about
A.IRAN: Stories of Iranian women's potential future achieved through resilience and triumph – all imagined using the power of AI.
At the heart of A.IRAN is a commitment to showcasing the strength, resilience, and potential of Iranian women. Despite facing numerous obstacles and challenges, these women have refused to be silenced or held back by oppressive forces that seek to control their lives. Through this website, we aim to help readers understand that the actions each of us take in our daily lives could have a cumulatively profound impact on propelling their cause forward. Together, we have the power to imagine and help create a future where every Iranian woman is free to pursue her dreams and fulfill her potential.
About the Technology
We consciously chose to write this book using a generative AI (specifically, OpenAI's GPT LLM model) because we couldn't stop thinking about the concept of using an AI that was trained on the written word of the past to imagine the future. We did not choose AI for this task because it was faster or cheaper than hiring a writer. We chose AI because we wanted to use a tool that has been trained on millions of different data points, perspectives, and patterns. It is important to note that the perspectives in Large Language Models themselves are not objective or free from bias. But we believe the AI can, with reasonable objectivity, give us its best shot at a prediction based on those historical perspectives - given new input, how might different situations and stories develop based on what the model has learned from the past?
Beyond the generated text itself, we also trained and employed generative image models, constructed via RunwayML, to create stunning and thought-provoking artwork that complements the stories.
The final book is a prime example of human-AI collaboration, but to help us get us there, the following steps were crucial:
- We trained the base model on recent events. The current model's data sources cut off in 2021, so we used publicly available historical data (for example, from Wikipedia) as well as other sources where necessary to bring it up to speed with what has most recently happened in Iran, as well as provide more in-depth insights into the various topics our book delves into.
- For the finished product, we worked extensively with (human) experts on the topic, going through three different rounds of content reviews, to both fact check the content as it refers to the past, as well as sense check the content as GPT imagines different futures for Iran.
The stories and artwork presented on A.IRAN are works of speculative fiction, but are based on real-world struggles and events. While the content has been reviewed by subject matter experts for alignment to actual Iranian history, we encourage readers to fact-check before citing.
About the Iran Democracy Council
Iran Democracy Council (IranDC) was born out of the grassroots Iranian Revolution, sparked by the September 16, 2022 death in custody of Zhina Mahsa Amini. IranDC is centered on the core conviction that equity for women, prosperity of life, and fundamental freedoms in Iran will only flourish with a secular, democratic, and representative government that is accountable to its people. Our work spans across two key central pillars: to create the broadest possible coalition of Iranians and non-Iranians, and to draft, inform, educate, and advocate for public policy and legislation that materially support the Iranian people in their pursuit of a representative, secular government.
For more information please visit: https://irandemocracycouncil.com/
Legal
There is no implied or explicit guarantee of factual accuracy in the A.IRAN content.
Although told in the style of a historical text, the story and artwork are works of fiction. All names, likenesses, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.