Read the thesis
Project
During my last year as a design student, I had to choose a research subject on which one I had to make a master's thesis. I decided to work on gender issues and on how artificial intelligence technologies affect them. I read several books and scientific articles about both subjects, interviewed queer scientists, researchers and artists working on the field of AI.
The result of my research is a thesis called "Artificial, identities and intelligences". You can download the complete document (in French) at the bottom of this page.
Abstract
There are women and men, so goes nature. This is what we have learned and we know it, it's like an intuition. Of course, for many of us, sexist clichés are nonsense, but deep down we design our vision of the sexes, genres and society with these two categories. And yet gender studies, history and current changes in society show us that women and men are not absolute categories they are a system of categorisation that influences our vision of the world. Gender may be preparing for a global transformation; for a great social revolution. At the same time, around the world, researchers and engineers work on the technical future of humanity. This future today often passes by artificial intelligence. It will transform society, for some to optimise it, for others to sanitise it. In any case, a trend is emerging: AI is a threat to the gender revolution, by nature reproducing and categorising machine it will amplify the biases around sex and gender, it is already going against queer and LGBT + movements. Are we already living an unlikely fight between social progress and technological advance? If this is the case today, the situation does not seem completely stuck. By changing AI - by making computer programs feminist and queer in their design - maybe we will make it the best weapon to question our vision of gender!
Following this research work, I am currently working on my diploma project that will address the following question:
How, as a designer, can I use AI to protect gender minorities from violence ?
Read the thesis