Blackwood Gallery → Feminist Data-set

In this workshop we explore the processes involved in developing a feminist Mechanical Turk system, focussing on interrogating the human labor that really powers AI systems. People do all sorts of tasks in AI systems: in support of Microsoft’s virtual assistant, Cortana, human labourers often wade through conversations consumers have with the AI to annotate and transcribe them; Amazon’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace has real people do many, many small tasks over many hours to train AI models. AI is made by people—by human hands—and those humans are often underpaid. Thus, we wonder, can we make a feminist system of this? How could we? And what could it look like?

In a conversation with Digital Research Ethics scholars T.L. Cowan and Jasmine Rault following the workshop, Sinders and participants discuss feminist approaches to data ethics and building equitable systems.

The multi-year Feminist Data Set project will result in a large-scale data set, a feminist re-imagining of a Mechanical Turk system, and the creation of an algorithm. All of this will become a part of a Feminist AI system. Many AI and chatbot projects think of the AI component and the algorithms that power AI decision-making as the entire project, but Feminist Data Set focuses equally on creating an intersectional, feminist data set that’s never existed before, and then using that data set to create feminist AI.

Feminist Data Set workshops are open to anyone interested in exploring the project. Please note that the Feminist Data Set is intersectional and trans- and gender non-binary inclusive.

Presenter Biographies

Caroline Sinders is a machine learning design researcher and artist. She has recently been examining the intersections of natural language processing, artificial intelligence, abuse, online harassment, and politics in digital, conversational spaces. Sinders is the founder of Convocation Design + Research, an agency focusing on the intersections of machine learning, user research, designing for public good, and solving difficult communication problems. As a designer and researcher, she has worked with Amnesty International, Intel, IBM Watson, the Wikimedia Foundation, and others. Currently, she is a fellow with Ars Electronica AI Lab with the Edinburgh Futures Institute, and a visiting fellow with the Weizenbaum Institute. Sinders has held fellowships with the Harvard Kennedy School, Mozilla Foundation, Pioneer Works, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Eyebeam, STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, and International Center of Photography. Her work has been featured in the Tate Exchange at Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum, MoMA PS1, the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, Slate, Quartz, and the Channels Festival, among others. Sinders holds a master’s from New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

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Jasmine Rault (settler, they/she) is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Arts, Culture, Media (UTSC) and the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Rault’s research focuses on mediations of gender, race, and sexuality in architecture and design, digital cultures and economies, arts, and social movements. This includes publications in American Quarterly; Feminist Media Studies; Scholar & Feminist Online; Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture; Archives of American Art. Rault’s first book is Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In (Ashgate/Routledge, 2011).

T.L. Cowan (settler, she/they) is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media (UTSC) and the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Cowan’s research focuses on cultural and intellectual economies and networks of trans- feminist and queer (TFQ) and other minoritized digital media and performance practices. This work includes a monograph, entitled Transmedial Drag and Other Cross-Platform Cabaret Methods, nearing completion. Cowan’s recent publications can be found in the Routledge Companion to Digital Humanities & Art History, Theatre Research in Canada, American Quarterly, First Monday, and Liminalities. Cowan is also a cabaret and video artist.

Together, Jasmine Rault and T. L. Cowan write about minoritized research methods, ethics and economies, Trans- Feminist & Queer (TFQ) research cultures, and digital archives. They are co-directors of the Cabaret Commons and Digital Ethics Research Collaboratory (DREC). Rault and Cowan are currently co-authoring a book, Heavy Processing for Digital Materials (forthcoming with Punctum Books).

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