Interrogating AI Through a Lens of Being
Civics of Technology Announcements
Annual Conference: We are holding our 5th Annual Conference on August 6th-7th, 2026! Our keynotes this year are Dr. Meredith Broussard (data journalist & author of More than a Glitch among other books) and Natasha Singer (NYT edtech reporter & author of the forthcoming book, "Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools”). Learn more here and register here. The full program will be posted soon!
Next Book Club: We will be reading the new book, “Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools” by our conference keynote speaker Natasha Singer on September 29th at 8:00 PM EST. Register here and pre-order the book here so you have it when it releases on September 8th! We will discuss the book for 45 minutes and then be joined by Natasha for a 30-minute Q&A.
In this technological age, what does it mean to be human—to teach, to learn, to love, to be?
This is the core question I explored in my recent article entitled “Interrogating Artificial Intelligence Through a Lens of Being” (Dias, 2026 - here’s a PDF copy). While popular discourse about artificial intelligence (AI) is centered around the hype and panic engendered by this technology, I sought to understand what this creation of ours teaches us about the human it is designed to emulate. My analysis was inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Measure of a Man” (Snodgrass & Scheerer, 1989). I’m a big fan of the Star Trek franchise that raises really valuable questions about who we are as people and as a society. This episode in particular points to our relationship with the technologies we create, as Captain Picard argues for Data’s (an android’s) right to self-determination. While the episode’s arbitration is focused on Data’s characteristics as a distinctly non-human entity, Picard flips the script to turn the focus on the humanoids in the room, asking how this ruling will reflect on who they are. “As such, Picard compels us to confront the very nature of being itself, through interrogating humanity’s values as they manifest in Data’s court case” (p. 12).
The Human Project
I complicate the term human in conversation with Sylvia Wynter, whose 1994 “essay ‘No Humans Involved’ (N.H.I.) … frames human categorization as a project (hereafter referred to as the ‘human project’) that has always denied the title ‘human’ to those who fall outside its prescribed logics” (p. 1). Wynter authored this piece during the aftermath of Los Angeles police officers brutally beating Rodney King and subsequently being acquitted of wrongdoing. At that time, law enforcement used the term N.H.I. to describe incidents involving Black, Brown, unhoused, and, more generally, socially relegated people whom they clearly deemed less-than-human. This was an explicit example of how colonial-capitalist values and logics shape what Wynter terms the “genetic status-organizing principle,” which is the hierarchical construct that categorizes people as belonging to or excluded from humanity. Notably, “Wynter is decidedly not advocating for including more of us in the term human; rather, she is rejecting the very premise of the human project as a ruthless illustration of colonial power” (p. 4).
Mirrored Dimensions of AI and Human
“The growing surge in AI platforms and applications confronts us with a digital mirror of society. AI was designed to mimic the human with AI developers aiming to create a distinctly non-human technology that proves superior to human capabilities” (p. 3).
My analysis of AI uncovers the ways this technology’s design and infrastructure mirrors the dimensions of the human project. In particular, I explore examples of how AI replicates the human project’s logics of existence vs. non-existence, hierarchies of valued vs. devalued knowledge, economics of obsolescence vs. relevance, and narratives of inevitability vs. possibilities. For instance, the labor force that does the grunt work to support AI training is largely erased from view, just as those relegated to nonexistence by the human project’s classification of worth. Similarly, training data for AI are largely sourced from the west and as such position eurocentric knowledge traditions as the standard, just as “the categorical organization of the human project is systematically constructed through the dominant knowledge infrastructure” (p. 5). Materially, these logics and hierarchies shape AI’s economic infrastructure to enable Silicon Valley elites to amass unlimited wealth while many can barely eke out a living, just as the human project creates an underclass of people deemed obsolete or worth-less. Finally, dominant narratives of AI present a worldview and predict a future that is inevitably technological and thereby thwart our imagination of possibilities that could displace status quo socioeconomic power structures, just as the human project upholds the story that humans are a purely organic species to limit our exploration of more expansive ways of being.
Implications for Being
As educators of conscience, “we must grapple with how we are pedagogically enshrining, refusing, or resisting N.H.I. when we study and teach through and about AI” (p. 2).
Indiscriminately adopting AI in the name of keeping up with technology risks reinforcing an epistemology that upholds the human status organizing principle. Attempting to avoid AI altogether may circumvent digital manifestations of the human project, but would not necessarily evade its classificatory logics. In between these two extremes lies a broad spectrum of pedagogical possibilities. Pursuing a more liberatory praxis calls for decentering technology, so we don't mistake the tool for the solution/problem and instead focus on collectively shaping education futures. (p. 10)
Ultimately, we must confront the ways the human and AI are intertwined in order to truly de-link from the colonial-capitalist paradigm and dream of new possibilities for being as a collective of people who prioritize care and shared wellbeing over efficiency and profits.
Exploring the mirrored dimensions of the human and AI offer insights into the narrow scope of existence shaped by the human project. Yet, how we choose to be, now and in the future, is still undefined and a space for joyful explorations that could free us from the categorical logics of the human in favor of more liberatory ways of being. (p. 12)
References
Dias, B. (2026). Interrogating Artificial Intelligence Through a Lens of Being. Equity & Excellence in Education, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665684.2026.2660173
Snodgrass, M. (Writer), & Scheerer, R. (Director). (1989). The measure of a man [Television series episode]. In M. Hurley (Producer), Star Trek: The next generation. First-Run Syndication.
Wynter, S. (1994). “No humans involved:” An open letter to my colleagues. Forum N.H.I.: Knowledge for the 21st Century, 1(1), 42–73.