I am planning more virtual ones to come in the future :) Be sure to follow @dairfutures.bsky.social or join our newsletter at the dair-institute.org website to make sure you get updates on future workshops!

It's why I'm coming to see these kinds of imagination exercises as foundational— I'm finding that removing ourselves from everyday constraints makes our common ground so much easier to see.

Thank you to everyone who attended this weekend ✂️🎨✨

Stay tuned for the final zine soon!

This isn't to say that every difference is navigable, or every conflict should lead to a stronger relationship.

But when you can find alignment with someone on *anything*— even if it's just "we both care about the wellbeing of others"— it gives you a place to start. It's somewhere to build from.

This is essential!!

When we share values and a vision of the future with others, conflict and tension and difference can be generative. They strengthen us.

But ask any mediator: without a sense of shared goals or values, those same conflicts and tensions can decimate a relationship (or movement).

So, another evergreen reminder: other things are possible! People are building alternatives now!

FMI, check out their website: www.steamconnection.org/skobots

Finally, and most importantly, I appreciate the scope: nowhere do they claim to want to churn out a million and sell them to the whole planet.

They partnered specifically with Tribal schools and Indigenous educational institutions to get students the robots for free. And they do a ton of outreach.

Speaking of data collection, a detail I always look for in projects like this is the data: where does it come from? Who benefits from it? Who decides how it's used? I can't find specific info on their methods, but I think their stated principles are spot-on:

In the same vein: They don't use synthetic speech. The first version was voiced by the creator's grandmother. The latest version is voiced by Ashinaabe children!

To me, this centers the intrinsic humanity of spoken language. Critical, especially when you're gearing tech towards children.

Building on that, from what I can tell, it's *not* conversational. It translates and repeats back words.

I love this. Not making it conversational, not trying to make interactions "feel real"— it's not only simpler, but it contributes to their stated goal: don't try and replace human interaction.

First, this looks like a stellar example of "classic" ML— the creator emphasizes that they don't use LLMs and runs offline, so (I assume) everything happens locally. This is categorically different from the monster of 2020s genAI; it's the kind of tech solution I frequently advocate for!

For some context: Launched in 2021, the SkoBot is "a personal, wearable, and interactive Indigenous language revitalization robot". It responds to English words with recordings in the endangered Indigenous language Anishinaabemowin. The team is small, and is youth- and Indigenous-led.

I'm really inspired seeing @alexhanna.bsky.social's vision for DAIR's research come through here. It shows what it can look like to turn activists into researchers, and researchers into activists. 🔥

I can't tell you how many papers— how many entire research labs and companies!— focus on "building tech for X problem" where absolutely nobody involved has direct, lived experience with X problem (see: the Disability Dongle phenomenon).

I love this work from an other-things-are-possible angle— hours logged behind the Amazon delivery van wheel was a central form of expertise here. I imagine in some disciplines this may be common sense, but coming from the tech fairness/ethics world, this approach can be *woefully* rare.