The technological advances of the past few years — most notably the advent of increasingly powerful AI systems — have led to a feeling of future shock, of the startling novelty of it all. It’s tempting to say that we live in unprecedented times, that the new affordances and risks presented by AI represent a break from all heretofore known histories of technology.

Yet underneath the novelty of these new technological modes lies a deeper history — one that stretches out across centuries and throughout global networks of power and control. AI scholar Kate Crawford’s work situates our present technological moment within that longer arc.

With her Long Now Talk Mapping Empires, Crawford will draw on insights from her book, Atlas of AI (02021), as well as Calculating Empires, the Silver Lion-winning installation at the 02025 Venice Biennale. She will trace the genealogy of technology and power across the last half millennium, reveal the hidden costs of today’s artificial intelligence, and consider how we might act with the long term in mind to shape the kind of world we want to live in.

Why This Talk Matters Now

Crawford’s work illustrates how computation has always been entangled with governance, empire, and expansion. Recognizing those genealogies helps us resist future shock and instead build the historical awareness necessary for long-term stewardship of these technologies. By showing how past infrastructures and ideologies shape today’s AI tools, Crawford helps us imagine and build futures that are more sustainable and accountable.

The Long View

Crawford’s work provides us with tools for perceiving time in richly layered, nonlinear ways. To imagine sustainable futures that span centuries, it’s essential to understand how today’s infrastructures have evolved, who built them, and with what ideological assumptions. Crawford’s is the latest in a lineage of Long Now Talks exploring the impacts of technology on material landscapes. In 02008, photographer Edward Burtynsky proposed a 10,000-year gallery to accompany the 10,000-year clock, using ultra-durable images that could be curated slowly over centuries to preserve and reflect changing values and landscapes. In 02018, Daily Overview founder Benjamin Grant showed how viewing Earth from above reveals surprising insights into the ways we shape the planet.

Learn More

Explore Calculating Empires, Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler’s award-winning artwork mapping 500 years of technology and power.

Read “Anatomy of an AI System,” their 02018 essay on the hidden chains of extraction, labor, energy, and disposal that go into a single product — in this case, the Amazon Echo.

Watch Crawford and Joler describe the genesis and aims of the Calculating Empires project in their own words.

About Kate Crawford

Kate Crawford is an internationally leading scholar of AI and its impacts. She is a Professor at the University of Southern California in LA, a Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research Labs New York, Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney, and the inaugural visiting chair of AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. She founded multiple research centers around the world, and currently leads the interdisciplinary lab called Knowing Machines.

Her award-winning book, Atlas of AI, has been translated into twelve languages, won multiple international prizes, including the Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology, and the ASSI&T Best Information Science Book Award. It was also named a best book of the year by The Financial Times and New Scientist. She has advised policymakers in the White House, the European Parliament, and the United Nations, and is currently on the AI Council of President Sanchez of Spain. She has produced widely-cited research in publications such as Nature, Science, Technology & Human Values, and AI and Society.

In addition to her scholarly work, Crawford is an award-winning artist.  Her project Anatomy of an AI System with Vladan Joler is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London, and was awarded the Design of the Year Award in 2019 and included in the Design of the Decades by the Design Museum of London. Her collaboration with the artist Trevor Paglen, Excavating AI, won the Ayrton Prize from the British Society for the History of Science. Her most recent work, Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Power and Technology Since 1500, won the European Commission's Grand Prize for work that spans the arts, science, and technology. It is currently on show at the Venice Biennale, where it won the Silver Lion award. She was named in the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI.