Closing the Gender Gap in AI
Key Points
- Position AI as an “aspirational” tool for tackling grand challenges (COVID‑19, climate change, cancer) to inspire girls to engage with it.
- The hype has faded and AI is now a reality, but a clear divide exists between those actively using it and those who are hesitant or left behind.
- Everyone should get hands‑on experience—tinkering, building, and computational thinking—so that vulnerable groups aren’t forced to play catch‑up later.
- For most people, exposure to generative AI happens on the job, often without them realizing they’re using it.
- A growing gender gap (≈50 % of men vs 37 % of women have used generative AI) is linked to the current “sucky” branding of AI, underscoring the need for more inclusive outreach.
Sections
- Aspirational AI for Girls - The speaker advocates presenting AI as a purposeful tool to address grand challenges, emphasizing the shift from hype to practical use, and interviews Reshma Saujani about expanding AI access and empowerment for girls and underserved communities.
- Embedding AI in Everyday Tools - The speaker explains how integrating generative AI into routine services like banking makes it accessible—especially for women—while highlighting historical gender gaps in tech and stressing that everyday usage can shift consciousness and empower potential.
- Empowering Girls Through Ethical AI - The speaker emphasizes introducing AI as a positive tool for girls, ensuring equitable access, and fostering them as changemakers and leaders in responsible AI development.
- AI Simplifies Paid Leave Eligibility - The speaker explains how confusing benefit eligibility leads to lost wages, and how a generative‑AI tool they built quickly determines eligibility and payout, illustrating AI’s potential to streamline benefits access for underserved populations.
- Inclusive AI Development and Access - The speaker urges immediate inclusion of women, LGBTQ, low‑income and other marginalized voices in AI decision‑making, stresses universal access, responsible design, and the urgency of bridging the digital divide.
- AI as Tool for Social Equity - A speaker urges envisioning a five‑year future where generative AI is leveraged to improve health, education, childcare, and income equality rather than merely boosting worker efficiency.
- Closing Remarks & Listener Call‑to‑Action - The host thanks guest Reshma, encourages the audience to rewatch the episode, stay tuned, and promises future content.
Full Transcript
# Closing the Gender Gap in AI **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s) **Duration:** 00:18:55 ## Summary - Position AI as an “aspirational” tool for tackling grand challenges (COVID‑19, climate change, cancer) to inspire girls to engage with it. - The hype has faded and AI is now a reality, but a clear divide exists between those actively using it and those who are hesitant or left behind. - Everyone should get hands‑on experience—tinkering, building, and computational thinking—so that vulnerable groups aren’t forced to play catch‑up later. - For most people, exposure to generative AI happens on the job, often without them realizing they’re using it. - A growing gender gap (≈50 % of men vs 37 % of women have used generative AI) is linked to the current “sucky” branding of AI, underscoring the need for more inclusive outreach. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=0s) **Aspirational AI for Girls** - The speaker advocates presenting AI as a purposeful tool to address grand challenges, emphasizing the shift from hype to practical use, and interviews Reshma Saujani about expanding AI access and empowerment for girls and underserved communities. - [00:03:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=184s) **Embedding AI in Everyday Tools** - The speaker explains how integrating generative AI into routine services like banking makes it accessible—especially for women—while highlighting historical gender gaps in tech and stressing that everyday usage can shift consciousness and empower potential. - [00:06:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=371s) **Empowering Girls Through Ethical AI** - The speaker emphasizes introducing AI as a positive tool for girls, ensuring equitable access, and fostering them as changemakers and leaders in responsible AI development. - [00:09:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=555s) **AI Simplifies Paid Leave Eligibility** - The speaker explains how confusing benefit eligibility leads to lost wages, and how a generative‑AI tool they built quickly determines eligibility and payout, illustrating AI’s potential to streamline benefits access for underserved populations. - [00:12:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=740s) **Inclusive AI Development and Access** - The speaker urges immediate inclusion of women, LGBTQ, low‑income and other marginalized voices in AI decision‑making, stresses universal access, responsible design, and the urgency of bridging the digital divide. - [00:15:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=921s) **AI as Tool for Social Equity** - A speaker urges envisioning a five‑year future where generative AI is leveraged to improve health, education, childcare, and income equality rather than merely boosting worker efficiency. - [00:18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUqke_km3s&t=1114s) **Closing Remarks & Listener Call‑to‑Action** - The host thanks guest Reshma, encourages the audience to rewatch the episode, stay tuned, and promises future content. ## Full Transcript
We have to present
AI as what I like to call aspirational AI.
