Voices, Masks & Courage – a virtual exhibition
Visit the public exhibition hosted using Mozilla Hubs, a virtual meeting space in 3D/VR. Access using your web browser or virtual reality headset. More info on Mozilla support page.
Exhibition manifesto
“Improve the world, start with yourself” – titles an artwork in the exhibition.
Technology is shaping our collective futures faster than ever before, but are they truly improving our world? And for whom?
The Mozilla Foundation highlighted in their white paper:
“Companies are pressured to build and deploy AI [artificial intelligence] rapidly without pausing to ask critical questions about the human and societal impacts. As a result, AI systems are embedded with values and assumptions that are not questioned in the product development life cycle… A real lack of diversity contributes to this problem, since the viewpoints offered in decision-making spaces tend to be homogeneous.”
Emplumar defines impostor syndrome as an unconscious bias against your own achievements. Psychologists found that this condition especially affects people who don’t fit the norm. The impostor bias acts against diversity. Its effect ranges from holding back opinions that differ from the majority view, to significant mental distress when felt at high intensities. Because this stuff is usually confined to secret inner thoughts, its impact is hard to quantify.
With hindsight, might you have missed subtle clues in the past, skilfully masked by someone in your tech team? This exhibition reveals different ways the impostor bias affects people involved in building technologies. But it can only offer a glimpse from those who had the courage to express their mental struggles into a public forum. There are many more unheard voices, silenced by feelings of isolation, not belonging, and not good enough.
To truly harness the benefits of diversity and improve our technological futures, we need to help all self-censored voices to please stand up.