blair

@blairaf.com

3931 Followers 278 Following

Canada CIFAR AI Chair, Asst. Prof, sci-fi creator @ UAlberta Transfeminist AI governance, ethics, policy: blairaf.com Gay trans cyborg warriors vs. AI monsters: objecttype3.app

Excerpt from the essay in the liked volume entitled "Realness"
Poster entitled "Designing AI policy for and with trans communities"
Meme of Kirby absorbing and expanding upon a discursive opponent's frame rather than simply negating the frame and explaining why it's untrue
Flyer with qualifications and details for the PhD position.
The which way meme with a boy at a crossroads facing a light path and a dark path
Screenshot of a syllabus for a course entitled "Politics of Digital Technologies"
Screenshot from the first page of a paper published as a chapter in a book. The title of the paper is "Queering intelligence." The page contains text from the paper's Introduction section that can be found within the hyperlink in this post.
Abstract for a paper entitled "Transfeminist AI Governance". The abstract reads: "This paper re-imagines the governance of artificial intelligence (AI) through a transfeminist lens, focusing on challenges of power, participation, and injustice, and on opportunities for advancing equity, community-based resistance, and transformative change. AI governance is a field of research and practice seeking to maximize benefits and minimize harms caused by AI systems. Unfortunately, AI governance practices are frequently ineffective at preventing AI systems from harming people and the environment, with historically marginalized groups such as trans people being particularly vulnerable to harm. Building upon trans and feminist theories of ethics, I introduce an approach to transfeminist AI governance. Applying a transfeminist lens in combination with a critical self-reflexivity methodology, I retroactively reinterpret findings from three empirical studies of AI governance practices in Canada and globally. In three reflections on my findings, I show that large-scale AI governance systems structurally prioritize the needs of industry over marginalized communities. As a result, AI governance is limited by power imbalances and exclusionary norms. My reflections reveal that re-grounding AI governance in transfeminist ethical principles can support AI governance researchers, practitioners, and organizers in addressing those limitations."
Screenshot of an article entitled "The governance of artificial intelligence in Canada"
Screenshot of an article entitled "AI regulation in a post-reality world"
Screenshot from an article entitled "Algorithmic Justice vs. State Power"
Big smiley face emoji with two thumbs up and a burning building in the background
AI slop image of the Pope reading a print version of Magnifica Humanitas backwards with a pope robot behind him
Huxley the dog has a big nose in a fisheye lens
Huxley the dog with black brown and white fur in a pink lit room
Huxley the dog has big ears and brown black and white fur and is tilting her head with big eyes in this photo
Screenshot of the syllabus for a course entitled "Politics of Digital Technologies"
Title slide for a talk entitled "What is AI Governance? Findings from interviews with Canadian government leaders & subject matter experts"
A receipt for 120 chicken breasts totaling $418.80
Washington Post oped entitled "Halting data center construction will entrench inequality"
Angry audit man with four pupils five eyebrows and comically oversized magnifying glass
Image of a checklist misspelled as "checkist" with half-finished checkmarks on a page on a clipboard and magnifying glass over the page
Windows notepad notice popup that says "Cannot find time"
Summary of talk entitled "Collective Resistance in AI Governance Systems" from the linked page
Speaker Dr. Blair Attard-Frost, Amii Fellow & Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Alberta Title Collective Resistance in AI Governance Systems Abstract
The governance of AI has become a strategic imperative for government and industry. However, communities and workers who are vulnerable to societal impacts of AI are often pushed to the margins of policymaking, regulatory development, and other AI governance initiatives. How do marginalized groups oppose AI governance when it fails to serve their interests?  This talk will address that question by drawing on sociological theory, empirical data from my research, and lessons learned from real-world cases of collective organizing against AI governance initiatives in Canada. I will show: (1) AI governance is a social system co-created by interdependent networks of actors, resources, logics, and power structures; (2) collective resistance emerges in AI governance systems as a response to resource constraints and structural injustices; (3) communities use a variety of organizational strategies to resist top-down AI governance systems led by industry and state power, while also building smaller-scale governance systems from the bottom up. Presenter Bio
Blair Attard-Frost is an Amii Fellow and Assistant Professor in the University of Alberta's Department of Political Science. She completed her PhD in Information Studies, Master of Information (MI), and Honours Bachelor of Arts (HBA) at University of Toronto. Blair's research applies a trans feminist lens to address challenges of power, participation, and justice in the governance of artificial intelligence. Her recent research appears in academic journals such as Big Data & Society, Government Information Quarterly, and AI and Ethics. Her insights on AI governance are featured in Canadian and international outlets such as CBC News: The National, The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, BetaKit, and Tech Policy Press. In a bygone era, Blair worked on digital tr…
