Tawana Petty.
Karan Singh for BI; Courtesy of Tawana Petty
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Tawana Petty

Just Tech Fellow with Social Science Research Council
Tawana Petty.
Karan Singh for BI; Courtesy of Tawana Petty
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Petty is equally at home as a poet and peacemaker as she is a researcher, founder, artist, and policymaker for more equitable artificial intelligence. She's asking tough questions about the pervasive nature of surveillance branded as safety, particularly facial recognition, and policing tools as they're applied to marginalized communities. The Detroit native has been honored with a certificate of special congressional recognition and has racked up awards for AI policy, DEI, and ethics. "We still have time to minimize the environmental impacts, to rid ourselves of pervasive and coercive surveillance technologies that harm us, to protect our critical thinking from tech companies who are pursuing systems that erase human cognition in detrimental ways," Petty told Business Insider.

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Monica Melton
Monica Melton was formerly a deputy tech editor at Business Insider. She previously served as the Managing Editor of The Plug Insights and covered innovation, technology, and venture capital at Forbes. She has also covered politics at POLITICO, entertainment for Time Out New York, but her most fascinating beat has been covering the intersection of technology, finance, race and entrepreneurship. She is an alumna of CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Washington.