Direct > Data

FIXING THE BAIS

MULLENLOWE MENA, Dubai / AURORA50 / 2024

Awards:

Gold Dubai Lynx
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Overview

Credits

Overview

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

"Fixing the bAIs" is more than just a campaign; it's a movement aimed at rectifying gender bias in AI.

We directly addressed this issue with key decision-makers and women in prominent positions across various professions. By showcasing how AI image-generating tools failed to represent them, we sparked a crucial conversation about the impact of technology on gender equality. Alarmed by the implications, they became advocates, spreading awareness, educating others and encouraged image generation.

Our approach empowered individuals to become advocates, fostering meaningful dialogue and driving real change through direct action and education.

Please note that the Jurors for Dubai Lynx will be coming from outside the region and may not be aware of the specific cultural nuances of your work.

In the Middle East, the fight for women's equality in the workforce is at a critical point. Despite progress over the last half-century, female participation in the workforce is at only 25%, far below the global average of 50%. The gender gap is even more evident in leadership roles with men holding 96% of positions on corporate boards, as shown by the MSCI ACWI Index. The rise of Artificial Intelligence exacerbates this issue, reinforcing real life biases. UNESCO warns that AI is regressing decades of female progress, one prompt at a time.

Aurora50, a DEI impact agency founded in 2020, is addressing this challenge. As a catalyst for change in workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion, Aurora50 guides corporations towards more inclusive futures. They focus not just on real-world diversity but also aim to influence the virtual realm. Aurora50’s mission led to a significant initiative to fix AI biases using AI itself. Our campaign offered a solution to counteract female representation biases in AI, starting on digital platforms and expanding to reach global policymakers.

The campaign's influence was seismic gaining international recognition and influencing policies. It played a pivotal role in influencing 52 nations to adopt the EU’s first AI Act.

As a small Middle Eastern startup, Aurora50 stands as a testament to the power of not only transforming workplaces but also driving significant global societal changes and raising public awareness.

Background

Aurora50, the GCC’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion impact agency, leads companies toward fairer workplaces and strives to be recognized not only as real-life diversity champions but also as major influencers in the virtual world, advocating for an equitable future.

In response, the campaign plays a crucial role in promoting gender equity in the virtual world of AI. By addressing biases in AI, it works towards a more balanced and inclusive representation in the digital world.

Fixing the bAIs uses AI to fix AI.

The campaign created a vast database of diverse and inclusive images, featuring women from various races, ages, body types, and professions, ensuring everyone is seen and valued in the digital world.

The primary objectives of the campaign were to actively counter gender bias in AI, foster awareness about the issue, and reshape societal perceptions to promote gender-equality.

It's not just a campaign; it's a catalyst for change.

Describe the creative idea

We used AI to fix AI itself.

We turned the tables on AI using its own tools—Midjourney, DALL-E2, and Stable Diffusion. Crafting over 80,000 inclusive and diverse images of women, we injected diversity directly into AI's veins. Our website, fixingthebias.com, became the hub, disseminating these game-changing images to AI training datasets.

Beyond pixels, we educated youth through inclusive AI workshops and hosted summits on diversity. We didn't just address a problem but created a lifelong solution. With a global army of supporters, we birthed a perpetual community, a lifelong generator of images on our discord channel, dismantling AI bias, one prompt at a time.

This isn't just fixing; it's a revolution in every pixel.

Describe the strategy

Our campaign targeted influential figures—key figures in the AI industry, policymakers, AI developers, tech leaders, organisations, media, societal representatives - like KAY FIRTH-BUTTERFIELD World's First Chief AI Ethics Officer | Executive Director of governance of AI, and JANA NOVOHRADSKA UNESCO Representative | Gender Equality Rapporteur for AI, human rights, rule of law, who could spark meaningful change.

Operating across diverse platforms, from social media to open datasets, we sought to rectify biases within AI. Our campaign initiated a global conversation, grabbing their attention. Our approach involved generating thousands of inclusive images, strategically populating open datasets to reshape AI's perception of women in various professions

Notably, we actively participated in the only Plenary meeting of the Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAI), thematically linked to examining the draft Council of Europe [Framework] Convention on AI Rule of Law, which resulted in the EU's AI Act, which deems bias in datasets unacceptable.

Describe the execution

The project launched on International Women's Day, 8th of March 2023.

Using AI image-generation tools, we built an extensive collection of diverse and inclusive images featuring women in various professions. We removed gender from their metadata (file names, tags, and descriptions) and added this powerful database to our website fixingthebias.com, catapulting these images to stock image banks, social media, and AI training datasets. Additionally, we created a lifelong Discord community that continuously uses Midjourney and generates images to fix the bias, one profession at a time. We have created more than 80,000 images and trained 9 datasets, including LAION-5B (world's largest dataset of 5.85 billion image-text pairs, the biggest openly accessible image-text dataset in the world and the primary dataset for AI image-generating tools such as Midjourney, DALL·E 2 and Stable Diffusion). Major stock image companies contribute by incorporating our images for free download.

List the results

Fixing the bAIs is being pointed out as a lasting solution to fix gender bias in AI at world summits and councils, such as the Council of Europe and CAI. Acknowledged by AI scientists at Ceimia and Mila (largest concentration of deep learning academic researchers globally), the project has inspired white papers affirming its significance. Campaign's impact extends to educational institutions worldwide. Ten months after its launch, the project contributed to passing of first regulation on Artificial Intelligence, the EU's AI Act, adopted by 52 countries at the EU parliament. Nine datasets, including Liaon 5B (the world's biggest openly accessible image-text dataset) have undergone training. We also set a World Record for the most pledges received for a gender equality in the workplace campaign in 24hrs. Aurora50 now stands as a global beacon of change, showcasing its ability to transform not just workplaces but also perceptions and policies worldwide.

Describe the use of data, or how the data enhanced the campaign output

The campaign initiated by meticulously gathering data from MIT and UNESCO served as the cornerstone of our strategy. The insights gained revealed a stark reality: AI, drawing from biased datasets, perpetuates anti-female biases, with AI image-generating tools perceiving 97% of professionals as men. This data-driven understanding underscored the urgency to rectify gender bias in AI.

Data insights guided our targeting strategy. We aimed at influential figures—key players in the AI industry, policymakers, organisations, media, and societal representatives—forming a strategic alliance to initiate change. This targeted-approach ensured the campaign's message reached those with the power to make a difference.

Data integration played a pivotal role in shaping the campaign's impact. By generating over 80,000 inclusive images, the campaign actively confronted biases within AI datasets. TThese images were strategically placed in open datasets, effectively reshaping AI's perception of women in diverse professions. The campaign exemplified how data-driven insights could fuel meaningful change.

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