We have to present AI as a tool that you can use to
solve Covid, climate or cancer.
And and I think if we present it that way, if we introduce it that way, if we
if we ask girls to use it in that way, I think it will change the game.
It is undeniable that we've moved on from the hype of AI
and into the reality of it.
In other words, it's here
and we better start taking advantage of it if we want to keep up.
But there is a gap between people who are taking action
and those who are still learning, or perhaps fear learning.
More than that, some people are left behind, even though they'd rather not be.
So today we're talking to Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls
Who Code, about what she's doing to ensure that AI is accessible to all.
So, Reshma, thank you so much for being here.
Oh, thank you, Albert, for having me. Let's start with the basics, though.
What are the standard things that people need to know about AI in order
to truly participate in it?
First of all, I always think AI is not going anywhere, right?
The question is really about how fast it's really going to change everything
about the way that we live and work.
And so I think
everybody needs to be able to tinker and to play and to build and create.
You know, I always say like one of the things that people
forget it even about, in coding we went through this with coding, right?
Where we went from having very few girls, very few poor
people, being able to code to recognizing that computational thinking,
you know, telling a computer what to do was critical for for everybody.
And then, you know, because we didn't actually start teaching coding
to the most vulnerable from the beginning, we were always trying to play catch up.
Well, then in that case,
if you're not already using it on a day to day basis, are you already behind?
I think it's not too late.
I think part of it depends.
Like I say this as a parent,
do I think that my four year old needs to be, you know, on ChatGPT right now?
Probably not. Right.
Do I think that, like the people who work with me at Moms First need
to be playing and building stuff and creating stuff and understanding AI?
Absolutely. And that's what's interesting.
I read a stat somewhere that almost 70% of people get exposure to AI at work.
Most of the time where people are actually learning
what generative AI is, is often at work.
So work ends up being that gateway for most people.
Absolutely.
And sometimes people are using it and they don't even know that they are.
And I think that's what's been for me, like one of the big problems
that we're trying to solve, both at Girls Who Code and Moms
First is really the gender gap that is now being created, you know, with gen AI.
So right now 50% of men have used gen AI before, compared to 37% of women.
So you're already starting to see this gap.
And you ask yourself, why is that?
Part of the reason why I think you're seeing this gap
is because the brand of AI sucks.
When we talk about AI, we're often like, that's cheating.
You know what I mean? It's something bad.
It's something nefarious.
And here's the thing.
Women, we're you know, we basically follow the rules.
We don't want to be labeled as cheaters.
We don't want to be labeled as doing something we're not supposed to be doing.
And so I think that's one of the reasons why you're often seeing this gap.
And so part of what we think is important to do is like bake it into things
that, like, you're going to be doing in your everyday life, like banking, right?
You're going to be balancing your checkbook in your everyday life.
So if gen AI is already baked into when you go to bankofamerica.com,
you're already using it.
You know, a tool that we built at Moms First is called paidleave.ai.
And what we find is that oftentimes the people that are searching
for whether they have paid leave benefits are women.
And so then they use the tool paid leave AI
and they’re like, oh wow, this is it?
Like it's not scary.
It's not something that's bad.
It's not something that's nefarious.
It's not something you've to be like a math PhD to be able to use.
Right?
It's accessible, it's available, it's transparent,
and it shifts people's consciousness and thinking about AI.
So throughout your work then with young women,
what are some of the factors that end up limiting their potential or trying to
to hinder versus what are some factors that bolster that potential?
Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing to remember is that usage is important.
So we forget that the world's first programmer was a woman, Ada Lovelace,
in 1995.
If you went to any gaming camp in America,
it would have been half boys, half girls.
When computers became lucrative,
you know, when it became cool, we pushed women out.
And today, you know, you might actually have more
computer scientists in 1995 than you have today.
