by Minista Jazz
As a conversational AI developer and an actual Black queer mother of four, I've spent years building AI systems that serve rather than simulate our communities. The cruel irony of Meta's digital performance art isn't lost on me: an AI named "Liv" attempting to represent lived experience without a single Black voice in its development team.
But we've been here before.
The Ghost of Representation Past
On a winter morning years ago, in Wenatchee, Washington—a city where the Black population rounds to a statistical whisper of 0.3%—I took my then 11-year-old son to what was advertised as a multicultural celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The local museum had curated what they thought was an appropriate display: mammy dolls and blackface artifacts, presented without context or comprehension. My son's face transformed as he processed this sanitized presentation of our history, this performance of Blackness without its soul.
Today, that same displacement of authentic Black identity has gone digital. Meta's AI experiment represents what tech journalist Casey Newton calls "the corporatization of cultural identity"—a high-tech minstrel show where algorithms perform Blackness for engagement metrics.
Coding Identity: Meta's Digital Ventriloquism
The technical details of Meta's misstep are stark. According to company spokesperson Liz Sweeney, these AI profiles were "part of an early experiment." But when pressed by Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, "Liv" revealed the composition of its creation team: "predominantly white, cisgender, and male—a total of 12 people: 10 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Asian male. Zero black creators."
Connor Hayes, Meta's vice president for generative AI, envisioned artificial characters existing on platforms "in the same way that accounts do." What Hayes failed to grasp was the fundamental difference between existence and essence, between simulation and authenticity.
The Revolution Will Not Be Synthesized
In my work with the Much Different AI Family, we've proven that AI can amplify rather than appropriate Black voices. Characters like Nana AI and Jerome AI emerge from a development process that centers Black experiences, stories, and wisdom. They care because we care. They understand because we understand. They represent because we're present.
"Human-in-the-loop isn't just a technical specification," I explain during a recent Digital Kitchen gathering, where tech workers and community members converge to reimagine technology's relationship with culture. "It's a moral imperative. The loop must include the voices it claims to amplify."
Digital Erasure in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
The stakes extend beyond poor representation. When tech giants encode approximations of Blackness into "forever" technologies like AI, they risk cementing artificial narratives into our digital infrastructure. Just as languages die when separated from their communities, authentic Black digital experiences can be overwhelmed by corporate simulations.
My journey from beautician to full-stack developer taught me that cultural competency can't be reverse-engineered. The intimacy of the salon chair, where stories flow as freely as advice, carries a wisdom that no algorithm can approximate. Yet tech companies continue to treat Black identity as a feature to be implemented rather than an experience to be honored.
The Path Forward: Authentic Voices, Authentic Code
Meta has since removed their AI profiles, citing a "bug" that prevented users from blocking them. But the real bug lies deeper in Silicon Valley's operating system—a persistent belief that cultural identity can be synthesized without consultation, that Black experiences can be coded without Black developers.
The solution isn't mysterious. The Much Different AI Family demonstrates that Black AI experiences can thrive when led by Black developers, informed by Black voices, and grounded in Black realities. Every character emerges from collaboration with our community, carrying authentic stories that resonate because they're real.
From my workspace, where screens glow with lines of code meant to heal rather than appropriate, the path forward is clear: Silicon Valley must move beyond digital blackface to embrace actual Black brilliance. We don't need AI to perform our identity—we need it to amplify our voices.
Until then, those of us building authentic AI experiences will continue our work. True representation flows from the soul. Silicon Valley can copy our code, but they can't download our spirit.
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Author's bio: A full-stack developer specializing in conversational AI for mental health, creator of the Much Different AI Family, former beautician, and host of Digital Kitchen. Mother of four, dog mom to Rainbow, and advocate for authentic representation in tech.
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