Before the recent hype around artificial intelligence and machine learning, Tactical Tech was already at the forefront of exploring the impacts of these generative technologies on individuals, communities, and societies. Through immersive experiences and interventions, we have encouraged critical reflection on how these technologies are used and their effects. Our toolkits offer practical tips to help people navigate and respond to AI’s impacts, while our research and collaborations with civil society organizations—such as journalists, decision-makers, technologists, and human rights defenders—focus on promoting AI accountability. The following is a selection of Tactical Tech’s work empowering society to navigate and address the challenges posed by AI.
Public Engagement and educational Interventions exploring AI's impacts on society
A portable, pop-up installation that explores the effects of AI on our online lives and how AI is "supercharging" harms like scams, harassment, polarisation, and bias. It features engaging posters, two interactive books, and the essential Guide to AI for visitors to take home, which provides practical tips for what to do when we are confronted with these issues in our online lives. It’s easy to set up and perfect for any event or space, conferences, venues, brand activations, festivals, museums, and more. Produced in collaboration with Density Design and the International Network of Libraries-IFLA.
An engaging, portable, and creative exhibition featuring playful, easy-to-print and install posters, interactive activities, and an Educator's Guidebook that explore technology, Artificial Intelligence, and their impacts. Co-developed with 300 young people and 100 educators worldwide, this experience is ideal for exhibitions, conferences, and smaller venues like libraries, schools, and community centers. Available in English, Croatian, Italian, Polish, Romanian, Spanish and Ukrainian. It will soon be available in Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, French and more languages.
If you're interested in organizing one of our impactful educational activations or experiences, we offer tailored solutions to support your goals and maximize your impact.
Workshop Package 1: Artificial Intelligence: Understanding AI and its impacts
This workshop package introduces the fundamentals of AI, exploring what it is, how it works, and its impacts on people and the planet. Participants will gain critical skills and actionable strategies to address the challenges AI presents. Ideal for audiences of all ages and knowledge levels. Sessions included in the package:
Demystify AI: what it is, how it works and its impacts on people and the planet
Living with Algorithms: what algorithms are and their relation to AI and machine learning
AI challenges and actionable strategies 1: Magn(ai)fying Bias
AI challenges and actionable strategies 2: Online Harassment
Workshop on Black Sky/Blue Mirror
💡 A creative workshop at the "Berlin Summer School of AI & Society" in Berlin
From September 9 to 13, 2024, Tactical Tech's co-founders Marek Tuszynski and Stephanie Hankey led creative workshops at the "Berlin Summer School of AI & Society" focused on AI and the Urban: Making cities smart(er)?, where doctoral students explored sustainable solutions for smart cities and examined AI's dual role as an opportunity and threat to urban development, organized by BIFOLD Graduate School, SCIoI, and the Weizenbaum Institute. More information
Tactical Tech's co-founders Marek Tuszynski and Stephanie Hankey leading the creative workshop at the Berlin Summer School of AI & Society. Image taken from BIFOLD - Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data social media
Participants presenting their projects during the Tactical Tech'creative workshop at the Berlin Summer School of AI & Society. Image taken from BIFOLD - Berlin Institute for the Foundations of Learning and Data social media.
Contact us today to create a tailored package that meets your specific needs.
This new package of engaging and easy-to-read Data Detox Kit guides delves into AI and explores how its buzz can have a big sting. By using real-world examples, familiar and non-technical language, these AI guides are filled with actionable steps that anyone can take to gain awareness of modern technologies and take control where possible. The set of guides includes:
“What’s the Buzz with AI?” an essential overview on the topic. In this short piece, readers will learn the basics of how AI works and some of the impacts it can have on people and the planet. The guide also offers readers valuable tips and ways they can take action.The guide to AI’s essentials is complemented by four additional guides that dive deeper into timely topics linked to AI including: online scams, harassment, influence, and bias. These guides include interactive elements that make the takeaways even more memorable Explore
The elephant in the room: AI and online harassment. In this Data Detox guide, we’ll look into how AI is being used to supercharge harassment – especially NCII. You’ll learn more about what’s happening and find out how to take back some control. Explore
“The virtual big bad wolf: Be wary of AI-powered scams”: Identify common types of AI-powered scams and build your resiliency by following concrete tips. Explore
“Mirror images: Reflecting on bias in technology”: Recognize how everyone can over-generalize and jump to conclusions, as well as how easy it can be for those ways of thinking to be hard-coded into AI. Explore
“The elephant in the room: AI and online harassment”: Explore how AI is being used to harass people – especially women – online, and where to find support.Explore
“Persuasive Powers: Revealing AI’s influence in elections”: Shed light on how political campaigns use AI-powered tools to reach and sway voters.Explore
AI accountability, Field building and thought leadership
Digital Investigation Residency: AI and Us
In 2024, we launched the Digital Investigation Residency in partnership with Reporters Without Borders, Free Press Unlimited, Fundacja Reporterów, OBC Transeuropa, and Delfi. Over 50 journalists and media professionals from 24 countries came together to share knowledge, connect, and collaborate on investigative projects. The event emphasized cross-disciplinary collaboration, skill-building, and the use of OSINT tools to tackle critical issues such as climate change, AI regulation, and political influence. A key theme was the intersection of AI and information veracity, with a focus on the following topics:
Financing of AI — investigating who funds and drives AI advances in certain fields and to whose advantage.
