Kara Bombell spent 15 years in senior corporate roles before she saw AI coming like a train from the side and left to do something about it. Now cofounder of EthicAI and on the Governance Institute of Australia's AI Expert Panel, she helps organisations keep humans at the helm. Kara explains why the so called soft skills are the hardest, how biased data can screen women out, why she uses AI as a sparring partner, and how a Year 8 protest at Santa Sabina shaped her conviction.

Key Takeaways:

• Cognitive atrophy is the risk we're underestimating: If the next generation hands its questioning over to AI, Kara asks how it will ever build the critical thinking needed to challenge it.
• The so called soft skills are the hardest ones: Empathy, presence, opinion, creativity, hope and vision are what AI can't do, and they have long been undervalued as feminised traits.
• A human in the loop is not a human at the helm: Oversight means little unless people are given the time, context and information to genuinely own the decisions they sign off.
• Use AI as a sparring partner, not a ghostwriter: Kara always writes her own first draft, then asks AI to find the holes in her argument.
• Curiosity can take you further than credentials: Without a coding degree, Kara followed her curiosity from documentary film into digital, then out of corporate life to found EthicAI.
• Biased data quietly produces biased decisions: When hiring tools learn from historic patterns, capable women can be screened out without anyone noticing.
• Back yourself where you see a gap: Kara's advice to young women is the lesson she learnt the hard way, that the people around you rarely know more than you do.

Notable Quotes:

1. "I don't see AI as the next internet. It's not just another technical advance. It's actually a completely seismic change." — Kara Bombell
2. "Don't use it to replace your thinking. Use it to challenge your thinking." — Cynthia Myssy
3. "We've historically called them soft skills, but they're actually the most challenging skills." — Kara Bombell
4. "You can't say that the systems themselves are sexist. It's actually the data is sexist." — Kara Bombell
5. "There's so much opportunity if you open up into the world with that sense of curiosity." — Kara Bombell
6. "Realistically the work of art is yourself. It's your personality. It's your experience. It's your knowledge." — Kara Bombell
7. "I really needed to back myself at multiple points in my career, but I just didn't because I felt that everyone else knew something else that I didn't know." — Kara Bombell

Links for the show notes

• EthicAI: https://www.ethicai.au/
• Selma: selma.au
• Santa Sabina Ex-Students Association: https://www.ssc.nsw.edu.au/community/ex-students-association/

For any thoughts, comments and suggestions regarding this episode, feel free to contact us at santaexstudents@gmail.com. Join the conversation on  Santa Sabina College Alumni Facebook Group.