The Politics of Freedom: Generative AI, Race as Technology, and Postcolonial Computing

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics and a BA in Sociology from Purdue University, and an MS and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Hanna has published widely in top-tier venues across the social sciences, including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the Scholars Council for the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.

She is a recipient of the Wisconsin Alumni Association’s Forward Award, has been included on FastCompany’s Queer 50 and Go Magazine’s Women We Love lists, and has been featured in the Cal Academy of Sciences New Science exhibit, which highlights queer and trans scientists of color.

With Dr. Emily M. Bender, Alex is working on The AI Con (Forthcoming Spring 2025, Harper Books), a book about AI and the hype around it. The two also run the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 series, playfully and wickedly tearing apart AI hype for a live audience online on Twitch and on their podcast.

Dr. Beth Coleman is Associate Professor of Data & Cities at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology (UTM) and the Faculty of Information, where she directs the City as Platform lab. Working in the disciplines of Science and Technology Studies, generative aesthetics, and Black poesis, her research focuses on smart technology & machine learning, urban data and civic engagement, and generative arts.  Dr. Coleman is the inaugural director of the U of T’s Black Research Network. She is the author of Hello Avatar and multiple articles, including “Race as Technology.” She was a 2021 Google Artists and Machines Intelligence awardee and is a continuing Senior visiting researcher with Google Brain and Responsible AI.

Event offered by: Public Humanities Hub and Centre for Computational Social Science. Co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President, Teaching & Learning, Office of the Associate Vice-President, Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Education, Allard School of Law, ICICS Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-making and Action (CAIDA), Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice (GRSJ), and the Edith Lando Virtual Learning Centre.