To be Seen and not Watched w/ Tawana Petty

Computer Says Maybe

Welcome back! Let us know what you think of the show and what you want to see more of in 2025 by writing in here, or rambling into a microphone here.

In this episode Alix is joined by Tawana Petty, who shares her experiences coming up as a political community activist in Detroit. Tawana studied the history of radical black movements under Grace Lee Boggs, and has taken these learnings into her work today.

Listen to learn about how places like Detroit are used as testing grounds for new ‘innovations’ — especially within marginalised neighbourhoods. Tawana explains in detail how surveillance and safety are often mistakenly conflated, and how we have to work to unlearn this conflation.

Further reading:

• Our Data Bodies project: https://www.odbproject.org/
• James and Grace Lee Boggs Center: https://www.boggscenter.org/
• The Detroit Community and Technology Project: https://detroitcommunitytech.org/ who ran the digital stewards program
• Detroit Digital Justice Coalition: https://alliedmedia.org/projects/detroit-digital-justice-coalition
• We The People of Detroit: https://www.wethepeopleofdetroit.com/

Tawana Petty is a mother, social justice organizer, poet, author, and facilitator. She is the founding Executive Director of Petty Propolis, Inc., an artist incubator which teaches poetry, policy literacy and advocacy, and interrogates negative pervasive narratives, in pursuit of racial and environmental justice. Petty is a 2023-2025 Just Tech Fellow with the Social Science Research Council, a 2024 Rockwood National LIO Alum, and she currently serves on the CS (computer science) for Detroit Steering Committee. In 2021, Petty was named one of 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics. In 2023, she was honored with the AI Policy Leader in Civil Society Award by the Center for AI and Digital Policy, the Ava Jo Silent Shero Award by the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, and with a Racial Justice Leadership Award by the Detroit People's Platform. In 2024, Petty was listed on Business Insider’s AI Power List for Policy and Ethics.