DevTernity conference fakes women speakers
The organiser of the DevTernity technology conference used AI-generated female speakers to give the impression it was more diverse than it actually was. Founded in 2015, DevTernity is an invitation-only online conference for developers that was first held in Latvia before moving online. In 2023, suspected fake profiles were flagged by social media users in the names of Anna Boyko, purportedly a staff engineer at Coinbase and Ethereum core contributor, and Alina Prokhoda, said to be a Microsoft MVP and WhatsApp senior engineer. Neither women exist in real-life. Conference organiser Eduards Sizovs reputedly told a speaker the conference had been cancelled because 'somebody who wasn't invited was upset.' He later confirmed that two of the three women DevTernity speakers had to drop out at the last minute, and that there was at least one fake DevTernity presenter profile, which he said was an 'oversight'. System 🤖 Unknown Operator: Eduards Sizovs Developer: Country: Estonia Sector: Technology Purpose: Generate images Technology: Generative AI; Machine learning Issue: Diversity; Transparency
- Date it happened
- 2023-11-01
- Organisation involved
- Eduards Sizovs
This incident was imported from AIAAIC and is used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Our additions to it — the structured fields, the translation, the checks against other reports — are published under the same licence.
This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.