Stacey Abrams spoke about democracy in the age of AI at her fireside chat at the 2025 AFROTECH Conference in Houston.
Abrams served in the Georgia House from 2007 to 2017, led the caucus as House Minority Leader from 2011 to 2017, as well as made history as the first Black woman to secure a major-party governor nomination in Georgia in 2018. She later founded Fair Fight Action to expand voting access.
On Wednesday, Abrams and Rachel Gillum, vice president of Ethical & Humane Use of Technology at Salesforce, discussed AI and how democratic guardrails can steer technology toward equitable prosperity during the “Democracy in the World of AI with Stacey Abrams” session.
Stacey Abrams is using her new novel to explore the ethics of AI
Abrams began with her childhood, sharing that her mother referred to their economic status as “gentile poor.” Reading books and watching PBS stood in for wealth and taught Abrams that escaping poverty should be possible for everyone. The belief that “poverty is immoral, economically inefficient and solvable” is what fuels her companies, her organizing and her writing.
She chose to use fiction as a doorway, not a detour. Coded Justice, her new thriller that she released in July, walks them through the hard conversations about democracy and technology.
“Storytelling is for me the most effective means of not only firing the imagination, but also helping people envision what is possible,” Abrams said. “A thriller for me is the most exciting way to get people to eat their vegetables.”
Source: Stacey Abrams Makes Case For Democracy-First AI At AFROTECH 2025
Recent Comments