Content warning: This blog post discusses some potentially upsetting topics regarding AI, Non-Consensual Intimate Image sharing, artificially-generated content and sexual digital forgeries.

In this article, Alba & Annie discuss this year’s Young Women Lead AI programme.

Young Women Lead (YWL) is an annual initiative led by The Young Women’s Movement, through which young women and people from all over Scotland can get directly involved in bettering the lives of their peers. The projects run in collaboration with key agents in the Scottish policy landscape and with prominent organisations from the third sector to target urgent issues, like young women’s isolation in the Scottish Highlands (YWL Highlands), young women’s Democratic Wellbeing (YWL 2024) or – the crux of this year’s project – young women’s vulnerability to Non-Consensual Intimate Image (NCII) abuse due to the widespread and unregulated societal use of AI.

The YWL 2024 report recommended that young women should be equipped “with the skills and knowledge to develop a critical understanding of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in order to help shape it”, as a precursor to ensuring our democratic wellbeing. The report called for further inclusion of women in AI design and development, as well as in feedback processes and during the creation of ethical guidelines for AI tools and their development. And thus, the seed for YWL 2025 was planted!

The 2025 cohort first met in February with our brilliant Programme Coordinator, Sarah Johnston. During our first sessions, we reflected on our pre-existing knowledge of AI and discussed the many ways this fast-developing technology can put people – especially women – at risk. We were blessed to learn from our invitees, Dawn M. Hunter (from the Scottish AI Alliance) and Professor Clare McGlynn (from Durham University), and were also invited to complete SAIA’s ‘Living with AI’ course, which helped us address key gaps in our knowledge, visualise how AI could be regulated, and showed us the importance of curbing AI illiteracy by making information widely accessible, publicly available and reliable. Professor McGlynn, on the other hand, presented us with several real-life cases and knowledge of the UK’s policies on AI, which helped us identify how to proceed with this project ethically and conscientiously, while refining our key action areas.

YWL AI has been a great opportunity to learn about the impacts of AI on young women and to meet lots of interesting and intelligent women. I hope there will be a real change in society and online spaces to protect the safety of women from the harms of this exciting technology. – Sophia Blum (she/her)

Then, the cohort got to work on co-designing our chosen output: The Young Women’s Movement’s ‘Guide to AI’. We chose to create a resource hub, hoping that it would collect all the relevant information and resources that are indispensable towards ensuring people’s safety online, as a way of “passing down” all the knowledge we had accrued thanks to this project to the general public.

It is a refreshing idea, putting young women as protagonists in a project directed towards other young women about a contemporary issue that concerns everyone. It feels like we are change makers. – Stella Molinelli (she/her)

We then immediately started honing our key concepts and demands, designing logos, doing so much research, writing up all our combined findings and organising the launch event. We even visited the Scottish Parliament and reached out to well-known Scottish influencers, all in the name of ensuring our message reaches those who need it most! It was a lot of work, but we were glad to do it if it meant improving the life of even one woman or girl in Scotland, who may be feeling isolated or experiencing some form of NCII or other AI-enabled abuse. 

This year’s programme has not only educated us but also brought us community and connection. Through sharing our thoughts and perceptions about AI with each other, we found a real sense of relief from the sometimes overwhelming feeling of injustice caused by AI disproportionately harming women:

I’ve been so angry and concerned [about AI], so it’s great to find like-minded people who are invested in social issues. – Göksu Gündüzalp (she/her)

This shared understanding and desire among the cohort to call out the harms of AI has given us enough confidence and motivation to persevere, because we know we have a network of women who support and champion each other behind us.

Having had a collaborative space with young women to discuss things we are all interested in, I feel like I’ve refreshed my rage, and I am energised to become politically involved and active again. – Georgie Cross (she/her)

Despite the harms brought upon by AI being omnipresent among our society and digital spaces, we believe that our demands are key to the Scottish Government achieving its vision of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI. AI is constantly evolving, so we urge the Scottish Government to act swiftly and ensure the safety of its citizens, with policies grounded in victims’ lived experiences and language that can keep up with the overwhelming pace of the rise of AI. We hope the next Young Women Lead project can build on what we’ve created to continue our fight for a more equal society. We also hope that they may find the same level of community and togetherness that we did, and that they may find friends for life among their cohort. In the end, many, many issues continue to socially and digitally plague women and girls to this day, but it’s also extremely important not to give in to despair, or it will rob you of the courage needed to stand up and demand change. 

It’s been great to meet so many like-minded and passionate young women. I feel inspired and motivated about the future of positive changes – both in the world of AI and society as a whole. For the future YWL cohort: have fun! There is so much out there, and I hope what we have created is a useful starting point! – Georgia Harding (she/her)