Reducing the distance between researchers and community collaborators

Our research centers lived experiences from communities which are not typically represented in AI research. We strongly believe in a bottom-up approach, supporting and prioritizing research and researchers that emerge from the communities that we center in our work and their specific needs.

Forging meaningful relationships with communities

Identifying specific community needs requires the forging of deep, lasting relationships that take long to be fostered and nurtured. We are committed to investing in people and do not parachute researchers in merely to extract data.

Co-constructing knowledge with our communities

We acknowledge that there are different ways of knowing, and the way that makes sense to the researcher does not always make sense to community collaborators. Our aim is co-constructing knowledge together with the collaborating communities and fostering collective sensemaking.

Redirecting resources to fund community-led research

Participation in research is a form of labor and knowledge transfer, and it should be paid accordingly. Community collaborators ought to be compensated and recognized for their time and contribution in the same way researchers are.

Keeping ourselves and our research true to our communities

Often, the priorities, time horizons, and expectations of research networks and participating communities do not align, which forces researchers to be confronted with which to put first. We choose to prioritize community needs and experiences as well as lasting relationships over deadlines and publications.

Creating spaces for communities to question elites

Understanding why people and communities “on the margins” are broadly excluded from AI development, and how this affects all of us, requires interrogating power. Part of our work is to expand the field of inquiry to study decision makers and tech elites that have remained significantly unquestioned in AI research.

Daring to imagine better tech and better futures

We want to dream beyond existing systems and work towards worlds which we would want to inhabit. We draw on multiple traditions of futurism and community engagement to go beyond critique. We dare to imagine better futures, even those that today seem impossible.