I'm an AI expert and this is what all women should know about artificial intelligence

“AI is, fundamentally, going to change everything,” says mathematician, broadcaster and author Hannah Fry. “We’ve entered a new era and there is no going back. AI is only going to become a bigger part of our lives.”

To some of us, this statement might be a little disconcerting. But as data, algorithms and machine learning continue to transform society, Hannah is on a mission to demystify the world of artificial intelligence, and make tech and programming more accessible spaces, particularly for women and girls.

“We are at a moment in time when being a female in these subjects is a genuine superpower, but there is still a giant, gaping chasm of female perspective that needs to be filled,” Hannah says.

In partnership with Samsung – who in January this year introduced Galaxy AI to its new Galaxy S24 Series and additional flagship devices, bringing the era of mobile AI to new heights – Hannah sits down with GLAMOUR to share how she predicts AI will shape the future, the misconceptions and misinformation around it, and why the industry needs more women in its boardrooms…

AI is nothing new

We’ve all been using some kind of artificial intelligence for a number of years without even knowing  it. For example, when I sit in my car, the car measures the weight distribution of how I’m sitting in my seat, so that if I have a car crash, it will automatically adjust the direction in which the airbag is blown out. That’s AI. It’s everywhere. When you’re talking on a Zoom or Teams meeting, it’s beaming invisible microwaves up to space and back down again just so you can speak to one another – there are all kinds of machine learning and artificial intelligence going on there.

But I think up until the last year or so, artificial intelligence has been very much invisible.

You can't have artificial intelligence which requires a PhD in maths to be able to work it. So, it’s all been behind the scenes. But now, companies like Samsung have started labelling it as ‘artificial intelligence’, so users know what it is, and start to see it as a tool to help them be more productive.

We need to think of AI more like a tool

Now we have chat bots that can have a conversation with us, we tend to think AI has got a mind of its own and is capable of thinking like a human. We think of AI like a creature and almost deify it. Just like Alan Turing did, we think AI is the birth of a new species. And that’s what concerns people. But in reality, artificial intelligence is just a tool – something that can enhance and augment your own abilities and make you more productive. It doesn’t have experience of the world in the same way we do: it doesn’t understand context; it doesn’t understand nuance. It appears human because it’s been trained on humans. But really, it is just an algorithm. If you think of AI in that way, it becomes a lot less intimidating.

Mobile technology has never been so advanced

One thing I love about the AI features on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is the new ‘Circle to Search with Google’ function. When you’re on Instagram and you see an outfit you like, instead of asking, ‘Where did you get that jacket from?’, you can circle the item – using your finger or the S Pen – and search for information, without switching apps. It’s using image recognition to a really sophisticated level to search the internet. Another thing that’s absolutely bonkers is Galaxy AI’s Live Translate feature. You can actually have a conversation with somebody else in a different language in real time. I cannot tell you the level of complexity of programming that makes that possible. The idea of live translation has been a serious dream of academics for around 50 years or more. It’s the most phenomenal achievement.

AI is a content creator’s best friend

There’s a lot to be said for AI photo editing – which is something Samsung are pioneering with their Photo Assist technology – but even before you get to that stage, there is all sorts of AI going into making your camera phone take the best possible photo. If you’re a professional photographer, you have to manually adjust your camera's settings to take a good photo. But what the Samsung phones do is take multiple photos, then work out which bits of which photo have the correct exposure, and then combine them together all before the image even comes up. The level of technological ingenuity is unreal. But most importantly, this is done with transparency. Samsung has introduced a watermarking feature on images and within metadata so customers can know when AI has been used.

Fashion and beauty AI is a really exciting space

Around four years ago I really wanted to started a company based around beauty filters, but instead of just making it look like you’ve got makeup on, they’re more like a tutorial that guides and teaches you how to apply makeup . Or that would automatically analyse your exact skin tone so you could colour-match with ease. Or where you’d put on a VR headset and you’d watch yourself trying on clothes that you could potentially buy, and you just watch yourself model them in 3D, rather than spending hours in changing rooms.

We need more women working in artificial intelligence

AI in healthcare remains largely unexplored so far, and I think that’s because the people who have pushed forward the advances of artificial intelligence and technology thus far in broader sectors have been largely male-dominated groups, so they haven’t considered the number of different ways in which AI could be beneficial to women. I think fertility and menstruation is a good example. When wearable devices with health trackers were first launched, they didn't all include the ability to track menstrual cycles. For a significant percentage of the population this is quite a key component of their health that requires tracking. It’s great to see that many wearables now offer this functionality.

The world of AI has had a very rude awakening over the last few years to the biases that end up being embedded in algorithms, in terms of both gender and ethnic diversity, and I think the tech industry is actively working to change. It takes time, but it is moving in the right direction.

Being a woman in tech is a superpower

That being said, we are at a moment in time when being a female in these subjects is a genuine superpower. Young women and girls have never been more welcomed than they are now. But there’s also a giant, gaping chasm of female perspective that needs to be filled. For example, I gave a TED Talk in 2015 on ‘The Mathematics of Love’ which went viral. A journalist told me at the time, ‘A man would never have come up with this idea’, and as time’s gone on, I understand what she means. Our perspective of the world is hard-coded into the stuff we create, and because we haven’t had females creating in this space, no one else had thought of it before. We’re just at this moment in time where your perspective as a female, or as any kind of minority group, is unbelievably valuable.

Learn more about Galaxy AI here, or try Galaxy AI features for yourself with #TryGalaxy, available to all Android and iOS customers.

_{Available AI features may differ by model. Samsung account login is required for certain AI features.
Circle to Search with Google: Image simulated. Sequence shortened. Actual UX/UI may differ. Requires network connection. Availability of search functions and its supported apps may vary by country, language and device. Results may vary depending on visual matches. Users may need to update Android to latest version. Samsung account log in required for certain AI features.
Generative Edit requires a network connection.
Live Translate is available in 13 languages from launch.
Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until at least the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices.}