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The global f<a+i>r network is rooted in our <A+> Alliance sister networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, South East Asia, and the AI4D Africa Gender & Inclusion Innovation Lab, also including allies in the Northern hemisphere.
All of these organizations are working together to strengthen the capacity of regional actors, build a field of inter and intra-regional multidisciplinary teams, deepen the understanding of each region’s distinctive needs, leverage learning on collective solutions, and nurture the roots of Feminist AI in the global south, entwining it in the global north as well.
The network is one of the first of its kind to support research seeking to address holistic policy, practice, and innovation. and we invite innovators, like-minded governments and others to join our emerging coalition as the work begins in earnest – particularly those in low and middle-income countries who want to explore the positive potential of artificial intelligence in advancing gender equality.
Our goal is to debate, discuss and create new models and new ways of thinking about and creating feminist AI systems, harnessed to deliver equality outcomes, designed with inclusion at the core, for creating new opportunities and proactive, innovative correction of inequities.
We are so incredibly proud of our <A+> Alliance’s f<a+i>r Feminist AI Research Network’s second cohort of projects, which include papers and now a series of prototypes that emanate from applied research funded by the IDRC.
Feminisms in Artificial Intelligence: Automation Tools Towards A Feminist Judiciary Reform in Argentina and Mexico
The lack of transparency in the judicial treatment of gender-based violence (GBV) against women and LGBTIQ+ people in Latin America result in low report levels, mistrust in the justice system, and thus, reduced access to justice. To address this pressing issue before GBV cases become feminicides, AymurAI in prototype with Buenos Aires Criminal Court 10 will open the data from legal rulings as a step towards a feminist judiciary reform. The project identifies the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) models to generate and maintain anonymised datasets for understanding GBV, supporting policy making, and further fueling feminist collectives’ campaigns.
Towards a Feminist Framework for AI Development: From Principles to Practice
A practical approach, with a feminist perspective and located in Latin
America, to the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) asking if it is possible to develop AI that does not reproduce logics of oppression.
Workshops will explore deepening of the basic guide of questions from the initial paper, and practices for development with projects actively in development.
Regional Bi Monthly Events
Regional f<a+i>r network meetings are combinations of invitation-only or public bi-monthly events in: LAC, MENA and South East Asia.
Please check each regional hub’s page for more information and contacts.
Global F<a+i>r Launch: Benchmark DataSets
Emily Denton, Research Scientist at Google and Raejetse Sefala, Research Fellow at Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) answer the question: What do benchmark datasets mean for Feminist AI, and where do we go from here in our collective work?
Visions of Feminist AI from an anthropological perspective
Speakers:
The Smallest Viable Dataset
Instead of scale, how small can a dataset be and still be viable, for which purpose, in which context. How and where do we start collectively constructing inclusive datasets built with feminist principles that can become building blocks to be reused, stacked, and a norm. Or do we need to only think of scale? Where to begin. A debate.
Feminist Digital ID
What would a Digital ID built with feminist principles even look like? We’ve seen descriptions of pitfalls and horror, but no real visions of what we specifically need in order to build a feminist digital ID that is a positive beacon for pro-social allocation. Then, how would we set the ecosystem in place to deploy it?
Feminist AI: new models for the Global South
Presentations and discussion of the first cohort of papers developed by f<a+i>r research grantees supported by IDRC, and announcement of the first prototype selected by the Scientific Advisory Committee.
Discussion of the prototype selected from Cohort 1, and new Cohort 2 concept notes to be developed into papers and eventual prototypes. The Ethical and Community Perspective Issues and Debates will continue here.
Global Digital Digital Compact Discussion
As part of an inclusive, preparatory process, the United Nations is interested in hearing from everyone everywhere – individuals, groups, associations, organizations, entities – on what they want to see in the Global Digital Compact.
The consultation/input we are organizing will provide an opportunity to contribute to shaping the Global Digital Compact and share our views with the international community.
We’ll meet colleagues who are doing the prototypes, writing the papers, and other collaborators from around the network.
Presenting the <AI & Equality> Human Rights Toolbox for data scientists & policymakers.
We’ll look at the <AI & Equality> Human Rights Toolbox developed in collaboration with UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and EPFL, which we are expanding with a new dataset from SSA and a new Jupyter notebook this season.
