Partnership

Cathy Richards

Naijem

Associate, Digital Resilience and Emerging Tech
New York, New York, USA

Muralist & Illustrator
Santiago, Chile

Animals as best practices for AI

Farah and I collaborated to create a short story that focuses on storytelling through video. Initially, we began with a broader idea of using a storyboard, but after brainstorming together, we decided that a video format would be more dynamic and engaging. The video incorporates various clips and visuals, with English narration and French subtitles to emphasize language accessibility. For anyone approaching this piece, I would suggest viewing it as an example of how media and language access can be blended to create a narrative. The output is not perfect and the focus should be more about how we brought different pieces together to tell a story.

My piece explores the relationship between AI and the natural world by looking to animals as models for how it can be more sustainable, thoughtful, and humane. Each animal in the drawing represents a quality I believe AI should embody: the slowness and thoughtfulness of a sloth, the safety and community of a meerkat, or the transparency of a glass frog. By drawing inspiration from animals, I aimed to shift the focus from how AI serves humans to how it can work in harmony with the planet, in ways that are less extractive and more aligned with nature’s rhythms.