How do AI image generators work and are they everything they claim to be? Artist Karla Ortiz, whose art was used without permission to "train" AI, talks with sociologist and AI ethicist Alex Hanna about the promises and pitfalls of AI.

Karla Ortiz is an award winning artist who enjoys working on a diverse and wide variety of projects.  As a concept artist with over 10 years of professional experience, Karla has worked for Paragon Studios/NcSoft, Ubisoft, Kabam, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Marvel Film Studios, Universal Studios and HBO.  As a professional Illustrator her clients include Wizards of the Coast, Ace Books, Tor Books, Orbit Books, CB+P and has provided cover work and art for various independent authors and toy makers.  As a fine artist her work has shown in the Studio Gallery SF, the Safehouse studios shows, Thinkspace Art Gallery,  Nucleus Gallery, Spoke Art Gallery, Hashimoto Contemporary and internationally at Galerie Arludik in Paris, France. 

Dr. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). A sociologist by training, her work centers on the data used in new computational technologies, and the ways in which these data exacerbate racial, gender, and class inequality. She also works in the area of social movements, focusing on the dynamics of anti-racist campus protest in the US and Canada. Dr. Hanna has published widely in top-tier venues across the social sciences, including the journals Mobilization, American Behavioral Scientist, and Big Data & Society, and top-tier computer science conferences such as CSCW, FAccT, and NeurIPS. Dr. Hanna serves as a co-chair of Sociologists for Trans Justice, as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Applied Transgender Studies, and sits on the advisory board for the Human Rights Data Analysis Group and the Scholars Council for the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry. FastCompany included Dr. Hanna as part of their 2021 Queer 50, and she has been featured in the Cal Academy of Sciences New Science exhibit, which highlights queer and trans scientists of color. She holds a BS in Computer Science and Mathematics and a BA in Sociology from Purdue University, and an MS and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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