Is Your Data Sexist? Why Bias Matters in Artificial Intelligence

Almost two years ago, Lean In and Getty images partnered to address bias in the way women are portrayed in stock photography by creating The Lean In Collection, over 6,000 images portraying women as leaders and/or partners. In March of this year, data from Procter & Gamble's Always Confidence and Puberty Survey revealed that more than half of girls surveyed felt that female emoji are stereotypical, while 75 percent wanted to see girls portrayed more progressively. In July, Google announced that the Unicode Consortium had approved 11 new professional emoji--such as farmer, mechanic and welder--with both female and male options, and in a range of skin tones. They also approved a set of male and female versions of existing emoji. But now it's not only stock photos and emoji that are at issue.