(US & Canada) VIDEO | Women Should Be at the Table for Companies to Develop Better — Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services CIO

Besa Bauta, Chief Information Officer, Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services, speaks with Asha Saxena, Founder and CEO of WLDA.tech, in the CDO Magazine's Women's History Month series of video interviews, about celebrating women in tech, her evolving role with regards to AI, the future of LLMs, the need for updated privacy regulations, and the role of women in data and technology.

Women should be celebrated 12 months of the year, says Bauta, as she reflects on the past contributions and how the present ones are paving the future.

When asked about her evolving role and how AI became a critical strategic element, Bauta shares that she had been a CDAO before the current CIO role. The CDAO role was limited to data and analytics, whereas, as a CIO, she has greater control over the technology and architecture stack.

Highlighting the strategic inclusion of AI in the role, Bauta affirms deploying Microsoft Copilot. She states that with Office 365 being ubiquitous in every organization, one must assess how to bring in AI and make it practical for the workforce.

She believes that embedding generative models and chat applications within the ecosystem allows individuals to work better and with ease. Bauta maintains that its greatest value lies in freeing up people’s time to devote to something creative, and AI is another tool in the toolbox to make lives easier.

Shedding light on large language models (LLMs), she states that similar to other tools, it is critical to note how it is implemented in the organization and what is the intended use. Further, it is crucial to know the source to minimize the error rate.

As the language models expand, the compute power and complexity expand giving rise to new formulations that were not a part of the original design, says Bauta. The evolving technology piques her interest in its future.

According to Bauta, in the future, the interface will not be a textbox, but a digital-human interaction. She then discusses a podcast that mentioned someone training an LLM with the recorded pictures of the deceased mother to create her image to cope with the loss.

The scary part, says Bauta, is that the realness of the application might make one forget that it is, after all, an application. She reiterates how this is only scratching the surface and these tools humanize that experience but points out that younger generations will have immersive experiences like that with virtual reality or 3D.

Adding on, Bauta says that there will be 3D immersion experiences where historical figures come alive to tell historical stories, delivering a visual, auditory, and spatial 3D way of learning.

Moving forward, she discusses that with the models becoming more sophisticated by the day, putting guardrails is a must. She asserts that it is imperative to assess how the information is used to ensure it does not end up with the bad actors.

However, Bauta states that government rules, regulations, and guidelines have not matched the speed of technology when it comes to evolving. Therefore, she contemplates on putting laws and regulations while keeping track of the prevalent technologies.

Referring to the Industrial Revolution era, Bauta discusses the fear of technologies and being replaced by them. She explains this further with the washing machine’s example and how it was thought to make women inefficient. On the contrary, it made women more efficient as they could distribute time to other meaningful work.

According to Bauta, it is critical to understand what privacy means in this day and age, and notes that the privacy regulations made in the 60s do not apply to the current scenario. She maintains that the original privacy laws must be updated to reflect current technologies and needs while planning for the future.

Highlighting the role of women in data, Bauta stresses humanizing the data and having digital twins or representative images because one wants to represent human society digitally. To put forth a true representation, having additional voices and perspectives infused into what is being developed is fundamental, she adds.

That is why it is a must for women to be at the table for companies to develop more, says Bauta. While unfortunately, women’s presence is still a minority, she applauds individuals like Saxena, who strive towards more and better women representation and inclusion.

Bauta affirms that this aids in creating a better product that works for the entire society and not just a segment. It should be done in a way that technology is not clustered with big conglomerate corporations, but it benefits everyone.

In conclusion, she dedicates Women's History Month to all mothers for all their sacrifices as individuals and for creating the future workforce.

CDO Magazine appreciates Besa Bauta for sharing her invaluable insights with our global community.