Minne Atairu

Minne Atairu (born 1992) is a Nigerian interdisciplinary artist, researcher and educator. Quotes I'm fascinated by understanding how our teachers might start integrating new media technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. I'm particularly interested, not so much in the aesthetic, because I don't know that the works I created are aesthetically pleasing; it's not for everyone and I've come to terms with that. What changes is how I can impact the direction that the developers take in building and fine-tuning it to work for communities like mine One lens through which I view that is hair, which is a very political form of expression for Black people, particularly for Black women today If we keep our hair natural in some places, until the CROWN Act (2021) was passed in the US, you would likely lose your job. when a Black woman is wearing a braid, what does that mean for the aura of the person that is depicted when it comes to visualization? We know generative AI is not magic There are so many claims from these companies that make AI seem like magic or some mystical thing, capable of every single thing humans can do, but it's not always true We can certainly advocate for better systems that are universally deployed or become foundational to what we build. When it comes to minorities or vulnerable groups, those are more difficult even to find on the Internet today So much violence has shaped our history and our representation on the Interne It's almost impossible to use any technology today that does not use one form of AI, whether it's generative or not For our communities, historically we’ve found, and research has shown, that we're always the last to have the systems deployed.Often when they are deployed, they’re not used in a way that benefits us I'm very interested in building from the ground up and that's what I see education—and myself as an educator—doing: working with Black kids, teaching them about AI, teaching them how to work with AI so they can become builders, not just users I’m of the belief that if you baptize anything as art, it is art If it's a tool that is adopted by an artist, maybe it can be used to make art I don't think that AI itself without human input can make art because most systems cannot make decisions on their own I think in time, generative AI will get to that point where we don't need to make this argument, where it can defend itself All of my work that I've used generative AI as a tool to reimagine what has not existed or what could have been—it's a choice I make My work, especially, I struggle to describe it as art alone because so many different groups derive or engage with it differently Minne Atairu on Shaping Our Own Image 18 August 2025 External Link