Thursday, February 19, 2026 – The growing AI appropriation threat

Native Americans have worked hard for decades to counter the stereotypes perpetuated in old movies and television shows about the American West. Now a new generation of Native technology experts worry that artificial intelligence is eroding that work. Scores of AI-generated images and videos are flooding people’s social media For You pages. The creations are within easy reach of anyone typing a prompt into any AI generator that scrapes information from millions of sources. Often posted by anonymous creators, the products of those prompts present vaguely Native visual and audio characteristics with little to no authentic cultural connections. Along the way they generate hundreds of thousands of admirers. We’ll talk about the work to counter the looming onslaught of AI cultural appropriation.

GUESTS

Dr. Angelo Baca (Diné and Hopi), professor of history, philosophy, and social sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design

Trevor Reed (Hopi), professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law and an associate justice for the Hopi Tribe Court of Appeals

Dr. Tamika Worrell (Gamilaroi), senior lecturer of critical Indigenous studies at Macquarie University

Break 1 Music: Obsidian (song) Red-209 (artist)

Break 2 Music: Digital Winter (song) Ya Tseen (artist) Stand On My Shoulders (album)