Intersectional AI Toolkit

= What is the Intersectional AI Toolkit? =

A ZINE COLLECTION FOR ARTISTS, ACTIVISTS, MAKERS, ENGINEERS, AND YOU
The Intersectional AI Toolkit gathers ideas, ethics, and tactics for more ethical, equitable tech. It shows how established queer, antiracist, antiableist, feminist communities contribute needed perspectives to reshape digital systems. The toolkit also offers approachable guides to both intersectionality and AI. This endeavor works from the hope that code can feel approachable for everyone, can move us toward care and repair—rather than perpetuating power imbalances—and can do so by embodying lessons from intersectionality.

Of course, this toolkit is not the first or only resource on intersectionality or AI. Instead, it gathers together some of the amazing people, ideas, and forces working to re-examine the foundational assumptions built into these technologies. In the tradition of ’90s zine aesthetics and politics, it celebrates these radical efforts by sharing them—connecting concepts, creators, tools, and tactics across disciplines and counter-histories—hoping to spark further conversation and collaboration. It does so imperfectly and incrementally, showing rough edges and edit marks, in the belief that no text is final, all code can be forked, and everything is better with friends.

Please join in by exploring the toolkit, commenting with your questions or thoughts, or remixing it into your own new text(s). No experience is necessary to participate; all backgrounds and perspectives are welcome!

= What’s included? =

is currently 6+ issues in-progress: READABLE, REMIXABLE, SHAREABLE.

 * 1) 🍦🍦 A-to-Z IAI A double-sided glossary from AI technical perspectives and social perspectives
 * 2) 💜 Love Notes to IAI Great practitioners and projects already at work
 * 3) 🔥 Why We Need IAI Making the case for more equitable, empathic tech
 * 4) 🌶 Tactics for IAI Practical approaches from wide-ranging communities and decades of intersectional effort
 * 5) 😍 Help Me Code IAI Afraid of programming but want to save AI from itself?
 * 6) 🤩 Help Me Understand Intersectionality Why listen to academic, activist, or artistic approaches?

and the zine collection grows with every zine-making workshop

 * 1) Help Me Code IAI's first volume was created at the Creative Code Collective USC Zine-Making Workshop
 * 2) An AI Love Letter from Berlin created at the [HIIG IAI Edit-a-thon]

😁 How do I make my own zine?



 * 1) fold your paper in half long ways, so that it is long and narrow. crease well, then unfold.
 * 2) fold your paper in half along the short side, and fold that in half again. crease well, then unfold.
 * 3) you should have eight mini sections divided like the illustration above.
 * 4) cut ONLY along the two short folds in the middle. this is easiest done by folding the paper in half once short ways again and taking the scissors halfway in on the side with the fold (not the side that is open). do not cut all the way across. the goal is to have a slice in the center that does not connect to any edges.
 * 5) finally, fold the paper in half long ways again so the printed side faces out. pinch open the sliced center and separate those pages apart from each other until they join their neighbors.
 * 6) fold the book closed with the covers on the front and back.

… and it’s pronounced zeen, right?
Yep, like “magazine.” Like, “I’m so excited to read this zeeeeeeen!”

This wiki/zine library of digital-print hybrid zines are written for a non-academic/non-technical audiences and are intended as practical introductory field guides to key concepts, strategies, and resources around inclusive, intersectional AI. But mainly they are intended as jumping off points for your own practice, inspiration, and continued conversation. They celebrate, cite, remix, reframe, and you should feel welcome to do the same.

Christina Dunbar-Hester, in Hacking Diversity (2020), notes that the perhaps surprising appearance of zines and crafting in feminist technology circles makes sense: “In feminist zine making, forms of knowledge like folk medicine can be filtered through the riot grrrl practice of zine-making, which is itself connected to long traditions of feminine papercraft and journaling. They are identity practices in addition to circulations of knowledge” (111). As digital-print hybrids, they can utilize the liveliest aspects of both: GIFS and images, the expandability and nonlinearity of hyperlinks, and other dynamic content online; but also the accessible, ‘handmade’, distributable, low-power novelty of paper at a moment of maximum screen fatigue. The print versions of these zines are formatted to print double-sided on a single landscape page, making reversible two-part mini-zines (in multiple combinations as the library grows).

They are also inspired by the Tiny Tech Zines festival and two fantastic zines acquired there [“Bite-Size Networking”] by Julia Evans and [“How to Cite Like a Badass Feminist Tech Scholar of Color”] by Data and Society’s Rigoberto Lara Guzmán and Sareeta Amrute. Check out the Who Loves IAI zine for other zines we love, like the [Techno-Galactic Guide to Software Observation].

More Resources
- Creative Code Collective Resource Hub: A growing database of useful tools for critical and creative tech learning gathered by the members of Creative Code Collective

= 🤓 Who’s making this IAI TK? = Developed by Sarah Ciston while a virtual fellow at the HIIG, with valued inspiration and collaboration from many others included on the Community page.

See Notes for more on Sarah’s making of this collection-in-progress and read more below about how you can help it grow.

= 😎 …and how can I contribute? =

• MAKING COMMENTS, BROWSING DIFFS
There are many ways to contribute. One of the most immediate is to join in the co-creation of these texts! Feel free to read along, and add your thoughts on the project’s archive. I think of this as an expanded form of reading-writing.
 * This section is being updated.**

At the bottom of any page on this site, you’ll see a link to “Comment, edit, or remix this page.” When you follow it, you reach the code for this page and all the files that run this site.

If you go to the main page, at the top you’ll see a link that says Fork (make sure you’re logged in to your own GitHub account first). Forking this repository makes a copy of the site that’s all yours and let’s you make whatever changes you want! You’ll see that now the repo says /yourname/intersectionalai/

Click around to the files you want to dive into. In the blue bar at the top of each, click the History button which will take you into the archives for this particular file. Don’t worry you can’t break anything.

Here you’ll get a list of every Commit, which are labels put on each time changes have been saved to the repository. They’ll have random names like, “Updated a typo” or “Redid everything FML why did it break!!!” because sometimes I’m not good at clearly labeled commits. Click the top link in the list (latest), or rewind to an earlier version if you like. Follow along with the drama, ghasp!

Now you have a colorful look at every change or “diff”—green + for adds and red - for deletes—made to each file. AND when you point your cursor at a line, a blue + plus appears at the left edge, where you can click to leave a comment about that line! If you’re in “raw text” mode you’ll also see other readers’ comments, plus the non-formatted code as well.

• ADDING YOUR THOUGHTS, EDITS, SECTIONS, PAGES IN MARKDOWN STYLE
How do I format my contribution?

= 🤖 See also: Code resource hub =

THE CODE RESOURCE HUB WILL BE AN EVER-GROWING COMMUNITY-SOURCED COLLECTION OF VIDEO TUTORIALS, CODE LIBRARIES, AND INSPIRING PROJECTS.
The IAI Toolkit is closely partnered with the Creative Code Collective Code Resource Hub, which has been curated by members of Creative Code Collective and friends. It is an interactive, searchable, sortable database that will point you to the many different kinds of projects, tools, and research being made around creative coding, Intersectional AI and related topics. It’s fed by a user-friendly spreadsheet where you can add your own resources and tell us why you like them. Get inspired and you can get cracking making your own intersectional projects and tools for others.