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Creativity shines at Ethọ́s Lab’s annual Blackathon

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Five grade 8–12 students sit around a table and smile for the camera as they participate in the 2025 Blackathon at Microsoft Offices.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Ethọ́s Lab

By: Lucaiah Smith-Miodownik, News Writer

On February 27, Ethọ́s Lab will host its Black Futures Month Blackathon. The fourth annual hackathon event will build “on a tradition of honouring Black innovation while equipping youth with real-world problem-solving skills.” Past years have focused on Black inventors, like video game console revolutionary Gerald Lawson, or locomotive safety visionary Andrew Jackson Beard.

The lab itself is a non-profit designed to “make STEAM learning (Science, Technology, Engineering, Applied Arts, and Math) accessible and exciting by offering afterschool project-based programs and in-school activations for youth in Grades 5–12.” They shared that their “approach to innovation is grounded in the African philosophy of Ubuntu ‘I am because we are,’ providing inclusive dynamic learning spaces that build community and centres the interconnected nature of innovation.”

For Blackathon 2026, “participants will dive into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and, using equity, critical thinking and design, will reimagine Hogan’s Alley” — a vibrant Vancouver neighbourhood that “was home to Vancouver’s largest Black and African diaspora community.” In the 1960s, the city levelled the area to build a freeway and displaced the Black Canadians who lived there. 

“Reimagining Hogan’s Alley is about more than redesigning a space, it’s about reimagining possibility. Students engage with Hogan’s Alley not only as a historical site, but as a living story shaped by culture, displacement, resilience, and future vision.”

— Faidat Olatunbosun, Ethọ́s Lab outreach manager

“Through the ‘Ubuntu Innovation Cycle,’ students empathize with the lived experiences and histories connected to Hogan’s Alley [and] story futures that honour cultural memory while imagining regeneration,” she added.

In addition to this year’s Blackathon, the lab will be expanding into a larger physical space, one that it will share with UBC Geering Up and Hogan’s Alley Society. The transition “allows us to host deeper, more immersive programming, welcome more youth and community partners, and connect learning more directly to real-world applications,” said Olatunbosun. The new space will include a dance studio, shared makerspace, sound and podcast booths, and more.

Olatunbosun also shared how “Ethọ́s Lab approaches AI with intentionality and curiosity. We don’t position AI as the decision-maker. Instead, we teach students to use AI as a collaborative tool — one that supports ideation, iteration, and exploration while keeping human judgment, transparency, and cultural values at the centre.”

In workshops, youth “learn how to prompt AI intentionally, how to assess outputs critically, how to recognize bias and limitations,” and “how to use AI in ways that serve community impact, not convenience.

“At its core, the Blackathon is about shifting narratives from consumer to creator, from individual success to collective impact, [and] from technology as novelty to technology as responsibility,” she added.

“This year’s Blackathon is the culmination of intentional preparation through mandatory readiness workshops. Students don’t just arrive and compete, they arrive prepared to design with intention,” Olatunbosun shared.

To participate in the Blackathon, youth must complete a readiness workshop on February 7. Those interested can register or find more information at ethoslab.ca.

 

SFU students rally in solidarity with Iranians amid ongoing protests

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A large group of students march through the middle of the Academic Quadrangle with Iranian flags and signs at sunset.
PHOTO: Courtesy of @mahsa.shirkani and @sfuiranian / Instagram

By: Diya Brar, SFU student

On January 16, a large crowd of SFU students gathered at the Burnaby campus to show support for Iranians protesting the Islamic Republic. The rally is just one of many internationally, as ongoing internet shutdowns and state violence continue to limit communication between Iran and the outside world. 

Organized by the SFU Iranian Club, the rally brought together many Iranian Canadian students with families living in Iran. It was intended to show protesters that “we can see them and we hear them,” Artin Safaei, a general member and former executive of the club, told The Peak. Speakers addressed the crowd, and attendees chanted slogans and held signs, all while marching around the campus. 

Severe economic hardship sparked protests in Iran on December 28, 2025. They later evolved into broader anti-government demonstrations calling for the removal of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Although significant unrest has persisted in Iran for decades due to political and economic tensions, the current protests are the largest since 2009 and the most widespread since 2022. In 2009, “millions of Iranians” protested against the “disputed presidential election,” while in 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini sparked “the most widespread revolt led by women since the 1979 Revolution.” 

