New insights on AI and amazing public and media engagement with the biometric mirror research
The collaborative work, part of Science Gallery Melbourne’s exhibition PERFECTION, was invited to various festivals and international conferences, and inspired several research publications.
Biometric Mirror (2018) by Lucy McRae, Niels Wouters and Nick Smith (AU) during Science Gallery Melbourne's PERFECTION season (Hewlett-Packard, 2018)
Biometric Mirror, a research project led by Niels Wouters and the Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces (SocialNUI), consists of an exploration of artificial intelligence and biometric data. SG Melbourne connected the research team with sci-fi artist Lucy McRae to create an interactive experience that brought the research to life. As part of SG Melbourne’s PERFECTION, the immersive installation enabled public participation in the debate around ethics and the accuracy and flaws of artificial intelligence and algorithmic perfection, showing users how easy it is to implement AI that discriminates in unethical or problematic ways.
Biometric Mirror drew a lot of attention and during the 50 days of the exhibition, over 150 news articles were published in online media outlets across 20 countries, reaching close to 204 million readers. At the time, over 2,550 messages were published on social media responding to the study or featuring the #BiometricMirror hashtag. The extensive international coverage includes the BBC News, The Washington Times and Al Jazeera.
Biometric Mirror (2018) by Lucy McRae and Niels Wouters, from the installation of Science Gallery Dublin's PERFECTION (Freddie Stevens, 2019)
The research project has also rounded out busy years of local and international appearances. Niels Wouters and the project team have taken part in live demonstrations throughout the years, presenting Biometric Mirror in several different festivals and conventions like the Design Museum Den Bosch (Netherlands), Law, Justice and Development Week 2019 (Washington DC, USA), the World Engineers Convention 2019 (Australia) and the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting of the New Champions (China). Members of the wider research community and the general public have engaged with the research in each of these space.
WHAT WERE THE BENEFITS AND IMPACTS?
▶ Public engagement
▶ Media coverage
▶ Feedback
▶ Interdisciplinary collaboration
▶ Growth of scientific knowledge
▶ Engagement with real research
▶ Innovation
Sources: SG Melbourne and SG Dublin websites and documentation, Biometric Mirror website.
Compiled by: Jahitza Balaniuk, Science Gallery International in 2020
Activity date: 2018 - 2020