Unwritten Magic: Participatory Design of AI Dialogue to Empower Marginalized Voices

Abstract

Language is an act of identity, but AI has no identity other than that which its creators assign it. Technology creators who do not fully consider how identity information is encoded in AI dialogue risk creating representational harms that negatively impact users' interactions with the technology, particularly young users from groups marginalized in STEM education. One solution is to engage young users in Participatory Design of dialogue, pushing power away from the researcher and toward the young users. This positions users as technology creators who understand AI language as a technosocial phenomenon and who have their own perspective about how identity is best portrayed in AI language. In this work in progress paper, we provide initial impressions from a Youth Advisory Group (YAG) with 12 middle-school-aged learners of color who are all female or non-binary.