Artificial Intelligence has a gender problem -- why it matters for everyone

More women and minorities must work in tech, or else they risk being left behind in every industry. This grim future was painted by Artificial Intelligence (AI) equality experts who spoke at a conference Thursday hosted by LivePerson, an AI company that connects brands and consumers. In that future, if AI goes unchecked, workplaces will be completely homogenous, hiring only white, nondisabled men. "In this bleak depiction of our future, decades of fights for civil rights and equality have been unwritten in a few lines of code," said EqualAI executive director Miriam Vogel at the conference in Brooklyn, N.Y., called "Boundary Breakers: Women Driving The Future of Tech." Women and minorities are not building AI, and therefore, they are not being represented in popular algorithm-based products, according to Vogel.