Title slide entitled "Infrastructure - chips, hardware, data centres"
Huxley the dog has black brown and white fur and big ears and is curled up on a big fuzzy pink lounge chair
Huxley the dog has a big snout
Photo of a laptop with many colorful stickers on it including the new AI is made of people sticker
Image of the white text "AI is made of people" on a black background
Sheet of stickers that say "AI is made of people"
Forecast that says it feels like -38C
Title slide entitled Collective Resistance in AI Governance System
Slide entitled "Chips" with photos of various parts of the AI supply chain, including a bowl of potato chips
Huxley the dog has black white and brown fur and big eyes and big eyes, she's on a fuzzy pink blanket with purple lighting
Photo of a white shirt with a print drawn in ms paint of a cyber demon holding a microchip with the text "MINISTER OF DIGITAL SOULS" "do you still want a physical body" "digitize your soUL" "your soul, on my microchip" scattered across the tshirt
How to wiki knife attack meme with the text "policy people still trying to figure out what to do about generative AI" and "Enterprise-wide multi-agent swarm"
Title slide entitled "AI - Power & profit in the GPT era"
Simpsons screenshot of book titled So You've Decided to Become Isolated and Weird
Word cloud of AI buzzwords
Huxley has the ball again!
Use of AI in the engagement analysis To process the multitude of responses, ISED applied data science techniques powered by advanced generative AI tools. ISED developed a scalable, AI-enabled workflow—known as a classification pipeline—that used several large language models, including Canadian models, to clean survey responses and categorize them into a structured set of themes and subthemes (a taxonomy). Manual human review at several stages ensured that intents were meaningful and sensible and that the solution had at least a 90% success rate in categorizing responses into specific intents. External Canadian research experts were also consulted on the methodology. They provided valuable feedback and suggested a means of integrating the Task Force reports into the analysis to help refine the search for meaningful minority opinions. The methodology, data science and use of AI in this project are all aligned with and conform to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat’s guidance on the responsible use of artificial intelligence in government. Members of the ISED AI Accelerator participated in the conception and governance of the project to ensure appropriate policy considerations. The outputs of that pipeline were used in drafting this report, with elements paraphrased or taken directly, because of the capability of the pipeline to provide high-level, public language summaries of the inputs.
It should be noted that the above assertions are summarizations of the consultation and Task Force inputs in those focus areas and are not relaying a granular view of the consultations themselves.
Screenshot from the summary that reads "Another prevalent theme was the importance of fostering public–private partnerships and streamlining regulatory frameworks to accelerate infrastructure development. Several reports recommended establishing frameworks such as the AI Sovereign Compute Infrastructure Program, national AI corridors and shared AI research platforms to lower entry barriers for SMEs, research organizations and underserved regions. This collaborative approach is seen as critical for reducing operational costs, ensuring equitable access to cutting-edge resources, and navigating supply chain and cybersecurity risks."
Screenshot from Government of Canada website that reads: "Over 11,300 participants provided their thoughts and ideas during the 30-day online public consultation, which ran from October 1 to 31, 2025. We captured over 64,600 responses to 26 questions on the eight AI pillars identified for the purpose of the consultation. The responses were analyzed using SimpleSurvey, which uses natural language processing algorithms to provide insights from open-ended questions by analyzing sentiments, keywords and topics. ISED also created an internal classification pipeline for analysis, incorporating Cohere Command A, OpenAI GPT-5 nano, Anthropic Claude Haiku and Google Gemini Flash to read through the submissions and identify common themes. Responses were also classified by question, pillar and sentiment. Human reviewers validated and refined the AI-generated analyses, ensuring accuracy and comprehensive representation of all perspectives. The same approach was used to analyze the Task Force reports. This innovative approach enabled thorough, unbiased reporting in record time—months faster than traditional methods—demonstrating a balance between efficient delivery and responsible, Canadian-centred AI adoption."
Short video of a road covered in flowing water from melted snow
Slide entitled "The limits of state-led AI governance"
Title slide entitled "AI - Machine Learning & the Governance Problem"
Sleepy dog
BIG YAWN
Huxley the dog is looking at you in this photo
Lecture slide featuring a Wired story about new TikTok data collection practices
Title slide entitled "Big Data - Privacy, Sovereignty, & Extractivism"
Slide about sovereignty washing with news clips from recent examples of the concept
Slide entitled "Digital sovereignty" with explanations of digital sovereignty & its common criticisms
Tshirt that says "I survived Y2K"
Slide about internet culture in the 2000s with a screenshot from a Twilight-themed Myspace page and a photo of some colorful flip phones
Screenshot from news article of Bessent saying the US is the "hottest" and "strongest" country in the world
Astronaut meme that says "Wait it's all gender insecurity?" "always has been"