Amelia Lee Dogan (they/she) is a PhD student at the University of Washington researching how data systems and tools can be used for co-liberation. Additionally, Amelia is a research affiliate at the Data + Feminism Lab at MIT. This work is supported by an NSF GRFP and a University of Washington GSEE award. Amelia received an undergraduate degree in urban planning with computer science and American studies from MIT.
Amelia’s project summary:
Speculative fictions and design fictions allow us to imagine worlds that we have not yet been able to live in yet. A part of my research is thinking about how digital tools such as AI tools can be better developed for people doing movement and organizing work. In this work, you see how I imagine three different AI tools for grassroots environment and climate activists. These three tools are a part of a larger design fiction I wrote. The three tools are a chatbot that embodies a river called MartinAI, a farm management app for an urban garden named GrowFeedLove, and a local hazard mitigation plan for a small village. The poster contains both the mock ups I created myself and also what Copilot using Dalle-3 developed with prompts I provided. AI imagine generation tools are not without their own ethical issues and problems including training on images of actual artists. I wanted to articulate and stumble through using AI tools while writing a design fiction about imagining possible grassroots AI for climate.