Most people do not know what they are agreeing to when they click accept on a cookie banner. UNESCO wanted to change that: not through warning, but through experience. The Cookie Factory is a Google Chrome extension, developed by over more than a year in collaboration with interactive production studio makemepulse, that allows anyone to assume a new identity as they browse the internet.
You choose from 40 fictitious profiles: a die-hard cat fan, a hermit, a survivalist, a Japanese hacker, a conspiracy theorist. The extension replaces your own cookies with those of your chosen avatar, across every site you visit including YouTube and Amazon. You then watch, in real time, as the AI navigates pages on your behalf, clicking on keywords corresponding to your avatar’s profile, filling your browser with an entirely different person’s data. 158,185,764 possible combinations of themes to fool the algorithm.
The invisible becomes visible. The D&AD jury called it “part high-tech hack, part mischievous poltergeist, part acid trip.” The campaign launched November 25, 2021 as part of UNESCO’s global effort to promote the adoption of its Recommendation on the Ethics of AI by its 193 member states.
UNESCO used the campaign to support the adoption of its landmark Recommendation on the Ethics of AI by its 193 Member States –the first global normative framework on AI ethics.