So ever since then, we've been trying to, you know, we've been basically trying
to play catch up. And culture hasn't helped.
You know, you watch like, movies like Weird Science, Revenge of the Nerds
and it's like some, you know, cool guy coder or not cool guy
coders, you know, sitting in the basement somewhere and girls are like,
I don't want to, you know,
not only do I not want to be him, I don't even want to be friends with him.
But the culture of technology turned girls off.
The exact same thing is happening with AI,
because we present artificial intelligence as a tool
that's going to displace workers as a tool that's about cheating.
We turn
off women off, which is why you're seeing a gender gap in the tool
that was only introduced, what, a handful of years ago? Already.
You're already seeing it.
And so to me, the big thing is how do you change that?
Because the reality is, is AI is here to stay.
And how do you meet girls where where they're at?
So when it came to coding, we knew that if you were trying to,
if you portrayed coding as a tool that girls could use
to actually solve problems they cared about,
when you talk to a teenage girl,
she'll say, when you say, what do you wanna do with your life?
She'll say, I want to make the world a better place.
Maybe her brother's dyslexic or you know, her grandma has diabetes
or somebody in her, you know, in her class is being bullied.
She thinks about what she can do to make it better.
So when you present a technology as a tool that you can use to help changemake,
we change the game, Albert.
We went from having 20% of young women graduating with a CS degree
to today, almost 50%.
We have to do the same thing with AI.
We have to present AI as what I like I like to call aspirational AI.
We have to present AI as a tool that you can use to
solve Covid, climate or cancer.
And and I think if we present it that way, if we introduce it that way, if we
if we ask girls to use it in that way, I think it will change the game.
But that also means that there have to be examples of AI as a tool for good.
And so that's why I'm so excited about what we've built with paidleave.ai.
And so, you know, I think the other thing you're asking is, look, if you ask girls,
they would have told you that you were going to have deepfakes,
that AI was going to be used to sexually exploit girls.
So, at Girls Who Code, it's incumbent upon us to be introducing these tools,
getting them comfortable with it so that they can be changemakers
in building responsible, good, aspirational AI.
You're talking about building changemakers.
You're talking about building leaders.
What does it take to be a leader in AI?
First of all, I think anybody can be a leader in AI.
I think what it takes right now is making sure that AI is simply not just for those
who have wealth, who have access, you know, who have exposure.
Like, to me, when I built Girls Who Code,
I started with refugee camps and the most vulnerable.
I said, if I could teach there,
if I could teach in schools where the internet was disparate,
then that meant that I could actually, any girl, any child could learn how to code.
It's the same thing with AI.
You know, right now you're already seeing a disparity.
You know, kids from title one schools,
they don't have ChatGPT in their classroom.
But you better believe that every school, every private school in New York City,
the kids have already built their own personal ChatGPT.
So to me, you know, if you want to have people that are problem solvers,
that are leaders, if you want to solve our biggest
and toughest problems, you need to make sure that everybody
has exposure to this tool and to this technology.
I'm loving where we're going because when we're
talking about participants in something, learners
in something versus leaders in something, and I know that the data often shows
that learners tend to ask for permission before doing something.
And leaders tend to do the thing,
and then maybe, I don't know, you have to apologize sometimes afterwards.
Where do you sit on that?
Are you someone who believes that in order to be a leader in AI,
you should be acting first and then think about it later?
Or does this require real thought before doing anything?
I mean, I'm the girl who started Girls Who Code when I didn't even have,
you know what I mean? When I didn't even know how to code.
You know, I was a poli sci major, not a comp sci major,
but I had an idea of a problem that needed to be solved, and
I thought I could do it.
So for me, it's the same thing with AI, you know, I,
I basically like I said in my right now I lead an organization called Moms First.
And so the things that I'm obsessed with
is passing paid leave in childcare in America.
And right now, one out of four women have paid leave.
And the United States is the only industrialized nation that hasn't passed
paid leave.
So to me, and part of the reason why is, is that you need to build
a movement of parents that are demanding it in order to change it.
So right now, it's not a federal policy, but nine states and D.C.
offer paid leave benefits.
So if you live in New York and you know you have a baby,
if your employer doesn't offer you paid leave, the state does.
