
Output
What we made
Ancestral AI Chapter
The Ancestral AI chapter invites us to rethink the timeline of AI development — showing how modern data practices could integrate ancestral values like community, reciprocity, and collective memory.
From Polynesian navigation systems to knotted-string devices, the chapter highlights approaches that treat data not as a resource to be extracted, but as a form of heritage to be preserved and enriched over time. Challenging the idea that progress lies only ahead, Ancestral AI argues for moving beyond short-term metrics of “success” and “innovation” to consider the long-term impact of AI systems across generations.


Reflect on the Ancestral AI Chapter
Ancestral AI Zine
Pasts, Presents, Futures - A zine about Ancestral AI
This zine compiles the creative contributions, exchanges, and discussions from the Ancestral AI Zine-making Workshop held on August 10, 2024, at the Stadsarchief Amsterdam. In this workshop, we drew inspiration from decolonial theory, the wisdom and practices from past generations, and our own situated experiences and histories.


Flip through the Ancestral AI Zine
Ancestral AI Artwork
The Sea Dreamed of Me by Thiago Britto
"Creating prompts comes from attempts and dialogues: simple signs that translate my imagination. Sometimes direct, literal; other times figurative, reaching for the playful. A prompt, after all, is not the conclusion of a thought, but a piece of a series. The complete series is the true prompt. In the process, I realized that words do not follow a linear logic. Writing a prompt is like observing the beginning finding the end, melting around a central line. It’s thinking in a circular way, where beginning, middle, and end coexist, creating images that fabulate, deconstruct, and return to us the right to imagine." - Thiago Britto


Conversation on Ancestral AI
Gustavo Nogueira de Menezes in conversation w/ Monique Lemos and Thiago Britto
As part of the Ancestral AI research, we spoke to Monique Lemos and Thiago Britto. How can ancestral knowledge shape the future of AI? What might it mean to be a good AI ancestor?
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(2019-25©)






