Women in Artificial Intelligence
On December 19, 2024, having finished my holiday shopping, I was relaxing by browsing Substack articles about one of my passions, AI (artificial intelligence) (Yes, that’s relaxing. Proud data geek here!). I came across a post by an author I won’t name. He asked four questions of ten Substack authors writing about AI, and recommended subscribing to them. Care to guess how many of the ten were women?
Yeah, none.
That didn’t sit right with me. So I sent a message to the author of the post.
“Hi XXX, your piece XXXXXXXX was interesting. I noticed that all ten people appear to be men. With so many women working in AI nowadays, it was disappointing to see an article with none. Something to consider for future?”
His response?
“Certainly! These were all people I had connected with on Substack and unfortunately both in the field of AI and writing about it on Substack there are far more men than women. I’m glad to connect with you, Karen!”
He’s not wrong that “unfortunately both in the field of AI and writing about it on Substack there are far more men than women.” And that’s not as it should be. But I knew I was far from the only woman working in AI and data AND writing about it on Substack. I was already subscribed to 33 newsletters, by women from eight countries, who wrote about AI and data on Substack — some having thousands of subscribers. But he (and others) literally didn’t see us.
That chat spurred me to create a list seeded with those 33 women writers I subscribed to (As a friend kindly pointed out after it was published, I actually forgot to include myself on my list). When I posted it to Substack Notes later that day and tagged the women in the list, it took off (“Where are the Women in AI and Data? Look Here!”)!
How It’s Going
Thanks to many encouraging responses, I began sharing the directory link beyond Substack, first to LinkedIn, then to Bluesky and Mastodon. Through a combination of recommendations, suggestions from women and from male allies, and some tedious searching, the list has now grown to 280 women and nonbinary folks in 40+ countries. The directory now includes a searchable table with LinkedIn profiles, Bluesky handles, podcast links, and even some book links.
How It’s Helped
As of March 2025, the post has gotten 2000+ views, 65 restacks, 15 reshares, 105 likes, and 93 comments (the most of any article I’ve written on Substack). It’s also driven 53 new subscriptions to my newsletter.
Beyond what the data says, here are four ways that the directory has already proven useful.
- I’ve discovered dozens of cool AI people worldwide to follow.
- By searching to build the list, I found several people in the United States and other countries who have now become valued interview guests, collaborators, and friends.
- Women in AI and data who are new to Substack have messaged me that the directory has helped them find their community and get started with whom to follow.
- A LinkedIn friend not in AI who had seen me post the directory tagged me in a LinkedIn comment to ask if I knew of any women in AI in the greater Boston area for an opportunity. The directory included four Boston women, and I tagged them into the LinkedIn conversation. One of the writers chimed in and began a discussion with the poster about their AI needs. This is how we build community!
What do Women in AI write about?
This wordcloud shows the most common terms in the newsletter descriptions for the first 280 writers (I filtered out ‘artificial intelligence’ because it dominated the image too much).
Most women write about technologies, insights, data, products, and global, human, and technical aspects. Many women write about using AI as a writer, or teaching others how to write about:
- using AI for their writing or for creating images for their writing
- ethical or other reasons why they don’t use AI for their writing
- using AI for business tasks relating to their writing (such as writing marketing copy or sales emails)
- the challenges of teaching students to write and use AI responsibly for their writing, or how they deal with plagiarism
- the impact of generative AI ubiquity on their writing businesses and rights.
Some women cover more than one aspect. For instance, Janet Salmons has decades of experience in “methods innovation, collaboration, creativity, and ethics in a digital world”. She has authored twelve books about research, education, and collaboration, including Doing Qualitative Research Online (2022). Janet publishes the monthly newsletter “When the Field is Online”, which “Explore[s] ways to use creativity, collaboration, and qualitative research to build new understandings in a connected world.“
One of Janet’s publishers, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, allowed multiple AI tool companies to train their AI models on the content of 3 books and a chapter she wrote, without her consent and without compensating her. Then she discovered that a popular generative AI tool ‘generated’ writing that was verbatim from one of her books (uncredited). She received no compensation from the AI tool provider either, despite reaching out to the Author’s Guild which is currently litigating AI book pricing. Janet has written posts and notes on Substack about this problem.
Another example writer in the list is Jane Rosenzweig. She has been the Director of the Harvard College Writing Center for over 20 years. Jane “teaches writing and writes about writing” and about AI in two newsletters: “Writing Hacks” (“Writing is hard, but we may miss having written.”) and “The Important Work” (“Teaching writing in the age of AI”).
What’s Next for Women in Artificial Intelligence?
Janet and Jane are just two of the 280 awesome women I’ve found so far who write about AI and data on Substack. They span diverse viewpoints and ages. If you’re eager to learn about how AI can, should, and should not be used for writing, or to learn from more viewpoints about AI, please check out the list and subscribe to some of these amazing writers. Most of the newsletters are free.
“Where are the Women in Artificial Inteligence and Data? Look Here!”
Find Karen here:
substack.com/@karensmiley
linkedin.com/in/karensmiley/
bsky.app/profile/karensmiley.substack.com
mastodon.social/@karensmiley