Human rights organizations estimate thousands of demonstrators have been killed, with thousands more detained, though exact numbers remain unclear due to censorship and restricted media access. Additionally, an intensifying fear and uncertainty are surrounding the possibility of Iranian authorities executing protesters.

“The goal [of the protests] is to get rid of the regime that hides behind this veil of democracy, but hates democracy,”

— Artin Safaei, general member and former executive of the SFU Iranian Club

However, he emphasized the SFU rally was not intended to push a specific ideological or political agenda: “We just wanted this to be focused on solidarity.” 

Safaei added the lack of direct communication with Iran makes it “very easy for their voice to be hijacked by us, Iranians outside Iran, thinking we can represent people we are away from.”

Safaei also criticized SFU’s lack of response to the Iranian international students affected: “SFU is failing in its responsibility to provide financial aid to international Iranian students,” he said. Due to Iran’s internet shutdowns and subsequent banking restrictions, many SFU students are unable to receive financial support from family in Iran, forcing some to drop courses or struggle to afford living expenses. He voiced that the university has allowed bureaucracy to override students’ immediate needs. “We want them to know that we need them to act right now.”

In a statement to The Peak, SFU recognized “how stressful this situation must be for Iranian students.” They noted that “SFU’s International Services for Students office and Multifaith Centre have been reaching out to impacted students directly with resources around academic concessions and financial support.

“Impacted students have been advised to apply for bursaries to receive financial support from SFU. Students with immediate financial need can apply for one-time emergency funding through Financial Aid and Awards. Students can also contact Student Accounts to discuss their situation and will be provided with supports based on their specific situation,” said the university. 

“The university has received several requests for Iranian students to be eligible for domestic tuition. SFU’s tuition policy is clear and must be consistently applied to ensure the process is fair and transparent for all international students. We cannot classify international student applicants as domestic students unless they meet one of the criteria found here,” they concluded.

Beyond immediate solidarity, Safaei argued Canada has a responsibility to acknowledge its role in Iran’s tumultuous political history. While he said, “we denounce the Islamic Republic,” he emphasized that foreign intervention and sanctions have contributed to deteriorating living conditions in Iran. “This is not just in a vacuum; Canada had a part in this,” he said, calling on Western countries to recognize how past involvement, or support of involvement, has undermined democracy in Iran. “These nations, right now talking about freedom and democracy, actively destroyed freedom and democracy in Iran.” 

Safaei centres his message to Iranians, both inside and outside the country, on unity. “If we don’t become one, one by one, we will get destroyed,” he said. 

Despite the ongoing violence, he ended on a note of hope, stating, “A government that kills its own people doesn’t stand a chance.”

A letter to Premier David Eby

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a photo of a person drafting a letter by hand.
PHOTO: Scott Graham / Unsplash

By: Mason Mattu, Section Editor

Dear Mr. Premier, 

When you were first appointed to your position after the resignation of John Horgan, you promised to deliver tangible results on affordability — results that British Columbians can feel in their daily lives. Yet, three years under your leadership, I’m certainly not feeling much change. 

If you weren’t so busy going on lavish foreign trips, you’d realize that food prices have increased 27% since 2020 in BC. You promised a $1,000 grocery rebate to households during your last election campaign. What happened to that promise? Gone. You instead blamed immigrants for high food bank demands, missing the mark on how food unaffordability is tied to grocery giants, who are marking up our food prices in the name of greed. Has your government introduced long-term, systemic changes to create lasting affordability? I think not. 

You are driving our economy into the ground with a deficit of over $11 billion. What exactly is that money being spent on? Could it be on social services and initiatives to make post-secondary tuition more affordable? Nope. Could it be on a fare-free transit pilot? Nope. You still continue to uphold neoliberal notions of a free market. Instead of continuing to pursue corporate-friendly policies, your government has an opportunity to reform our corporate tax rates to pre-neoliberal levels set forth before Gordon Campbell came to office in 2001 — and thereby address the root causes of inequality. Yet, you don’t. 

Did you run your last election campaign on a progressive plan to lift British Columbians out of poverty? No, you didn’t. Instead of proposing structural reforms that would truly make a difference in our lives, you led a fear-based campaign against John Rustad and the BC Conservatives. You demonized those who voted for Sonia Furstenau and the BC Greens (then refused to implement proportional representation, something that would ensure that every vote truly counts). 