Prototypes & Progress: 4 Regional Perspectives and Feminist AI Prototype Presentations & Discussion
The Tech We Need & Global Roundtable
The Tech We Need is the <A+> Alliance commitment to the Generation Equality Forum UN Women Action Coalition for Technology & Innovation for Gender Equality. A small pilot has begun in Erizo Santamaria near Tec Costa Rica’s Alajuela campus. Guests to be announced.
Regional Bi Monthly Events
Regional f<a+i>r network meetings are combinations of invitation-only or public bi-monthly events in: LAC, MENA and South East Asia.
Please check each regional hub’s page for more information and contacts.
Algorithmic Decision Making: Call for Expressions of Interest
Algorithmic Decision Making systems are being used around the globe. What are new models for delivering and deploying more effective social protection? How can AI with its big data capacity and new social science collaborate “to ensure a higher standard of living for the vulnerable and disadvantaged, to devise new ways of caring for those who have been left behind, and more effective techniques for addressing the needs of those who are struggling to enter or re-enter the labour market” ? Join us to hear about our Call.
Prototypes: The Feminist AI Great Reveal
Meet, discuss, try, question, contribute to the three f<a+i>r Feminist AI Research Network Prototypes developed from papers in 2022 and now built and delivered in February 2023. Meet the activist teams and their practical, applied, and potentially world changing feminist creations. Help us improve, spread the word, iterate, replicate and share!
INSIDE:
AI & Equality Inclusive Human Rights Frameworks for New Technologies
How can Human Rights Frameworks be the starting point for the creation of new tech & innovation? What questions need to be asked and answered to harness the astounding capabilities of AI with its promises of dystopia or utopia? Can Human Rights Frameworks bring us to some middle ground?
Meet Our New Cohort of Papers & Prototypes
Our newest f<a+i>r cohort of papers & prototypes from around the world have begun their work are ready to share their research questions and mission with you!
Procurement
What would open, inclusive and gender responsive AI procurement policies look like? And how could they help jumpstart a new innovation economy that finally might harness the intellectual capital of <50% of the population?
From new datasets to debiasing techniques!
What’s the news from Africa? And what are the solutions being developed there? The start of our new webinar series with AI4D sharing the work of extraordinary African AI researchers with their counterparts and the world.
Algorithms based on incomplete, corrupt or biased data; models built from those algorithms that have other additional stereotypical assumptions of gender, race and class at their core; machines that learn on and codify these ingrained patterns; and the neural networks that detect more complex patterns and newly proxy old stereotypical assumptions — are wiring historic bias, inequality and discrimination into our new systems. These will evolve into more effective, and more difficult to dismantle, digital colonial and patriarchal social structures and governance if we do not act now.
However this situation presents an opportunity as new systems proliferate and are being designed — to revisit old assumptions and conceive provision of social services with ideas of efficacy and equity at the core — instead of only using the ADM process to digitize old programs opting perhaps for only making them more ‘efficient’.
A Feminist AI would focus on bringing social programs in line with 21st research and values, dedicated to finding ways to make the programs more effective (inclusive, transformational) as opposed to merely more ‘efficient’.
Systemic gender, racial and intersectional bias sit at the core of current Artificial Intelligence & Algorithmic Decision-Making processes born in the North, replicated in the South. Combatting and correcting this wired bias and discrimination is urgent in order that pro-social capabilities of AI & ADM can be activated. How do the projects of decolonialism, feminism and AI intersect in that all are concerned with issues of power, representation, and justice and they often intersect and overlap in their efforts to create a more equitable and inclusive society. They also share a commitment to challenging and questioning dominant narratives and structures, and to advocating for the rights and dignity of marginalized and oppressed groups. How can insights between movements and schools of thought be allied to help ‘bend the arc of the moral universe’ and help create new and just systems as technology threatens to embed old and unjust biases with velocity and scale.
From distance learning to gamification, what is the newest research on including girls in STEM, including Teacher Ed and Lifelong Kindergarten / Scratch for low resource environments.
What are the problems? Where are the gaps? How can it help women and men in the field?
Gender Justice / Climate Justice approaches. What mitigation and adaptation strategies and innovations are needed?
