On 24 January, the Better Images of AI project launched a Guide for Users and Creators of images of AI at a reception in London. The aim of the Guide is to lay out some key findings from Dr Kanta Dihal’s research Better Images of AI: Research-Informed Diversification of Stock Imagery of Artificial Intelligence, in a format which makes it easy for users, creators and funders of images relating to AI to refer to.
Mark Burey, Head of Marketing and Communications at the Alan Turing Institute, welcomed an audience of AI communicators, researchers, journalists, practitioners and ethicists. The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, hosted the event and is one of the Better Images of AI’s key founding supporters.
Dr Kanta Dihal at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, the University of Cambridge, introduced the Guide, summarised the contents, and gave an overview of the research project.
This Guide presents the results of a year-long study into alternative ways of creating images of AI. The research, led by Dr Dihal, included roundtable and workshop conversations with over 100 experts from a range of different fields. Participants from media and communications, the tech sector, policy, research, education and the arts dug down into the issues surrounding how we communicate visually and appraised the utility and impact of the images already published in the Better Images of AI library.
Dr Dihal took the opportunity to thank the many research participants in attendance, as well as the team at We and AI who coordinated the Arts and Humanities Research funded project, and expressed appreciation to BBC R&D for donations in kind.
Finishing the presentations was Tania Duarte, who managed the research project team at We and AI and who also coordinates the global community which makes up the Better Images of AI collaboration. Tania highlighted the contributions of the volunteers and non-profit organisations who have contributed to the mission to explore how to create more realistic, varied and inclusive images of AI. Their drive to address various issues caused by the misconceptions fuelled by current trends in visual messaging about AI has been inspiring and informative.
Tania expressed the hope that recommendations from Dr Dihal’s new research will motivate funders and sponsors to support the Better Images of AI project to be able to meet the demand for more images. The Guide describes the need expressed by participants’ images of a greater diversity of perspectives, covering more topics, and offering more image choices within those topics. This need is also voiced by the users of the gallery, a selection of which Tania shared during the presentation, many of which have now used all the images and have yet to easily find more.
The Q&A with the audience became a fascinating discussion with the expert audience, with topics including the use of AI-generated images, typing robots to illustrate ChatGPT and the design of assistive robots.
A pdf version of Better Images of AI: A Guide for Users and Creators is now available to download here.
You can download images free on Creative Commons licences here.
For more detailed advice on creating specific briefs and working with designers, the team at Better Images of AI can be commissioned to work on visual communications projects.
Once again, we thank the research participants, attendees, project team and wider community for helping to provide this Guide, which we hope will help increase the provision and use of better images of AI!
