Carolyn Woodard covers a cultural moment that's been building quietly, resistance to AI among workers, young people, and nonprofits, and connects it to a research framework for thinking honestly about AI's real environmental costs and benefits. Both threads come back to the same core question: who benefits from AI, and on what terms?
This episode also introduces a three-lens approach to help nonprofits think through the environmental impact of their own AI use, and suggests why "I'm just against AI" may be a values signal worth listening to rather than a training problem to fix.
This episode covers:
- The Summer of Ludd, an 8-day festival in New York City, and what the original Luddite movement was actually about: skilled workers organizing against technology being used to enrich owners at workers' expense.
- Why some nonprofit staff, especially younger workers, are pushing back on AI, and why it's worth asking what's behind that resistance before trying to fix it.
- Researcher Jennifer Turliuk's net climate impact framework, and her core observation: AI harms are measurable now, but most benefits are still speculative. Including as full a picture of the cons and pros will help organizations make thoughtful AI use decisions.
- Three lenses for evaluating your own AI use: what you're asking AI to do, where you are, and how you will benefit from using the AI.
- DC Public Library's free in-person "AI & Us" series focusing on "invisible" communities and AI.
Resources Mentioned:
New every Tuesday.
_______________________________
Start a conversation :)
Thanks for listening.
