The Cercle InterElles, launched in 2001, will unveil its “Women & AI” charter on Thursday 4 March. Co-constructed with SAP France, it aims to effectively fight against the risks of discriminating cognitive bias when designing or using solutions or devices based on artificial intelligence. SAP’s participation is more broadly in line with the company’s vision for a more gender-balanced and gender-neutral new technology sector.
“Artificial intelligence is a mirror of our social and cultural representations. It is a powerful tool for interpreting reality, with the risk of amplifying its excesses. Armed with the knowledge of the biases and opportunities of this technology, the aim today is to open up a new era benefiting from the contributions of digital technology in a responsible manner”, explains the “Women & AI” team of the Cercle InterElles.
This charter will be presented on Thursday 4 March 2021 during the 20th Colloquium of the Cercle InterElles, in the presence of Elisabeth Moreno, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister, in charge of Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities.
Involved in the Cercle InterElles since July 2019 through its SAP Business Women’s Network, SAP has decided to become more involved in the issue of artificial intelligence by signing the “Women & AI” charter for responsible and gender-neutral artificial intelligence. The charter is based on seven fundamental principles: the AI committee and governance, compliance from the design stage, data selection and processing, responsibility and algorithmic ethics, evaluation and checkpoints, diversity of AI teams, awareness and accountability.
Taking this issue very seriously, SAP is committed at the highest level, with the support of its executive committee. As the first signatory of the charter, SAP is joined by other companies that will be unveiled on March 4, 2021 at the 20th Colloque du Cercle InterElles.
“SAP is a key player in AI in the world but also in France. Out of our R&D of 1200 people in France, 150 engineers are dedicated to this technology in our center in Paris. Our AI technologies included in our HR solutions enable our customers to fight against bias. SAP has also been involved for many years in the field of gender diversity. We have been leading a working group on this topic at Tech For Good for several years. It was therefore only natural to go further with this charter,” explains Gérald Karsenti, President of SAP France.
“SAP is committed to its role as the global leader in enterprise software, which gives us responsibility for such important issues as this: the latest developments in our software are moving towards the Intelligent Enterprise, which of course includes the use of artificial intelligence. The most important issue is user confidence in these advanced technologies, so we are working, for example, on the integration of explanation techniques in our analytical offers, which make it possible to explain results, including biases. In addition, we have had a proactive approach with an IA ethics committee for 3 years,” explains Erik Marcadé, Director of SAP Labs Paris.
Distinguished for the second consecutive year by the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, SAP is implementing several initiatives, such as the programs Les Décodeuses and Femmes Entrepreneures, to promote parity in a sector still largely dominated by men.
Translated from Charte « Femmes & IA » du Cercle InterElles : SAP s’engage en faveur de la diversité