Three years into your premiership, you are still betraying the core values of what is expected of New Democrats. Your moderate, status quo politics are not attractive to voters who haven’t seen any changes in their material conditions since you entered office. Despite having a majority government, you are not governing for the working class. Clearly, if you keep going down the path you’re going, the BC Conservative Party will continue to win over working-class voters who are trying to get by in a rigged economy — and you will create the conditions necessary for a BC New Democratic Party (BCNDP) loss in the next election. 

Perhaps you and party insiders need a wake-up call to realize that the BCNDP is becoming unelectable. Maybe this means organizing to redirect the progressive vote away from the BCNDP and towards the BC Green Party and their freshly minted, progressive leader Emily Lowan. Maybe this means that losing the next election is necessary so reflection can take place, restoring progressive policies to the BCNDP. 

As a young person, I’m scared that our government is not investing in my best interest. I’m scared that the cost of living will continue to skyrocket.

I’m scared that the late, former federal NDP leader Jack Layton’s dream of a “prosperous economy and society that shares its benefits more fairly” is a call to action that lies distant in our rearview mirrors. 

Mr. Premier, now is the time to act. If you want our vote in the next election, do something to improve our lives. Better yet, do your job. Your party is in government — so actually govern for the people. 

Yours truly, 

Mason 

 

SFYou: Dr. Cornel Bogle

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PHOTO: Maya Barillas Mohan / The Peak

By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer

Dr. Cornel Bogle is an assistant professor in the English department currently teaching ENGL 361, “Diaspora Literatures” and ENGL 852, “Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Literature.” He leads both undergraduate and master’s classes, writes poetry, and enjoys watching cricket in his leisure time. Fondness for the sport is informed by time spent in Jamaica; so, too, are his studies. 

In describing his work, Bogle tells The Peak he prefers the term Caribbean studies over Black diaspora literature because the Caribbean is a region “of multiplicity. It was one of  complex simultaneous experiences that are both different but inseparable.” He adds,

“When I say Caribbean, it’s like, ‘yes, Black and.’ Yes, I do Black, but I also think about the ways in which Blackness is not a singular thing. It’s multiple and it’s experienced in multiple ways, depending on where you are in the world.”

“And so that’s the kind of approach I take to thinking about and that’s very much informed by my own background.” Bogle’s mother is Afro-Jamaican and his father is “mixed with Afro-Scottish, European, and other forms of ethnicities.” 

Reflecting on how the Caribbean has been essentialized by the tourism industry as paradise in the 20th century and as the birthplace of the fastest man alive in the 2000s, Bogle says,

“I was always interested in how people from the Caribbean get caught into certain narratives, particularly as they migrate, because migration is such a key part of Caribbean experience.”

Expanding on identity as multi-faceted, he says diaspora life “resists an easy narrative; it’s complex, fraught, and littered with multiple affects, emotions, and experiences.” Bogle told The Peak he thinks about how Black experience is often “reified into something singular” and added, “I think about queerness as a queer person as well as neurodivergence.” 

As a self-described “younger racialized faculty,” Bogle says academia is only one of many pathways, but Bogle pledges to be candid about the challenges that exist in academia and guide students through the invisible curriculum. “There’s a way in which those whose families have gone to universities generationally pass on knowledge about what it means to be a university student, whether or not it’s consciously or unconsciously. If you’re raised in that kind of family where your parents went to university, your grandparents went to university, there’s something about the culture of a university that you’re raised with.” This unspoken culture is unknown to those who may be the first in their families to attend university. Bogle explains that understanding university structures, like knowing “who the provost or chancellor are” is part of that necessary cultural education. Building community and connecting with other Black scholars is valuable in this context. Bogle does just that as a founding member of the Institute of Black and African and African-diaspora Research and Engagement Steering Committee at SFU. The committee helps “bring together scholars, students, and communities to explore the rich histories, cultures, and contributions of Black and African peoples globally, while addressing the pressing challenges they face.”

Passionate about the process of hands-on learning, Bogle shared his approach to teaching u. The flipped classroom model lets students reach their own conclusions by encouraging them to collaborate with him and each other. Discovery is not about outcome, but rather the “knowledge encountered during the process of creating.” Besides, Bogle continues, “I never want to tell people the answer. The answer is never one thing.” Learning is active and ongoing, and Bogle shares that he finds being a “facilitator of conversations” rewarding. 

