Back in May we hosted our first webinar as part of the On Purpose series where we spoke with Dario Berrebi from agency Restless Stories.
Matt Tutt
Share this post
The topic was how to use AI storytelling for social justice, and specifically Dario shared how he has previously utilised AI when working with a client (the UN) to help them produce educational content on the impact of sexual violence during armed conflict.
Dario tells us how he combined multiple AI tools to animate the voices of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, helping the UN peacekeeping mission create meaningful, respectful content.
If you want to watch the webinar back you can do so at the link below:
Watch Webinar – AI Storytelling for Social Justice.
And here are some slides from Dario’s talk:
AI Storytelling Slides.
Can AI be a force for good when used by charities?
During the webinar we spoke a lot about the known issues with using AI – from the theft of human artists and their creative work, to the negative impact it can have on job markets (taking away jobs from real people), the reported high electricity and carbon costs, the amount of water used to power the datacentres that power AI as well as the way in which using AI ultimately benefits the few giant AI tech firms and their owners.
Whilst there are a lot of fairly well publicised issues with AI, in the webinar we debated whether or not you could justify the use of AI if it had a positive end result – such as in this case. This lead to some fairly philosophical questions – and ultimately it feels like quite a personal decision, as to whether the good outweighs the bad.
At one point in the webinar I shared a flowchart which discussed the decision making process when it comes to using AI – I’ve shared it below in case anyone wants to explore this further.
Personally I think it’s hard to ignore the many negatives of using AI, and so in an ideal world real people would be employed instead (in this case they would be hired to create the video content required for the UN), but there were also some restrictions that made using AI more appealing for Dario; that being, the lack of time available to go a non-AI route, and also the nature of the content.
This was an interesting dilemma – that to read some of the past accounts of sexual violence used by armies during a conflict was in itself a traumatic experience – so using AI was a way of mitigating this. And then, by using AI to generate some “talking head” videos featuring women and men who had been victims of sexual violence, Dario was able to avoid having to find people who fit the required criteria who would then elaborate on what had happened.
Again, in an ideal world he could have found and hired actors or voice-over artists to recreate this work, but this would be a timely and expensive procedure, especially when considering the specific dialects required of the actors.
By using AI he was able to create animated video content which used avatar-style characters to talk about the sexual violence, and was able to create a short video clip which would be suited for the workshop that the UN would be running.
Using AI to Create Video Content for an NGO
So to recap, Dario was making use of AI to create video content which represented victims of sexual violence during armed conflicts around the world, as part of a UN workshop where they will be helping to train staff on spotting and dealing with such issues.
In terms of the technical tools used, Dario mentioned that when it comes to images, MidJourney, OpenAI, and Adobe Firefly were the tools he used.
For video there were several tools in use:
- Lip sync: Runway, HeyGen
- Text/image to video: Runway, Luma AI, Kling AI, Sora, Veo 2 AI
- Audio: ElevenLabs, HeyGen, Speechify, Veed.io
- Video + Audio + Stock content: Envato, Motion Array, Artlist
The end result was quite an incredible video – we’ve embedded it from YouTube below:
Final summary – Can charities/NGOs fefend their use of AI?
Charities and NGO’s are having a hard time of late – funding and grants are being cut, and many are really struggling to survive. Perhaps out of all businesses they feel they’re the most entitled to making use of AI, as a tool to help them achieve their charitable objectives, in any way they can?
Ultimately I think in this case Dario showed a great and perhaps fairly rare use-case of AI, but that perhaps it will fall down on the individual or the charity in question as to whether they can justify the use of such technology.
Dario can be reached through his agency Restless Stories, and is on LinkedIn here.
Share this post
You may also find these things interesting because they are good
Nulla imperdiet mollis urna, ut rhoncus ante placerat eu. Nullam eu magna malesuada, euismod sapien ut, vestibulum dolor.
-
Council of Deans of Health brand identity and website
Council of Deans of Health brand identity and website The Council of Deans of Health represents the UK’s universities engaged in education and research for…
-
The Florey Clinic sexual health campaign
Turning sexual health stigma into confidence — say hello to “your friends with benefits” for The Florey Clinic.
-
Comic Book UK brand identity and website
A cool and confident brand that is set to engage investors and policymakers, while staying true to the creativity of the comic book world.
-
Shelter report on social housing – Brick by Brick
Brick by brick, calling for change: designing Shelter’s flagship report to confront the social rent crisis and demand urgent action
