"Gender, Empire and Al" is a symposium and design workshop to both reflect on critical questions and design generative paths forward to addressing them. The day will start with a keynote by award-winning journalist and MIT alumna, Karen Hao, on her book "Empire of Al". Select MIT faculty and researchers will facilitate discussion groups to unpack problems outlined in Hao’s talk and possible solutions. Over lunch, we will hear from our second keynote speaker, Paola Ricaurte, who leads the Latin American Feminist Al Research Network and was named as one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in Al in 2025.

In the afternoon, we will hold hands-on design workshops to tackle specific issues like reproductive justice, Al and propaganda, and technofascism. Attendees will also have the option to propose and work on designs of their own creation. We believe that together we can solve complex issues and generate more just and feminist visions for Al and society.

For more information, to register, and questions regarding accessibility, contact wgs@mit.edu. This event is free and open to the public with priority to the MIT community.

Registration is required.

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Schedule

8:15-9:00AM Registration and breakfast

9:00-10:30AM Opening remarks and Karen Hao’s Keynote

10:30-11:45AM Facilitated Discussion & Book signing with Karen Hao

12:00-1:15PM Paola Ricaurte Keynote address and Lunch

1:30-3:45PM Design Workshops

Topics: Technofascism, Propaganda, Reproductive Justice, Gender inequities, create your own in our un-conference space

4:00-4:45PM Report back and Closing

Keynote Speakers

Karen Hao was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review. Her work has been cited by Congress, featured in university curriculums, and remade into museum exhibits. She has won numerous accolades, including an American Humanist Media Award and a National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. Karen also sits on the AI advisory board of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. Prior to journalism, she was an application engineer at the first startup to spin out of Google, and she received a B.S. in mechanical engineering and minor in energy studies from MIT.

In Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI (Penguin Press, 2025), Karen, the first journalist to ever profile OpenAI, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how a cadre of the most powerful companies in human history is reshaping the world in its image. “Excellent and deeply reported” (The New York Times), Empire of AI is an “essential work of public education” (Zuboff), “a bestselling page-turner that has made waves not just in Silicon Valley but around the world” (TIME), and a revelatory portrait of the people controlling this technology. It is the jaw-dropping story of ambition and ego, hype and speculation, plunder and destruction, politics and labor, and, of course, money and power—a brilliant and deeply necessary look at the industry defining our era, and what the future holds.

Paola Ricaurte is a full professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. She is the co-founder of Tierra Común, an academic and activist network committed to decolonizing data, and leads the Latin American and Caribbean Feminist AI Network. Her work bridges academia, activism, innovation and policymaking, with a central focus on human rights from decolonial and feminist perspectives. Paola serves on several international expert committees, including the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI), UNESCO’s AI Ethics Experts Without Borders (AIEB), and the Women for Ethical AI (W4EAI) platform. She was included in the 2025 TIME100 AI list of the most influential people in artificial intelligence.

Discussion groups after Karen Hao’s led by esteemed MIT professors, researchers, and affiliates:

Abha Sur (WGS), Andreia Martinho (Tufts), Arvind Satyanarayan (Course 6), Ashia Wilson (Course 6), Balakrishnan Rajagopal (Course 11), Behnaz Farahi (Media Lab), Carlos Centeno (McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society), Caroline Jones (Course 4), Catherine D’Ignazio (Course 11), Clara Montague (WGS), Dwai Bannerjee (STS), Eden Medina (STS), Erik Sandelin (Course 11), Hafsa Arain (WGS), Jacob Andreas (Course 6), Jason Jackson (Course 11), Joaquin Terrones (WGS/Literature),Lauren Klein (Emory University), Lily Tsai (Political Science), Marzyeh Ghassemi (Course 6, AI for Society), Paloma Duong (CMS/W), Rachel Fagen (TechTonic Justice), Sally Haslanger (Philosophy), Sandy Alexandre (Literature), Sara Beery (Course 6, AI for Society), Umutcan Ay (IDSS)

Space Guidelines

We look forward to hosting this interdisciplinary event with opportunity for conversation between faculty, students, staff, and more throughout the day. In order to encourage dialogue and connection, people attending the event are expected to adhere to the following ground rules. If you have any questions, please be in touch with WGS before or during the event. 

• Attendees should be curious, open to learning, and encourage themselves to explore various viewpoints. Conversation is as much about listening as it is about talking. 

• Attendees should show respect to the speakers, each other, and on-site staff. 

• Attendees should stay on point and be as concise as possible. Be mindful of how much space you are taking up and allow others the room to ask questions and share their expertise. 

• Attendees engaging in disruptive, discriminatory, hateful, or violent language or action will be asked to leave.

Co-sponsors

This event was made possible by MIT Womens’s and Gender Studies, MIT Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing, MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing, MIT EECS, MIT LIDS | Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems, AI For Society Group, MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, MIT Radius, HCI Seminar, MIT Data + Feminism Lab, MIT Anthropology, MIT Philosophy, MIT Literature, Media Lab Social Algorithms Group, MIT Political Economy Lab, MIT Knight Science Journalism, MIT Program in Science, Technology and Society, and PKG Center for Social Impact