What is feminist artificial intelligence?

By: Fannie Bilodeau

In a research article [1], Sophie Toupin, professor in the Department of Communication at Laval University, paints a portrait of feminist artificial intelligence.

Feminist artificial intelligence first emerged in the late 1990s, in response to the perception that traditional artificial intelligence tended to replicate existing power dynamics in society. Since 2015, feminist artificial intelligence has resurfaced, largely due to the current boom in artificial intelligence development. Parité sciences presents three recent initiatives in feminist artificial intelligence.

First, in 2017, artist and researcher Caroline Sinders launched the " Feminist Data Set " project [2]. This involves creating a dataset to train a chatbot that can discuss feminism. This initiative differs from traditional datasets, whose data is often labeled (e.g., to remove offensive language that would affect the algorithm) in an intensive manner that is disrespectful of the quality of life of the humans who work on it. In contrast, Caroline Sinders collects data from an ethically paid feminist community.

Second, the feminist.ai initiative [3] is an art and design research group that aims to make artificial intelligence more accessible to marginalized communities, regardless of their programming experience. The group organizes community workshops on the use of artificial intelligence tools in design and assumes that the gender, ethnicity, and other identities of developers will impact the final product in order to prevent marginalized groups from being negatively affected.

Third, and closer to home, Canada's International Development Research Centre has supported the creation and activities of the Feminist AI Research Network [4], which aims to make artificial intelligence more inclusive, particularly in developing countries. This is an initiative that funds the development of artificial intelligence systems by groups from the Global South so that they can have systems that resemble them instead of systems created in Nordic countries that are more prone to discrimination against minorities.

In short, feminist artificial intelligence is gradually developing projects that are more equitable, slower, and more consensual than traditional artificial intelligence. Despite these initiatives, Sophie Toupin questions the possibility of a fully feminist artificial intelligence since the development of artificial intelligence relies on extractivist, capitalist, and discriminatory processes. What do you think?

[1] Toupin, Sophie. “Shaping feminist artificial intelligence”.New Media & Society 26, no. 1 (2024): 580-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221150776 .

[2] Sinders, Caroline. “Feminist data set.” Accessed February 9, 2024. https://carolinesinders.com/feminist-data-set/

[3]Feminist AI. Accessed February 9, 2024. https://www.feminist.ai .

[4] “About F< A+I >r – A+ Alliance”. Accessed February 9, 2024.https://aplusalliance.org/about-fair/ .