OM DENNE EPISODE
What does it mean when 99% of deepfake victims are women and girls? Why do "helper" chatbots so often default to feminized voices and identities? And what happens when the people most affected by AI aren't the ones building it?
In this episode, we talk with Anika Dugal, founder and Executive Director of the Center for Gender Equitable AI (CGEAI), an organization of over 200 young people working to address gendered harms in AI. Anika shares the story behind CGEAI, from its founding as Girls for Algorithmic Justice during her junior year of high school, to its rebrand and current "star shape" model of organizing around advocacy, research, education, and community.
We dig into the organization's #StopExplicitDeepfakes campaign and its role in supporting the bipartisan TAKE IT DOWN Act, which requires platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate imagery, including AI-generated deepfakes. We also explore algorithmic bias more broadly: how gendered defaults show up in image generation and machine translation, why representation is what Anika calls a "root cause solution," and how the feminization of chatbots and digital assistants reinforces and reflects broader gender stereotypes.
We close with Anika's own path from women's rights advocacy into AI policy, her experience running an advocacy organization while studying computer science and public policy at Duke, and her advice for young people looking to work at this intersection.
Guest
Anika Dugal
Founder & Executive Director, Center for Gender Equitable AI
Website: https://www.centergeai.org/
Learn more: https://www.anikadugal.com/about
Resources & Further Reading
Center for Gender Equitable AI: https://www.centergeai.org/
"The Online Degradation of Women and Girls That We Meet With a Shrug," Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times (republished via WRAL): https://www.wral.com/story/nicholas-kristof-online-degradation-of-women-and-girls-that-we-meet-with-a-shrug/21344898/
TAKE IT DOWN Act, S.146, 119th Congress: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146
Algorithmic Justice League: https://www.ajl.org/
Coded Bias (documentary): https://www.codedbias.com/