Bogle’s dedication to research-creation as a method transmits naturally to his poetry. Last term, he invited students directly into his revision process. He started a poem from scratch, editing the poem through a trail of iterations. Titled “Queer Use,” it began from a moment of observation out in the community: “A disco ball glimmers / under a salmon door, / half-open while

rain needles the frame.” Bogle tells The Peak he was captivated by a salmon-coloured store filled with beautiful, delicate things that reject a primary practical purpose. He describes the items for sale, like tiny cups, as a queer aesthetic and acknowledges the privilege present in access to spaces engendered by beauty and craft instead of utility. Bogle thoughtfully concludes that “limits of certain things don’t have to negate the beauty of a space.”

Black Artivism: Fighting systemic racism through art

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Peak Web
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PHOTO: Courtesy of ADO Works

By: Heidi Kwok, Staff Writer

Content warning: Brief mention of police brutality and slavery.

Protest arts materialize when artists undertake the role of activists (hence the portmanteau, artivism) to challenge the status quo and spark dialogue surrounding injustice.

In the form of collective music, creative performances, public art murals, and more, these powerful works shatter Canada’s carefully crafted illusion of racial tolerance and multiculturalism, forcing audiences to confront the devaluation of Black lives and to demand racial justice.

Rufus John, a Canadian Caribbean R&B musician based in Kitchener, Ontario, formed United Artists 4 Change, a music coalition of over 40 Black and BIPOC artists to record Freedom Marching (Part 1). Produced in February 2022, the song was inspired by John’s experience following his partaking in a Black Lives Matter rally protesting the murder of George Floyd. Gary McAuley, the track’s vocal producer and one of many performers, told CBC News, “We are all marching together in this quest for a better place, free of hate and bigotry and systemic racism.” The moving song unites a chorus of commanding voices that coalesce into a single message: a refusal to back down in the collective fight for liberation.

Live performances are another formidable form of protest art. Having premiered at the Next Stage Theatre Festival as part of the 2023 Toronto Fringe, multidisciplinary dance group, Artists in Motion’s Black in Canada, is a part-spoken word and part-dance movement created by Jamaican-born, Toronto-based choreographer, Shameka Blake. The show offers a “glimpse into the social and emotional impact of systemic-racism, while teaching audiences about the accurate history of racial oppression in Canada,” all the while highlighting the Black community’s significant contributions and accomplishments in the country. The performance begins by tracing the steps of enslaved African Americans who arrived in British North America (now colonially known as Canada) via the Underground Railroad. However, the new life that awaited them in Canada was far from picture-perfect, as the lingering effects of racism and slavery continue to leave their mark. Black in Canada acts as political expression and education for audiences on the obscured histories and lived experiences of Black individuals.

Artivism likewise deals with remembrance: in an unassuming stretch of single-story family homes in Vancouver’s East Side, remnants of Black Strathcona are revived through a 45-metre long mural etched along the Dunsmuir Viaduct, paying tribute to its former residents. This historically Black neighbourhood once encompassed Hogan’s Alley before it was destroyed in the late 1960s to make way for the Georgia and Dunsmuir Viaduct under the city’s urban renewal plan. These forgotten stories come back to life through vivid portraits designed by artist Anthony Joseph. They depict impressive figures such as Ernie King, a jazz musician, business entrepreneur, and owner of Vancouver’s first and only Black-owned nightclub, the Harlem Nocturne Cabaret, and Vie and Robert Moore, owners of the iconic soul food restaurant, Vie’s Chicken and Steaks. Also depicted are Leonard Lane, a civil rights activist, Nora Hendrix, grandmother of Jimi Hendrix and active community member, and the Crump Twins, a multi-talented performance duo, among many others. The powerful mural acts not only as a reminder of a once-thriving community, but also as an example of how art is being used to reclaim historically Black spaces. 

As demonstrated through a mix of different creative mediums, activism and aesthetics intertwine to deliver an impactful commentary on Black racial identity and lived experiences. Black Canadians employ art not only to express their anger towards state-sanctioned violence towards Black folks on Turtle Island, but to also reclaim their histories and spaces.

 

Spring After Spring spotlights the history of Chinatown’s Lunar New Year parade

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PHOTO: Courtesy of Nicole Trask

By: Katie Walkley, Peak Associate

Through beautiful archival footage and sincere interviews, the documentary Spring After Spring tells the story of the astonishingly hardworking Mimie Ho’s integral role in the early years of the annual Lunar New Year parade in Vancouver. Specifically, Vancouver-based director Jon Chiang focuses on Ho’s three daughters, Anabel, Valerie (Ms. Vee), and Lisa as they carry on their mother’s legacy while working through their grief for her. 

The following interview has been edited for clarity and concision.

 

What drew you to tell the story of Mimie Ho?