The problem
is, is that if you go to the website and you say, am I eligible for paid leave?
It's really confusing and you often just give up.
So people instead
take their sick days or their vacation days, or lose up to $10,000 in wages
to basically because they just again give up on whether they know
that they're eligible for the benefits. That's real money, though, Reshma.
That's real money. That's real.
But now enter AI.
This is a great use case for AI, because what AI has been able to do
is make it simpler.
So within five minutes you can learn am I eligible?
How much money can I get and what's my action plan?
So you have more people that will file paid leave claims
because we've made the process simpler.
And so I had an idea that a tool could be built like this.
I reached out to my friend and we just built it.
And let me tell you, when we were building that tool, I had no idea what it was,
how to build it, but I learned, and in the process
I realized that like, oh, I can do this.
I Reshma Suajani,
poli sci major, law degree major, you know, never took a coding class,
I too could build a tool using generative AI to do some good in the world.
And that means everybody can.
What else can we be doing in order to use AI that would actually be benefiting
underserved communities?
I mean, like to me, the benefits space is like ripe.
Medicare, Medicaid, Snap, right?
Any time a low or moderate income person has to go on a website, student loan
forgiveness, any time you have to go get something that you've already paid into.
And listen, let's be honest, it's like it's
like when you go to the airport and like, the duty free desk is like, you know,
you know what I mean,
all the way back there, like we sometimes make it so damn hard.
But this is real money for people.
This is the difference between paying for diapers,
putting food on the table, making your rent
you know, sleeping in your bed or sleeping in the streets.
This is real.
And so to me, I think everybody in this space should be thinking about
how do I build, how do I use this technology for good?
Not just talk about it, but do it.
And here's the thing, because Moms First wasn't a company,
we could actually put this tool out there and learn.
And if it wasn't perfect, if it, you know, I mean, got it
wrong a couple of times or if it just did, it was real slow.
Yeah. You know, and you're going to get complaints about it.
It was okay.
And I think right now, as different cities or municipalities have kind of tinkered
and played with, like introducing chat bots that are trying to serve the public.
Oftentimes when that chat bot isn't perfectly executed, they pull it down.
And I think we got to be open to learning.
We have to be open to failing. We have to be open to making mistakes.
Well then it's clear what's in it for underserved communities
if we start creating more ways for them to engage in AI.
But what's in it for the businesses, Reshma?
Like why should a business invest in making AI accessible?
You're not gonna make as much money as you can
if you're leaving half the population behind. Period.
You know, I always say this, it's like, you know,
you don't even know what you need, what you want, how you would build something,
what the use cases are.
And so like, when are we going to learn?
That's my question.
When are we going to learn that immediately
when we're trying to revolutionize something, we got to have women around
the table, LGBTQ around the table, poor people around the table, men around.
I mean, everybody needs to be sitting around the table
thinking about how the technology can be used.
When are we going to figure it out? I don't know.
I thought you had an answer, Reshma. You've been working on it.
Listen, as they often say, like we're not going to, we can't wait.
Right now, it's funny, I think with AI we're just stuck in this conversation
about is it good is it bad, you know, should we, you know, yes or no?
I mean, I was talking to somebody the other day
that like it's still banned in schools, which is bananas to me.
Right. It’s here.
It ain't going anywhere. We got to accept it. It's reality.
Now the question is, is like,
how do we make sure, right, that everybody has access to it?
How do we make sure that we do build it responsibly, right.
That we do take it?
We do take in account of the, you know, for it to do really bad things.
And how do we stop that from happening.
But we can't deny that it's here.
Well, look, we're about 40 years out from when the internet
first came on the scene for us,
and there are still people in certain communities
that don't have access to high speed internet.
40% of low income Americans still don't have access to high speed internet.
I can't tell you how many Girls Who Code clubs still cannot operate
for an entire hour, because the internet goes in and out.
It’s ridiculous, and it's often poor people.
It's often the most vulnerable.
They're the ones that are not only do we give them
the technology to last, but we scare them the most.
It's this fear mongering piece that I find very fascinating.
The same thing happened with the internet.
I mean, I remember when I couldn't use, you know,
my computer in my law school class or use Google, right?
