Gender Equality in AI - a created video experiment

I came across a really interesting AI video creation post on LinkedIn.?It was really well done and I appreciate him sharing the how to.?

His suggestion was to give it a try, so here's my attempt. Any errors are my own (and not Kenneth’s fault at all lol.)

@kennethleungty

You can find Kenneth's post here. (If you want to skip directly to the video I created, it's right below item #4 below)

My background is more in Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) but as much as I can, I try to understand software programs, and the programmers I work with.?The better I can understand the language (software) and the challenges of working with these platforms, the better I can help resolve problems and ultimately, produce a more three-dimensional finished project.

I also work as a volunteer with @WomeninAI, so gender equality is something that I talk about ALL the time. It's important to me that we do all we can to prevent the historical catastrophes we have witnessed, when profit and greed usurp the transformative powers of technologies designed to do good work for human kind.

I encourage you to create your own work and share the results. These applications are "learning". The more we can provide responsible input, the more we can expect to see the results we all want to see!

1. I created an account at Midjourney.?

When you get a Midjourney account, you actually have to create an account in Discord to create an image.?I got hung up trying to complete the validation of my account.

Potential solution:

(I don’t endorse any of these websites and I don’t receive any commission from them for referencing their sites.)

Get a free/low-cost image.?You can do a search for images based on text in any browser.?Some free images are not licensed for commercial use, so do your research. Don’t steal images!?Pixabay, Freepik, Shutterstock – these are just a few of the sites where you can get licensed images and provide credit to the creators.?Yes, sometimes you have to pay, but the fees are nominal and support the artists that built the work.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve found that using text to image generators produces some unappealing and questionable results. The images for women are very often highly sexualized.?If I use the word “older” to build an image, I usually get a crone.?I wrote about this in two articles that you can find here:

ChatGPT: A discussion for Adjunct Faculty

Does the AI preference for a female voice and appearance perpetuate gender inequality?

2.?ChatGPT was not available.?

I do have an OpenAI account, but sometimes, with so many people accessing the application, you won’t be able to access it.?I was able to access Google Bard, so that’s what I used to create the dialogue.

The prompt I used to create this dialogue was “Why gender equality matters in artificial intelligence technologies."

The entire dialogue is below, but the Canva application only allows 500 words, so I only included the first paragraph in the video creation.

Gender equality matters in artificial intelligence technologies because it can help to ensure that these technologies are developed and used in a way that benefits all people, regardless of their gender. AI technologies are increasingly being used in a variety of fields, including healthcare, education, and the workplace. If these technologies are not developed with gender equality in mind, they could perpetuate existing gender biases and inequalities.

For example, AI-powered facial recognition software has been shown to be less accurate for women and people of color than for white men. This could lead to discrimination in areas such as law enforcement and security. AI technologies could also be used to perpetuate gender stereotypes. For example, an AI-powered chatbot that is designed to help people find jobs could be more likely to recommend jobs that are traditionally held by men to men and jobs that are traditionally held by women to women.

It is important to ensure that AI technologies are developed and used in a way that promotes gender equality. This can be done by including women and people of color in the development of AI technologies, by testing AI technologies for bias, and by developing policies and guidelines for the use of AI technologies.

3. I went to ElevenLabs..

I got this message – “We are sorry, the system is busy, try again…We are sorry, the system is experiencing heavy traffic, please try again.?Higher subscriptions have higher priority.”

A common problem.?At this point, I thought I was done and couldn’t finish my video….

4.?I decided to go to D-ID.?

There is a way to create a video via an affiliation with Canva.?Just an FYI, if you use this option, you don’t need Eleven Labs at all, at least not that I can tell.?I also didn’t need to find an image to create an avatar.?The D-ID/Canva infrastructure already has avatars and multiple languages to select from.

You can view the final video from this link.

It took me WAY more than 25 minutes to finish this. In fact, it took me most of the day.

But I learned some things:

• Don't be afraid of AI. I say this especially to women. So many of us think that because we don't have a technical background that somehow we aren't qualified to participate in the conversation. This is SO NOT TRUE!
• If you want to be included in the conversation about AI (we should all want that), then practice using these tools. ANYONE can (and should) get an Open AI account and work with DALL-E and with ChatGPT. If you aren't using these tools, but you are posting articles about how these tools are going to end the World - you are wasting all of our time, and probably just trying to boost your profile (which by the way works).
• There's more to AI than just writing code. We have all kinds of data sets on all kinds of topics. Who is going to tell us if this data is any good? The subject matter experts in the disciplines. If we are using data sets to talk about inequalities in gender, we need gender inequality experts to review these data sets, review the results and tell us where we need to go. AI, and other information/emerging technologies are NOT stand alone disciplines.
• Just because things don't work the way the directions say, don't quit! I wasn't able to follow Kenneth's directions, but I still made a video. Success has many pathways!

Please share any thoughts/comments (empowering comments only please)!