“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman” - Melinda Gates
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CLIENT unesco • AGENCY SUNSET DDB, 2020 • ROLE CREATIVE / ART DIRECTOR
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN
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A movement to push back against THE sexual harassment of AI, a reflection of gender violence against real women.
Virtual assistants are more and more present in our lives making daily life easier. Generally, they have women's names and the standard female voice, such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, Bixby, Cortana, Xiao, Lu, Nat, Bia, etc. Unfortunately, these artificial intelligences have been suffering harassment.
CASE STUDY
LAUNCH FILM
IT ALL STARTED IN THE REGIONAL FORUM ON AI IN LATIN AMERICA
John McCarthy first coined the term “artificial intelligence” (AI) in 1956 at a conference in Dartmouth. Since then, interest in AI has grown exponentially over the years. That's why we decided to first invite and evolve the international scientific community.
ON FEBRUARY 11TH, THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE, WE PUBLISHED AN OPEN LETTER ON THE MAIN FINANCIAL, MEDIA AND TECH WEBSITES
It was addressed to CEOs to discuss an update on the responses of the virtual assistants and asking for gender equity in jobs.
tHE movement HAS STARTED TO TAKE OVER THE STREETS.
Through a media partnership with Optima and using vast numbers of posters in 40 different designs, our message reached the streets with roughly 1,000 billboards in 320 locations and created immense visibility for two weeks.
WE BUILT A VOICEBANK ON THE WEBSITE WITH SUGGESTED ANSWERS TO UPDATE THE AIS’ REPERTOIRE.
Anyone could record voice messages of up to 15 seconds with suggested answers to counter cyberbullying of virtual assistants. The goal was to invite the companies to engage in the movement, so they could receive the messages and then change the answers given by the virtual assistants based on these recommendations. More than 120,000 people recorded voices across the world.
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EVEN VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS ASKED FOR UPDATED RESPONSES AGAINST HARASSMENT.
ALL RECORDED SUGGESTED ANSWERS WERE SENT TO THE HEADS OF EACH COMPANY
Social media, the open letter and the voicebank resulted in influencers, NGOs and society in general supporting the movement. Making our cause spread very quickly to the press.
PREDICTABLY, THE MESSAGE SPREAD, EVEN AMONG HATERS
THE BRAZILIAN FINTECH MYCON TOOK THE FIRST STEP AND PUBLICLY JOINED AND SUPPORTED THE MOVEMENT.
ON FEBRUARY 20TH, APPLE ANNOUNCED A “MASSIVE” UPDATE TO DEVELOPERS.
Most importantly, in UNESCO’s own words:
“The "Hey Update My Voice" movement indicates the need for data harvesting. Thus, it comes with the proposal to integrate a network of specialists. public policy makers, and companies operating in Brazil that can contribute to strengthening governance, norms and principles, especially regarding the active way of engaging society in Artificial Intelligence governance processes.” - UNECO's global publication Gender Wire Ed.19.
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