Representation
Technology should have access to information that reflects more than a narrow slice of the world.
04
WHY IT MATTERS
REPRESENTATION / CONTEXT / POSSIBILITY
What technology understands depends on what it sees.
The world is diverse. Technology should have access to the information needed to understand that diversity.
CONTEXT
✦
REPRESENTATION
✦
PEOPLE
✦
DATA
✦
POSSIBILITY
✦
CONTEXT
✦
REPRESENTATION
✦
PEOPLE
✦
DATA
✦
POSSIBILITY
✦
01
THE QUESTION
Who gets represented in the data?
Modern technology is increasingly shaped by datasets. Those datasets influence what systems can recognise, understand, generate and respond to.
But data is never completely detached from the world. It reflects the people, places, languages, environments and behaviours from which it comes.
THE WORLD
∞
IS NOT ONE DATASET
AFRICA / WORLDWIDE
02 / CONTEXT
One model can encounter millions of different realities.
An accent can change from one city to another. The way an object appears can depend on its environment. The words people use can change across regions and communities.
These details are not noise. They are context.
03 / WHY
Three things worth protecting.
Human context
Real people contribute details that are difficult to reproduce without actually being present in the world.
Better possibilities
Better information gives technology builders a stronger foundation for creating useful systems.
04 / AFRICA
06°27′NAfrica is not a footnote.
It is a collection of languages, accents, cities, communities, environments, traditions and everyday experiences.
As technology becomes more global, the information used to build it needs to reflect the people who will eventually live with it.
AFRICA
03°24′E
HUMAN
+
MACHINE
05 / PARTICIPATION
People are not outside the technology.
They are part of the infrastructure that makes technology possible.
When someone records a voice, captures an image or completes a carefully defined task, that contribution can become part of a much larger technological system.
06 / THE EFFECT
Small contributions can travel far.
01
Person
→
02
Contribution
→
03
Dataset
→
04
Technology
07
OUR PRINCIPLE
Data should come from the world it is meant to understand.
That principle sits at the centre of what Dabbies is building.
DABBIES