Alt_Worlds. A quest in the shady world of tech, where equity doesn’t, yet, exist…

Through female focused collaborations, Alt_Worlds weaves amidst the realms of science, technology and art - to dream and bring to life visionary technologies that cannot be realised by men, angel investors, nor capitalist models alone.

Her mission champions the results of a study published in the peer-reviewed, academic journal, Science, which determined that the collective intelligence of any given group increases with female numbers. The Future of Life Institute’s article on the study was unequivocally titled, 'The Collective Intelligence of Women Could Save the World’.

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Alt_Worlds is a scientific legend borne of the collective intelligence of women. Her long-term quest is to explore and re-imagine the zeitgeist of this relatively new, online and technologically led world.

Alt_worlds femme focused ethos, which centres female collaboration to optimise collective intelligence, is vital to navigate, design and build compelling resolutions to critical philosophical and ethical questions that everyday, visible technologies (such as social networks) and invisible technologies (such as algorithms) present.

Urgent questions raised by the digital era fall into, though are not limited to, three key areas - communication (aesthetic ways in which technologies’ often-hidden biases can be revealed and visibly countered), architecture for inclusion and personal adaptation (to ensure we are represented and looked after equally), and design for outcome (from which to reverse engineer).

Alt_Worlds’ unique, hybrid approach - in a co-creative framework of art, science and technology - is expected to have a democratising effect across its projects. This methodology, at the very least, will help to amplify minority representation within technology. At best, it could radically change power dynamics in a white, male-dominated world monopolised by a handful of tech tycoons - to implement, instead - kind working practices that encourage care, advocate for inclusive frameworks, promote regenerative culture and, in doing so, to counter the finance-driven, capitalist, parasitic and patriarchal strategies hard-wired into the framework of most of our everyday digital technologies.

The future health of the world will ultimately be decided by how technologies are steered. For the cultural benefit of all, our work will harness scientific, environmental and ecological research with advances in technology, to re-adjust our relationships within a now critically endangered ecosystem. For this to be determined, the full participation of women and minority groups is essential - representation is the only antidote to bias. If equality is not the goal, then the goal is supremacy. Only when systems begin to support women, intersectional representation and the environment will we have the potential to dramatically change the future of our world through working practices, technology and culture.

Alt_Worlds takes its name by virtue of the Alt key on a computer keyboard, which is used to change - to alternate - the function of other keys. Alt_Worlds’ quest? Alternate ways - alternate worlds.

Learn about a key aim of Alt_Worlds’ first collaboration in 2023, soft~ware 〜≗⌠⊹ש⋏⑈∊

Find out about upcoming research workshops שӧ⑈ҝṧḥ✹ṕヮ

Discover Alt_worlds team 〒౬⌆ღ

Get in touch if you’re an individual, institution, organisation or charity who’s interested in collaborating ⋐ӧ৸✜⌆⋐⋕

Explore our digital archive ⌆rkːv  *Please note that past research on AI, technology and machine learning, including bias and discrimination, have been dispersed throughout this archive alongside interconnecting and critically important writing on democratic processes and philosophy, through to whole-systems methodologies and eco-ethical principles. The collective intelligence rendered through our upcoming, female-centred research workshops and technical collaborations will be combined with research from this archive and transformed into an interactive online resource on our homepage. Written content and individual perspectives will be designed into an architected, gaming experience to offer visitors a playful, narrative journey through multifaceted 'worlds' of research. The design of this interactive experience will be discussed in the ‘communication’ section of the research workshops - so this collective intelligence will influence the overall interactive design and navigation of the gamified resource experience too. Alt_worlds’ female focused collaborations and workshops will continue to feed into the different technologies we build collaboratively over time, through exploratory journeys with different individuals, institutions, organisations and charities, titled soft~ware.

Read the Future of Life Institute (FLI) article, which includes corresponding links to scientific study Future of Life Institute

* Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the theory of intersectionality to feminist theory in 1989 by becoming the first person to use this word in this context of feminism. It speaks to the cumulative way in which multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, classism, ableism) combine and intersect, particularly in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups. ‘Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there…’ Kimberlé Crenshaw

** 'Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups' (2010) Anita Williams Woolley, et al.

*** Whilst Woolley, et al.’s study was conducted on sexual binary of F/M, Alt_worlds believes that the inclusion for under-represented trans women, female identifying and non-binary people is essential to our work. Whilst the words womxn and femxle are often used in intersectional feminism, women can feel distanced from this term, and Trans Media Watch, for example, said it would never use it.