When I heard of Mimie’s story and what she did for the Chinatown community to help start the Lunar New Year parade, I felt that this is an untold story that so many people need to hear about and that people would resonate with it. As we were developing the project, I got to know Lisa, Vee, and Anabel a lot more. I felt that people are going to really fall in love with them and relate with them. When I met the three of them, it felt like being in a conversation with my own family. That’s what drew me to the family and helping bring their story to life.

 

How would you describe Ho and her daughters’ impact on Vancouver?

When I grew up in Vancouver and anytime I think of the parade, I think of the dancers and I feel like this is true for most Vancouverites. You know, in media throughout the past 50 years, whenever there’s news coverage, it’s usually the dancers on the front page or in news clips. But, it’s such an often overlooked story that we don’t really consider these people who come together every single year to help put on this event. And I feel like they’ve shaped part of the cultural fabric of our city.

 

What kind of impact does this family’s story have on its audience?

There are definite challenges in the neighbourhood. I feel like this film can have an impact on just remembering the really spectacular events that happen every year. That there is a shared history and still a very vibrant community in Chinatown. The other impact I hope it has is, as a Chinese Canadian and growing up in a family that also had a lot unspoken, similar to the Ho sisters with their mom, I hope this film allows people to have more meaningful conversations in often difficult or taboo subjects such as death. 

 

What would you like to say to potential audiences of this documentary?

“Being a part of a community is so important and they don’t exist without people showing up.”

— Jon Chiang, director of Spring After Spring

So show up to the parade, show up to one of our screenings at the VIFF Centre, or even just go and enjoy Chinatown and be a part of the community. I really hope that this film will help inspire people to continue to celebrate and be part of the traditions that make up their own cultures, whether they’re Chinese or not. These are the things that make life worthwhile.

Go be a part of the community and watch this documentary’s screening and Q&A at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre on February 1. It also has various showings at VIFF Centre from February 6 to 17. Spring After Spring will also be aired nationwide on the Knowledge Network from February 17 onwards.

COMIC: The raccoons fall for a human’s tricks

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By: Mason Mattu and Katie Walkley

The AI gender gap should not be mischaracterized as a skill issue

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Peak Web
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a photo of rows of cubicles in an office space.
PHOTO: kate.sade / Unsplash

By: Heidi Kwok, Staff Writer

“Raise your hand if you use AI regularly in some capacity.” The atmosphere in the classroom instantly tensed — was this seemingly harmless question actually a trap set out by our professor to weed out the academic non-believers? After what felt like minutes, several hands reluctantly shot up. Alarmingly, most of them were from the students who identified as men. Thankfully, the impromptu questionnaire did not lead to a bunch of failing grades and the lecture went forward as usual. 

However, it underscored a more pressing issue with artificial intelligence (AI) use: research shows that men are more likely to adopt generative AI tools such as ChatGPT in professional settings than women. This staggering imbalance contributes to the pre-existent workplace gender gap. 

These findings were published in a 2024 working paper conducted by the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, in conjunction with the University of Copenhagen. After surveying 100,000 workers across 11 fields in Denmark, the study found that women were “less likely to use ChatGPT than men in the same occupation.” The paper also reported that women faced more “adoption barriers” to AI — but didn’t elaborate on what these barriers were — and concluded there was a need for more AI training. Other research suggests this gender divide in AI adoption is due to ethical reasons. This includes women’s concerns of being negatively perceived if caught using AI to take “shortcuts,” such as being accused of cheating and fears of being reprimanded. 

What concerns me most about this gender divide in AI use is the framing around women who refuse AI. It’s not seen as an informed decision on their part, but as an assumption of incompetence and lacklustre ability to interact with AI tools.

This false narrative offers yet another excuse for employers to justify the denial of career advancement opportunities for women, including promotions, leadership roles, and wage increases, in favour of their men colleagues.

The motherhood penalty is a glaring example of how women are deemed less qualified and their labour devalued due to conflicting familial responsibilities.

The reasons behind women’s reluctance to integrate AI tools vary, but to me, the underlying misogyny being communicated by these studies is clear: women are to blame for their own incompetence — they don’t recognize the “value” AI can bring in boosting business productivity. However, contrary to these sexist surface-level assumptions, the truth is much more complex and rooted in AI’s inherent gender bias. It’s no secret that content generated by AI often reinforces gender stereotypes and excludes diverse lived experiences, since it reflects its training data, which in turn reflects a sexist world. This brings us to the question: why would women be even willing to narrow the gender gap by adopting harmful AI tools?

