ria
researcher / writer / poet / ph.d.
I research, write, and teach to illuminate how the rise of AI is shifting power.
My work composts the stories that say AI is an apolitical, enigmatic, and universal “black box”. I weave critical theory, a decolonial orientation, stories, poetry, organizing, activism, archives, large computational analysis, critical data studies, qualitative and quantitative findings, and movement.
AI has a shape : I show expansive planetary processes {made of earth, people, data, labor, water, and many beings}, funneling into a tight bottleneck made out of just a few power-centralizing institutions and technologies. And that tiny bottleneck has determined what version of AI comes out. Many communities at the margins have been made to feel AI cannot be understood, let alone challenged or changed. After years of studying AI, I create maps for all of us who can and will understand, use, resist, dismantle, or transform AI.