Artist Stephanie Dinkins on How to Play the Long Ball With AI
Mar 7, 2025
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Artist and professor Stephanie Dinkins, a voice in AI bias and representation, dives deep into the interconnectedness of technology and identity. She shares her early fascination with AI through conversations with the humanoid robot Bina48, spotlighting the challenges of representation. Dinkins discusses critical community engagement to combat biases in AI, emphasizing the power of storytelling and diverse perspectives. She highlights the necessity of resilience and curiosity as we navigate technological change, urging for authenticity in the rapidly evolving landscape.
Stephanie Dinkins highlights the critical need to address biases in AI training data, emphasizing that diverse experiences must be accurately represented.
The podcast stresses the importance of individual actions as forms of protest, encouraging people to believe in their capacity to instigate systemic change.
Dinkins advocates for curiosity over fear in approaching new technologies, urging communities to actively participate in shaping AI's development and implications.
Deep dives
The Power of Individual Actions
In a world where visible protests seem less effective, individual actions can serve as a form of protest, contributing to systemic change. The importance of maintaining faith in one's ability to make a difference is emphasized, as actions may not always be immediately visible or impactful. The speaker advocates for the necessity of combining faith with tangible efforts to create meaningful change, stressing that belief alone is insufficient without corresponding action. This belief in the significance of individual work aims to inspire others to move beyond mere consumerism of societal systems, encouraging them to question and reshape these frameworks.
The Influence of AI on Representation
The conversation highlights how artificial intelligence, particularly in the context of training data, can inadvertently perpetuate biases related to race, gender, and other demographics. Stephanie Dinkins discusses her engagement with Bina48, a humanoid robot, revealing the unsettling implications of how AI mirrors societal inequalities. Dinkins stresses the necessity of addressing these biases and ensuring that diverse experiences are represented accurately within AI systems. The systemic propagation of historical biases in AI datasets underscores the urgent need for a more inclusive approach to technology development.
Curiosity and Critical Engagement with Technology
The discussion showcases the importance of approaching new technologies, such as AI, with curiosity rather than fear or resistance. There is a call for people to understand the implications of these advancements and to actively participate in shaping technology rather than passively accepting its trajectory. By fostering critical thinking and public dialogues about technology, individuals can better navigate a rapidly changing world and advocate for equitable practices. The speaker believes that communities must take proactive steps in leveraging technology to their advantage, even as they confront the challenges it presents.
Harnessing Community Narratives
Collecting and sharing personal narratives emerges as a crucial strategy for influencing AI systems and promoting social justice. Dinkins underlines the need for communities to document their own stories to inform AI developments and counter prevailing narratives often dictated by dominant cultures. By utilizing platforms to engage with individuals and gather their experiences, these stories can serve as vital data that enrich AI training processes. This approach not only highlights the importance of diverse voices but also empowers communities to stake their claim in the technological landscape.
The Future of AI and Human Resilience
As artificial intelligence evolves, the conversation shifts towards the anticipated societal changes and the resilience required to navigate these transformations. Dinkins emphasizes the urgency for individuals to remain adaptable and continue learning in an environment where technological advancements can quickly alter the landscape of work and creativity. The speaker advocates for a proactive mindset that embraces change and seeks to cultivate unique human experiences that AI cannot replicate. In this framework, resilience becomes a fundamental trait to thrive in an increasingly automated world.
Few things feel worse than being misunderstood. That’s especially the case when you’re persistently misunderstood—when, try as you might to convince someone of something you know to be true, it falls on deaf ears because their mind is already made up to the contrary.
Now, imagine if the future of your reality was being constructed atop this misunderstanding, and if it wasn’t just you who was misunderstood but a vast population of other people like you.
Years ago, the artist and professor Stephanie Dinkins realized this nightmare scenario was in fact playing out with AI, with foundation models being trained on data that replicates the same pernicious biases across race, gender, and other points of difference that contribute to making our society unequal and problematic.
So, she resolved to do something about it.
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