Neda Atanasoski, University of Maryland
Neda Atanasoski is Professor and Chair of the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and Associate Director of Education for the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM). Atanasoski’s interdisciplinary research has focused on feminism and AI, feminist and critical race approaches to science and technology studies, AI and the future of work, militarism, and human rights and humanitarianism. She is the author of Humanitarian Violence: The U.S. Deployment of Diversity (2013), co-author of Surrogate Humanity: Race, Robots, and the Politics of Technological Futures (2019), and co-editor of Postsocialist Politics and the Ends of Revolution (2022) and Technocreep and the Politics of Things Not Seen (2025). She serves on the editorial collective of the journal Critical Ethnic Studies, the flagship journal of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association.
“Feminist Approaches to AI in the Age of the ‘New’ Cold War”
This talk examines seemingly opposed perspectives surrounding Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): its framing as a “New Manhattan Project” driven by geopolitical competition and fears of annihilation, and its reinterpretation by some as an expansion of the definition of life itself. The presentation argues that both narratives, despite their apparent opposition, are deeply intertwined with and perpetuate gendered, racial capitalist and colonial relations. The talk suggests that the push for AGI, whether for global supremacy or a redefinition of life, obscures ongoing exploitation and reinforces existing power structures, underscoring the need for feminist understandings of life and living.