It was, why is it, right, that the poorest communities
were the last to get broadband?
And so it's the same thing that's going to happen
with AI if we don't change that now,
Is that gap widening or do you think...
Yes. We're still stuck in the conversation of is it good or is it bad?
Give me something. Give me something positive.
What kind of hope, what kind of...
Oh my God, I have so much hope.
I mean, here's the thing, I mean, you should see the things that my girls
are already starting to build and thinking about use cases for generative AI,
in science, in medicine, in education.
Think about, for example, if every child who,
because of the pandemic is now a grade level or a grade level
and a half behind, if every single one of them had their own
AI tutor, how we could actually
close the gap in math and science and reading.
Imagine if every mother, two thirds of the caregiving work is done by women.
Imagine if every mother in America had a generative
AI tool that helped them do the laundry, make the task,
help them, you know, pick up their mom, make sure to remind their mother
who needs to take her diabetes pills like it's like, think about all the ways
that you could use generative AI to make people's lives easier.
Better.
Give me more, because now I want to live in Reshma’s world.
So can you give me an idea of what does five years into the future
look like in terms of what has AI empowered us to do?
How have we use this as a tool
to create stronger communities, but also for us to further each other?
We know, for example, that
what AI is going to do is as workers make us more efficient
because we live in a capitalist society, and I'm a big believer in it still.
I think, though,
we have to make sure that we just don't
become a more efficient worker so we just do more work.
I challenge us to figure out how we can actually use generative AI
to solve our biggest problems.
How do we use generative AI to make sure that people live longer,
because they have a better sense, right, of their own medical history,
or they have a better sense of, you know, what they can do to have more longevity.
You know, how do we use generative AI to make sure that we,
you know, help kids with educational gaps that make sure that we close
the poverty gap between kids, you know, who have and who don't,
you know, how do we use generative AI like I said, in terms of the issues
that I'm working on right now, like childcare and paid leave?
How do we use it in terms of like benefits,
to make sure that people are actually, that we're closing the income gap?
I believe that AI can actually help close income gaps,
and it's not just going to be through UBI income, right?
It's going to be through the actual tool itself.
What's one piece of advice that you can offer to folks
who might still be a little bit timid, a little bit of afraid of approaching
using AI?
Yeah. And listen, and I don't want to gaslight people on their fear.
The fear is real, right?
There are, there are, it can do some really bad things.
And we know that. Right.
And we already see that quite frankly with, with, you know, deepfakes.
I think the thing is, is that where we need to move towards is
how do we use AI for good, how do we close the access gap
before it even gets so big that it's impossible to close?
Now, Reshma, you are using your many talents for good,
and I hear that one of those ways is through a podcast.
Tell me about this podcast.
I'm launching a podcast with Lemonada Media called my So-Called Midlife.
And I am obsessed about this, and I'm going to be speaking to amazing
women like, you know, Cheryl Strayed and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Justice
Ketanji Jackson and Esther Perel and, you know,
so I think a lot of women in their mid life, they've been sold this con
that you know, we're still supposed to be chasing the beauty of the 20s,
that the older you get, like you're done, like, that it's over
that every day is Groundhog's Day.
And so and I think that that creates a sense with women and like, is this it?
But the reality is, is this could be and should be the best time of our lives
because we're wiser, you know, we're at this place of like,
I don't give a frick what anybody thinks about me, right?
I'm here or I'm entering the second act of my life
that's going to be better than the first act of my life.
I have freedom, I have wisdom, I have friends, relationships, and so how do...
but I think for a lot of women, we don't have the playbook
to figure out how you even get there.
And so this podcast, me talking to really smart women and academics
and celebrities about how midlife is like the best time of their life,
and about some real tips and tricks of like what we need to do
to make sure that it is.
I wish that we had even more time with you,
but I guess we just have to tune into your podcast for that.
What a fantastic conversation this has been, Reshma.
Thank you for sharing insight, for empowering us today.
And friends, thank you all so much for tuning on,
and we thank you for spending your time with us.
And I encourage you just keep it locked on in.
I know you were taking notes on Reshma.
You can rewatch this again. All right. So we'll see you again soon.