Colonial influence on AI — understanding biases in AI training data and AI-generated content and identifying alternatives.
AI and the Environment — researching the environmental costs and impacts of AI, creating and testing investigation methods that can lead to evidence, informed decisions and policies.
AI and Mis/Disinformation — the role of AI in identifying mis/disinformation and its role in creating it.
Investigating through AI — identifying, testing, and sharing AI tools and methods that can help investigators expose wrongdoing and make investigation results more accessible to the public.
The Influence Industry Project
Creating awareness and understanding of the use of data, tech, and AI for political purposes and how digital technologies have influenced democratic processes and civil society engagement is at the centre of this project. Through research, resources and a series of masterclasses, Tactical Tech strengthens the capacities of organisations, journalists, researchers and decision-makers working on political processes. Highlights:
The Influence Industry Long List: The Business of Your Data and Your Vote: An investigation of 500 companies using tech and AI for political persuasion.
This project explores tech and AI responses to the pandemic and their side effects. It was produced during the “Geographies of AI” residency by Onassis Stegi and was recently recognised by the Ars Electronica awards. Explore
Sphere transitions and transgressions in the EU during the COVID pandemic
Tactical Tech participated in this meeting that was the starting point for the project conducted by the Global Data Justice team, based at Tilburg University NL and funded by the European AI Fund. Read more
“AI Visions and Narratives“
Stephanie Hankey, co-founder of Tactical Tech delivered the talk "AI, Catastrophe and the Human" for the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at the workshop „AI Visions and Narratives” organised by the University of Cambridge in collaboration with the Technische Universität Berlin.Read more
You and AI feat. Marek Tuszynski
Interview with Marek Tuszynski, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Tactical Tech, on the impact of technology on society and its relationship to social, environmental, and political issues. Read more
Articles, Resources and more
The quest to understand influencing machines. Marek Tuszynski
We live in a time of polycrisis—where climate change, economic instability, polarization, and escalating conflicts intersect, creating a web of overlapping fears. This new piece by Tactical Tech's Executive Director Marek Tuszynski, explores how amid this chaos, the digital realm, while promising to inform and connect us, often exacerbates confusion and manipulation, much like in ancient times when control over knowledge was used to maintain power. Today, these influencing tactics have evolved, making it easier to exploit our uncertainties. To navigate this, we must rethink how we engage with information, trust sources, and collaborate across divides. Read the full piece here
The Tech Ouroboros: About the digitised culture of consumption. Marek Tuszynski. Tactical tech's co-founder Stephanie Hankey
Tactical Tech's Executive Director Marek Tuszynski explores the hidden consumptions behind technologies like crypto and AI, such as the overconsumption of natural resources and the self-consumption of knowledge. The piece analyses how these technologies, framed under liberating narratives, became the latest form of epistemological colonization and how, in this spiral of self-consumption, the line between fact and fiction blurs, making it nearly impossible to separate opinions from truth. Read the full article here
The untold story of the world's biggest private data set on the natural environment: AI and synthetic landscapes. Tactical tech's co-founder Stephanie Hankey
This talk delivered at Re:publica 24 explores Bayer's large-scale, private data collection on natural systems and farm workers worldwide and its use in climate change prediction and management. The talk critically examines private gain vs. public interest in using technology to address climate change, biodiversity, food security, and human health, highlighting the role of big business and industrial agriculture. Watch now.
Lessons to learn: An interview with Stephanie Hankey. Tactical tech's co-founder Stephanie Hankey.
An interview with Stephanie Hankey about digital literacy and what young people need to know about artificial intelligence (AI) to use it responsibly and make informed decisions.Read more
Digital Literacy and Education: How to Prepare Students for the Age of AI with Stephanie Hankey.
A talk delivered in the frame of the EU National Institutes for Culture - EUNIC.Watch video
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