HAI Weekly Seminar with Rashaad Newsome - BEING (The Digital Griot)

As I see it, human-centered artificial intelligence aims not to develop AI that mirrors the entirety of humanity but to create AI that reflects those aspects of humanity that we most admire: qualities like compassion and empathy. The core narratives of the human condition — birth, growth, emotion, aspiration, conflict, and mortality — are all susceptible to corruption within what scholar bell hooks identifies as the "imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy" because they limit and distort our understandings of the world. In my talk, I will discuss the genesis of Being and my endeavor to use a unique combination of ML, dance, critical pedagogy, and mindfulness meditation as a balm to this omnipresent apparatus of domination. I will discuss the obstacles of navigating the GIGO aspects of employing current ML models; the possibilities of archiving Black intellectual and artistic data; as well as my hopes that mindfulness meditation, positive affirmations, and diasporic dance can act as a balm to the stress, anxiety, and depression that results from systemic oppression.