TEDxAmsterdam Women and Ace present MissJourney to raise awareness of how the digital future could look 

MissJourney, is an Artificial Intelligence alternative that celebrates women

Amsterdam, March 6 - Leading up to International Women's Day 2023, TEDxAmsterdam Women launches MissJourney: an AI-tool created by Ace that generates images exclusively of women*. From CEOs to leaders, superheroes to doctors and engineers. MissJourney actively counters biased gender stereotypes; the initiators hope it will inspire AI developers to create smart, unbiased solutions.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly seamless part of our everyday existence, bringing us a whole new world of digital possibilities. Those world-changing digital innovations have human-like capabilities, but also risk human-like flaws. Research** shows that currently, AI-powered image generators are displaying severe gender-biased images. When generally asked to imagine hundred professions or characters, less than twenty percent of the images show a female. 

The current debate around AI is showing that the tools are quite biased. “AI tools show a homogeneous image when prompting human characters. When asking for, for example, a leader, janitor or scientist, the output is not representative of diversity in society. Educating data scientists about what responsible AI looks like, is one of the solutions for creating more inclusive AI tools. AI developers need to build technology that is fundamentally inclusive, otherwise we are constantly re-establishing old stereotypes,’ says Helen Pink, co-organiser of TEDxAmsterdam Women. ‘In addition, it is important to help people understand how AI image generators work and how they can impact our daily lives and our future.’

MissJourney
MissJourney is an AI text to image generator that celebrates women. The user-friendly AI tool, created by Ace in collaboration with TEDxAmsterdam Women, was built to combat AI gender bias and introduce everyone to AI in an accessible way. The image generator has a built-in logic that helps AI to create anti-stereotypical prompts to create more diverse results on existing data models. When it is asked to create a portrait of a CEO, athlete or leader, rather than producing the usual male stereotype examples this AI tool creates diverse female-led artworks. In this way, MissJourney actively contributes to representative digital art and sets an example for the AI industry by showing things can be done differently and by inspiring the industry to create smart solutions for issues like this.

Join the movement  
Helen Pink, co-organiser of TEDxAmsterdam Women, calls on everyone to help by joining the movement and changing the pattern. “We believe that we must show that the world we live in is not shaped by men alone. That CEOs, politicians, doctors and any other superheroes are also women. Our goal is to generate awareness around International Women’s Day and beyond by sharing images from MissJourney. The more we are aware, the bigger chance we have to create inclusive Artificial Intelligence that serves us all.” 

MissJourney can now be used via its website: http://missjourney.ai/.

*Disclaimer: MissJourney generates AI imagery featuring only women. While we recognize that true diversity goes beyond gender, MissJourney is launched on International Women's Day to raise awareness about gender bias. Our aim is to inspire developers and creators to build fundamentally inclusive technology that enables users to generate imagery that is representative of society as a whole.

**Research where prompts (N=2000) related to professions or characters, such as "portrait of CEO", "portrait of a superhero", "portrait of an athlete", were created and entered at three AI image generator tools.

For more information about Miss Journey, imagery, interview requests or other enquiries, please contact Lisa van Eck via thisisace@fitzgerald.amsterdam or +316 18 03 48 14.
Download imagery via this link. 

About TEDXAmsterdam Women
There are many avenues to make the world a more equal and equitable place. The concept behind TED is to share ideas that are eye opening and make you think; that make you see something slightly differently, to then spread that idea, creating awareness and from there change will happen. TEDxAmsterdam Women organizes events in Amsterdam that provide people of any gender, from all walks of life, with the stage to inspire with original ideas worth spreading: ideas that help, support, empower and impact women in society and the workplace, with the long-term purpose to increase equality of all aspects.

Theme 2023: Decoding the Future
This year, we want to take you on a journey to disrupt the codes that society has agreed to for so long, uncover ways to change them, break them, and build equality despite them.
How can we get our future right today, so we don't have to fix it tomorrow?

About Ace
Ace is a new breed network with 12 labels: HERC, Born05, Blauw Gras, Glasnost, Airborne, Fitzgerald, IM Lounge, Newborn, Label A, Off The Record, AMARU and Content Icons. Ace is constantly working on a comprehensive offering for brands to remain relevant in the rapidly changing world. 320+ people work from offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. Brands such as Unilever, 538, Porsche, Samsung, Young Capital and Zalando are part of the portfolio.