WHEN PREPARING THE publicity plan for Made by Humans (MUP, 2018), my book about data, artificial intelligence and ethics, I made one request of my publisher: no ‘women in technology’ panels.

I have never liked drawing attention to the fact that I’m a woman in technology. Gender is an uncomfortable topic for me. I don’t want the most prominent fact about me to be my gender, rather than my expertise or my experience, or the impact my work has. In male-dominated settings, the last thing I want to feel is that I’m only there because of my gender, or that it’s the first thing people notice about me. I don’t like that being described as a ‘woman in tech’ flattens my identity, makes gender the defining wrapper around my experience, irrespective of race, class, education, family history, political beliefs and all the other hows and whys that make life more complicated. These are some of the intellectual reasons.