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.