The future of AI is not predetermined. It is being written now.

The Cost of Inaction

If our influence in the world of AI remains low or decline, the consequences will be profound and affect all of society. This is not a test for women to pass, it's a test for humanity to pass.

1. Technology that deepens inequality

AI systems, created predominantly by a single demographic (men), will continue to be trained on data reflecting historical biases. Without a female perspective, these flaws will not only go unfixed but will be automated and deployed on a massive scale.

• Imagine medical AI systems designed to diagnose heart disease being trained primarily on data from male patients. Such a system would systematically misdiagnose women, whose heart attack symptoms are often different. The result would be a real threat to health and life.
• Tools, applications, and technologies will emerge that ignore the needs, experiences, and biology of half the population.
• If left uncorrected, automated recruitment systems will continue to favor men for technical and managerial positions, creating a vicious cycle of exclusion.

2. Economic consequences

• As AI-related jobs become the highest-paid on the market, the gender pay gap will drastically widen.
• Companies and entire economies will lose the immense innovative potential that diverse teams bring, leading to reduced competitiveness.
• As administrative and service jobs are automated, women face the threat of mass technological unemployment without a pathway into new technological roles.

3. Social and cultural consequences

• Technology, which was meant to be a tool for democratization and progress, will become a tool for reinforcing patriarchal structures. The progress made in the fight for equality during the 20th century could be largely undone.
• Young girls will not see women as the creators of the future, which will discourage them from choosing scientific and technological paths. This will impact the aspirations of entire generations.
• The female perspective is crucial in areas such as ethics, safety, the impact of technology on human relationships, and mental well-being. Without this perspective, AI development may focus solely on optimization and profit, ignoring the human and social costs.

Why is our representation so incredibly important?

Because technology is not neutral. It carries the fingerprints of its creators. Whoever builds it, sets the rules.

We are creating technology that will affect almost every aspect of our lives, from medicine and education to social relationships. If it is designed mainly by men, who currently dominate this field, it will inevitably be burdened with a one‑sided perspective.

It is not enough to be just a reviewer, an ethicist or a product manager. Women have to be in the very heart of the engine room, where models are built and fundamental architectural decisions are made. Only then will we not lose control over the world we live in, and only then will the future truly be shared.

Reducing women’s participation to the “soft” aspects of artificial intelligence, however important they are, would mean repeating the old mistake of handing all technical power to a single group.

And which “old mistakes” do we mean?

“Handing all technical power to one group” is a mistake that has repeated itself for centuries. Women had no access to technical, scientific or medical professions, even when they had the skills and knowledge. This began to change only in the mid‑19th century and today the problem has been largely reduced, but some mental associations still persist.

Just think of how hard it was for Marie Curie‑Skłodowska to get into university. At that time it was impossible in Poland (under Tsarist Russian rule); she managed only in Paris, and even there it was not easy. The Nobel Committee objected to her simply because she was a woman. If it hadn’t been for the fact that the whole group at the Solvay Conference supported her, led by Albert Einstein, she would likely have been dismissed as nothing more than Pierre’s wife.

Algorithms learn from the data we feed them. If those data are historically loaded with bias, AI will reproduce that bias.

There is the famous example of Amazon’s recruitment algorithm. The system was trained on CVs from the previous 10 years and, because men dominated in IT, it “learned” that words like “women’s” (for example, in “women’s chess club”) were a negative signal. As a result, the algorithm automatically filtered out women’s CVs. That was a real, measurable exclusion of women, encoded directly in the data.

And this is exactly why we need women in teams. We need someone who, during a model review, will ask: “Wait, have we checked how this algorithm performs for all genders? Are our training data perhaps too homogeneous?” A diverse team is simply a better team, because it is more resilient to errors.

And this is not only a question of fairness, it is a question of quality. Think about the first speech recognition systems, which performed worse on women’s voices. Or car crash tests, where dummies were built around the “average man’s” body, which meant women were more likely to be injured. If women had been part of those design teams, many of these mistakes would have been caught much earlier.

This brings us to the heart of the FLARE movement. We want to show every girl and every woman who is listening that your perspective is priceless, and your experiences are the missing data. Building a world of artificial intelligence without women is like designing a city based on the needs of only half of its inhabitants. Such a city would not only be uncomfortable; in the long term it would simply be dysfunctional.

In the context of AI, “knowing” how models work and how they are built is more than just a technical skill. You learn to solve problems that matter to you. Whether it’s analysing medical data, optimising processes in your company, or creating an app that helps your community, knowledge of AI gives you the tools to turn ideas into reality.

See for yourself how amazing, powerful and attractive this field can be. Do you want to join the elite group shaping the future? Join us.

This is not an obligation; it is an aspiration. A woman who creates artificial intelligence becomes an icon of the future – intelligent, creative and influential. That is what is truly “cool”. That is what is truly “sexy”.

The Turning Point

A growing awareness, a handful of initiatives, and the fundamental need to create better, more equitable technology give real hope and a basis for optimism. But it is still just a drop in an ocean of unmet needs.

What really concerns us is the position of women in the coming world of AI. What we are sensitive about is that, if AI systems continue to be created mostly by men, how much can we expect them to truly benefit us? An implicit male perspective will be programmed into AI and into the very code of the future itself. Will we not become completely alienated in a world created exclusively by men?

It’s not us women vs. them men. We want to remove the stereotypes that have poisoned the industry for too long and eliminate the factors that scare and deter women. We are returning to the world of technology, science and engineering, fully aware that if we do not engage with technology, we can become irrelevant in the coming age of AI. As simple as that.

On the other hand, balance in AI will help keep us on an equal playing field, allowing us to shape and control the future on equal terms.

Our future in AI is not a foregone conclusion. It is being actively shaped right here, right now. Our involvement is not just beneficial, it is crucial for the healthy and sustainable development of our entire civilization.