How AI shows up in our lives

We began our series of workshops with Community Health Workers by exploring how we interact with AI in our daily lives. The intention was to collectively reflect on the ideas, assumptions, experiences, and emotions we associate with these technologies as we move through life as parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, and community members. This allowed us to ground our conversations in everyday experience before considering how AI enters relationships of care.

We focused on data collection as a lens to understand AI systems, and began by sharing data-collection artifacts involved in their practice.

In this case, we recognized the extractive and profit-driven logics that underpin many AI systems, while also acknowledging that these technologies have become deeply embedded in daily life. Decisions about whether, when, and how to adopt AI are therefore not confined to professional settings; they are shaped through everyday encounters and carried into practices of care.

These discussions led us to consider what is gained and what is lost when care becomes increasingly mediated by automated systems.

In particular, we questioned which forms of knowledge can be translated into data and which remain irreducible. Experiences with AI transcription tools, for example, echoed concerns that have been raised by therapists, who know that while AI systems may reduce administrative burdens, they often fail to capture the contextual, relational, and embodied dimensions of care, apart from posing serious concerns about privacy and even creating false narratives, leading many mental health professionals to cease using them.

We held conversations about recording and circulation of data, and how these are not only technical or logistical processes, but indeed central to shaping relationships, decision-making, and the delivery of care.

We discussed how AI systems collect data and came up with examples of AI embedded in everyday products and services. We identified interactions that have become so routine that often go unnoticed, like suggested replies to emails and text messages, automatically generated photo summaries, and increasingly personalized digital advertisements.

Concerns about how AI shapes the lives of young people emerged repeatedly throughout our workshops, revealing how experiences beyond the workplace inform broader attitudes toward these technologies. ~~Participants reflected on the perceived risks and benefits of AI not only as Community Health Workers, but also as parents, caregivers, family members, and community members.~~

Through diagramming and visual thinking exercises, we mapped the contradictions that characterize everyday engagements with AI. In “Remaking Democracy: How We Make The Worlds We Want” we learned how exposing contradictions is a central process in our formulation of issues that have a social and political effect in our lives.

In this case, we recognized the extractive and profit-driven logics that underpin many AI systems, while also acknowledging that these technologies have become deeply embedded in daily life. Decisions about whether, when, and how to adopt AI are therefore not confined to professional settings; they are shaped through everyday encounters and carried into practices of care.

These discussions led us to consider what is gained and what is lost when care becomes increasingly mediated by automated systems.

In particular, we questioned which forms of knowledge can be translated into data and which remain irreducible. Experiences with AI transcription tools, for example, echoed concerns that have been raised by therapists, who know that while AI systems may reduce administrative burdens, they often fail to capture the contextual, relational, and embodied dimensions of care, apart from posing serious concerns about privacy and even creating false narratives, leading many mental health professionals to cease using them.