t be a requisite for belonging, the system should not require women to over-adapt in order to thrive,” Luengo said.
She added that it was good things were changing, but noted this was possible because of structural reform.
Hayes said the idea that women should overachieve was still present in some organisations, and when women were labelled as ambitious, it was seen as a negative trait, but positive in men.
However, she said a lot of men had championed her over her career and some of her challenges had come from other women.
Hayes said there were now “great women’s networks” focused on supporting each other, but she did remember that some women tried to hold her back more than men did, adding: “It’s the people rather than the gender, sometimes, that is the issue”.
Listen to the full podcast in the video above [25:47], hosted by Bharat Sagar, ambassador at large of AE3 Media, with guests Yaiza Luengo, group chief operating officer at Mortgage Advice Bureau, and Sue Hayes, chief executive of Nottingham Building Society.
