Blog by : Anouchka Balle

🌍 This article is also available in French: Entre fascination et inquiétude: Le parcours sincère d’une femme dans l’univers de l’IA générative – Anouchka BALLE

My story with generative AI is certainly similar to many others, but I’m eager to share it with you.

I started using generative AI very early, at the very beginning of 2023, and I immediately understood that it would be revolutionary. I was suspicious of how it worked and, at the same time, incredibly excited thinking about all its potential.

I used it both personally and professionally. The AI ​​helped me debug my automated tests, calculated times between two timestamps, and rewrite emails that sounded a bit too blunt… In short, it really felt like having a personal assistant. I felt incredibly powerful, it was deeply satisfying to rely on him that way. 

Yes, for me, the AI ​​is necessarily a man. Am I the only one who thinks so? Do you have this bias too? After all, he responds with a great deal of self-confidence, even when he makes mistakes. And in our patriarchal system, would we even be able to take a woman at her word? Besides, since I assume I have a male assistant, I feel even more powerful! Muahaha (evil laugh 😂)

On a personal level, he wrote my letters, diagnosed the family’s illnesses, helped my daughter study for her tests, helped me organize my vacations… There too, he was an assistant who relieved my mental load. Everything wasn’t perfect; I had to check his responses (especially as a QA!), but it took a lot off my shoulders.

Unfortunately, as with many women, the infamous mental load isn’t alone; it comes with its little sister, the environmental responsibility. It’s often said that eco-friendly actions are a woman’s domain. Indeed, in a typical couple, it’s estimated that 70 to 90% of eco-friendly household practices are initiated or followed by women. It’s the one who pushes me to compost, make my own laundry detergent, eat organic food, eat less meat, sort my waste… and who pushes me to research the environmental impact of AI… And that’s when things take a turn for the worse. We realize that AI is extremely consuming of water, electricity, metals, and rare earth elements, and contributes to global warming (source: https://share.google/wKn0nboLb6txaqBqi), thus exacerbating geopolitical conflicts.

That’s when the guilt kicked in. And of course, the eco-anxiety that had never really left me (thanks, environmental load).

So what do we do about it? From this feeling of omnipotence, all the while knowing it’s not exactly responsible, that every action plunges us a little deeper into climate catastrophe? This ease with which we exploit resources, machines, and living beings is ultimately part of a long history of domination: that of men over women, of colonizing peoples over colonized peoples, of the powerful over the vulnerable. The difference is that the destruction of the environment puts all of humanity at risk. Of course, the danger affects some populations before others… Okay! Now that we’re out of denial and realize we’re part of the dominant class, how should we react? And if we look at history, how did dominant groups react when they realized that dominating women, entire populations…wasn’t ethical? When they understand the magnitude of the consequences? When they grasped all the impacts it had? I imagine there are those who don’t care and continue to quietly enjoy their privileges, convinced that the consequences will mainly fall on others? Others, on the contrary, feel guilty and sense the weight of the system they unwittingly perpetuate.

I’m part of the team that feels guilty. For now, I can’t do without it, so I’m trying to limit my use. I take more time to make a query on my favorite search engine (and if after three links I haven’t found what I’m looking for, then I give in and ask the AI). Of course, this is not always possible and the lure of the easy way out can be strong, especially in a professional context where you have to move quickly. But at least I try. I do my best, and I try.

Doing our best and trying, shouldn’t we get points for that?