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AI & Us: How AI is impacting DC and what we can do about it

Overwhelmed by AI? In this series, we'll learn about efforts to build power amongst communities affected by AI, experiment, and build connections.

Join us for AI & Us, a three-part series where we'll explore how AI is impacting DC communities, what efforts are being made to build community power, and build collective agency. This series is meant to be participatory and will include community dialogue and activities. No prior experience required, but come ready to talk, listen, and experiment. 

--> Ready to take action? This series pairs well with The Upskilling Labs, an open-learning community based at MLK library where participants form small project groups around a real-world issue they'd like to tackle within a quarterly theme and build something via experimenting with emerging technology like AI, that they then showcase publicly. Starting in July, the theme is "civics + elections", the perfect time to build a project related to critical engagement with AI! To plug in, come to the meetup on July 14.

July 9: Our priorities for AI- a community forum

Our opening session will be a community forum on how we're seeing AI show up in our lives, hopes, concerns, and needs related to AI, the DC Government's six AI values, and what AI-related programming and resources DC Public Library should provide.

July 16: The AI Equity Lab Project with Dr. Nicol Turner Lee

Our second session will feature Dr. Nicol Turner Lee of the AI Equity Lab at Brookings, who will introduce her work around artificial intelligence's social impact and how communities can be better represented when designing and using emerging technologies. Dr. Turner Lee will also share the insights she gained when writing her book, Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass (Brookings Press, 2024). 

July 23: AI and our privacy: Screened & Scored in DC

Our final session will include a discussion of the AI-fueled data collection and decision-making tools at work on DC residents, as outlined by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC)'s 2022 report "Screened & Scored in DC". In this session, we'll discuss how tools AI-powered tools like Automated License Plate Readers, screening tools for housing application decisions, or fraud protection algorithms could impact local residents' lives, what we should know about them, and how information about them could be shared with neighbors to build our informed decision-making power.

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