When conference organizers play the diversity card to make their event a success, but they are caught red-handed. Cock-and-bull story.
The 2023 edition of DevTernity was to be held on December 7 and 8 in Riga, Latvia. This is the largest international conference focusing on software development. Ultimately, it will not take place due to a rather surprising fact: the organizers canceled it, because one of their communication ploys was shamefully revealed. They had created speakers from scratch with AI to bring in more people. A deception that did not have the desired effect.
The imposture exposed: non-existent women on the podium
After the influencer entirely programmed by AI, it’s the turn of the speakers? It was Gergely Orosz, an industry observer and newsletter author who lifted the lid on this deception. Indeed, of the three women who were to hold a conference, two were nothing more than simple digital illusions, created by artificial intelligence. Anna Bokyo was introduced as an employee of Coinbase, the famous cryptocurrency platform who, at the start of the year, was not in good health. The second, Julia Kirsina, was supposed to be a developer at Uber.
The latter had been announced several times for conferences since 2021, but obviously never showed up. One of the organizers, Eduard Sizovs, therefore used this deceptive practice several times in a row. But why ? To represent inclusiveness in the tech world, largely dominated by men. Gergely Orosz explains that “ many prestigious speakers in the tech world refuse to speak at events where only men are invited to speak “. Thus, invoking a fictional female presence, even a synthetic one, seemed to be an easy solution for Sizovs to consider.
Reactions and attempts at justification
This gigantic deception aroused indignation among the majority of participants, who simply withdrew from the event. Result: an outright cancellation of the conference. In his defense, Eduard Sizovs played the card of “ bug on the conference website » and even shouted at “ public lynching “.
Fortunately being ridiculous will not kill you. By wanting to play the game of inclusion too much, some go too far and even end up doing the opposite. A very good example than that of Sizovs, who seemed more concerned by the success of his conference than by the low proportion of women (22% in the EU according to the McKinsey study More Women in Tech) in the technology sector.
Sources: McKinsey, Le Figaro
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