Neda Atanasoski’s former job as a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, gave her a front-row seat to the early 2010s tech boom in neighboring Silicon Valley and what she called of alarming “exacerbation of poverty and inequalities”. Although she didn’t begin her career focusing on technology, the juxtaposition of wealth and need in the birthplace of modern computing resonated deeply.
Now professor and chair of the University of Maryland’s Harriet Tubman Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Atanasoski recently took on another leadership role: associate director of education for the new UMD Maryland Interdisciplinary Artificial Intelligence Institute (AIM). The institute launched in April as a collaborative hub to support academic research and provide innovative, experiential learning opportunities to energize the field’s workforce and inspire new generations of dedicated AI leaders which helps solve social problems.
While placing a humanities major at the helm of an IT-heavy institute may seem counterintuitive, Atanasoski’s research has explored the myriad ways in which advanced technologies—from drones to sex robots to platforms “sharing economy” companies like Uber – perpetuate systems of oppression such as anti-blackness, settler colonialism and patriarchy.
Yet she also envisions a path to a technologically enhanced future characterized by greater social justice and equality – central elements of the undergraduate AI programs she coordinates, with a Bachelor of Arts slated to launch at fall 2025 and a Bachelor of Science degree soon after. that. In a recent conversation, Atanasoski spoke about the importance of the humanities in the development of AI and why she is hopeful about the future of an innovation that could reshape society.
Many people think of AI as a purely technology-focused field. Why do you think this is inaccurate?
One of the reasons I studied inequality and injustice is to understand how we can stop reproducing entrenched social and racial hierarchies and power structures, and start creating other kinds of worlds. But to create other worlds, we must first imagine them, and this is where the human sciences have a huge role to play.
Creative and artistic imagination helps us achieve this. Large tech companies and nonprofits have research wings that employ feminist researchers and publish research papers on the far-reaching impact of AI on areas such as the environment, housing, poverty, labor exploitation, and policing in Black and Brown communities. There are also companies like Google that have hosted artists in residence. I think there are opportunities for policy interventions, design and engineering interventions, and broader social interventions to expose other kinds of worlds.
