Throwback to five years ago, thanks Facebook for the reminder… I had the privilege of leading a Google Crowdsource awareness workshop series, along with Saidul Karim and Desty Hotifatruwosai, guiding an incredible Southeast Asian community.
Back then, we were volunteering to raise awareness that how important it is to have refined, well-tagged and sorted data to help machine learn. Little did we know, those micro-contributions would help shape today’s AI.
Here’s how Crowdsource laid the groundwork for powerful tools like Google Gemini and AI Studio:
Data Collection & Annotation: Volunteers helped build massive, diverse datasets, text, images, audio, that Gemini relies on to understand the world.
Human Feedback: Whether labeling images, validating translations, or analyzing sentiment, this “ground truth” helped teach AI how to think more like us.
Bias Reduction: A global community meant more perspectives, helping create more inclusive and fair AI.
Multimodality: Matching images with captions or audio with scenes helped Gemini learn across formats.
Fine-Tuning & Edge Cases: Real-world messiness captured by Crowdsource helped make Gemini more accurate and adaptable.
Although I’ve moved on to focus on AI awareness and policy and currently working on how media can leverage AI to shape climate action narratives, this project was a key stepping stone in that journey.
Massive thanks to Akmal Bajwa, Stephen Abraham, and Pawal Sarwar and especially Reshma Sanghvi (former Community Manager from Google Singapore) for introducing me to it. And proud shoutout to Kashif Abdul Razzak Misidia for his impactful work in Pakistan and to countless volunteers who beleived in our advocacy and became a part of that community, you helped build something bigger than we imagined.
#GoogleGemini#GoogleCrowdsource#AIForGood#ClimateAction#MediaAI#Throwback#Volunteers
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