Misportraying women’s apprehension towards AI tools as a skill issue rather than a question of ethics is a distraction, which seeks to redirect the blame of existing workplace gender inequalities on women while overlooking the more dominant role of patriarchal systems. Simply put, women shouldn’t have to lean into the very tools that are marginalizing and recreating their oppression. Racialized women and those with temporary status are perhaps most at risk of this misleading assumption. In a volatile labour market rife with unemployment, this demographic will no doubt become the primary target of automation and the subject of the first of many layoffs to come. 

 

There is a need for third spaces in the roommate economy

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Peak Web
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a photo of a group of people. One person is sitting down and is working on their tablet. While the others are congregated over a game of pool.
PHOTO: Ali Imran / The Peak

By: Maya Barillas Mohan, Staff Writer

In what I call the roommate economy, third spaces serve a rangier function. Third spaces are places that are not home (first) or school/work (second), that are intended for socializing or connecting, and affordable (if not free). Third spaces can include cafés, parks, libraries, and recreation centres. As a university student in Vancouver, the most affordable options off campus are living with family, or living with roommates. Beyond campus and home lies a prominent need for somewhere else to go — but options are narrow. 

I elected to move hours away from my hometown to chase the romantic notion of independence, and like many others, found this was only possible in a shared apartment. For all the amenities a chic urban apartment awards, entitlement to the space is not one of them. In my opinion, being a courteous roommate evokes a need for certain permissions that being a customer doesn’t. A poignant equality is found in a third space; anyone from students to senior citizens can use it if they choose to. I can’t help but notice the slim selection of third spaces available to me — comfortable places to relax and get things done, maybe hangout with my friends. 

Most of my education is external to the actual instructional time I spend in the AQ or the West Mall.

There are papers to write and theory to read — and that second space, “school,” is not a sufficient enclosure for my responsibilities.

In being a patron of a café or other third space, you socialize and work on your own terms. 

A need for third spaces persists but their presence does not. Retail rent increases make it harder for small businesses to operate and open hours have decreased in the face of operating costs. Restaurants serve the dual purpose of socializing and sustenance, but they are too crowded to linger, and often even too loud for the sole purpose of socializing. Chain restaurants struggle to uphold the social connection that sparks between small businesses and “regulars” due to high turnover or the influx of kiosks. 

Modern student life erodes the barrier between the role of first and second spaces, and third spaces offer an invaluable caulk for the gap. In an economy where most of your items are rented instead of owned, it’s only fair that there are more affordable places to spend your time.

AI is not a magic trick

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A closeup of a cardboard ripped in the middle revealing a laptop keyboard underneath

By: Ashima Shukla, Peak Associate

Content warning: brief mentions of death, suicide, torture, and sexual assault.

Recently, Billie Eilish shared a post on Instagram about artificial intelligence that has haunted me ever since: “AI consumed more water this year than the global bottled water industry.” The post was based on a study that drew from the average metrics from global datacentres. Although these Big-Tech-sanctioned datacentres only provide vague estimates, we know the rate at which AI is depleting our environmental resources is massive, and growing. The post shook me because AI is so often normalized in the public consciousness. We are encouraged to experience it as wonder. A magic trick, a new game. 

I hear of people using generative AI to write books, design lesson plans, build training modules for workplaces, plan meals, and set budgets. As a teaching assistant, I hear of my students using it to summarize lectures and explain concepts quickly. Each click results in an ontological rupture. We’re rapidly losing our ability to differentiate between real and AI-generated visuals, and with it, our grasp on reality. 

It isn’t just being used by young people. Visiting home for the holidays, I have noticed my grandmother watching hours of YouTube videos about Hinduism, where every image and animation is generated by AI. Blue-skinned Krishna and a surprisingly blue-eyed Lakshmi stared back at me from the screen. Gods are rendered by machines. Mythologies and cultures are filtered through code. Devotion is now a humming server somewhere far away. 

But for all its pervasiveness, do we actually know how it works? And more importantly, what it costs? 

When you type a query into ChatGPT, the system doesn’t “think.” Each word is broken down,, and mapped in relation to others across datasets. This process happens somewhere physical: inside datacentres. These are industrial-scale buildings that house servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. Hyperscale facilities, like those owned by Amazon and Google, can span over 30,000 square feet. This isn’t happening in some faraway nation. Bell Canada is building six datacentres in BC. Northern Virginia, the most densely concentrated datacentre spot in the world, hosts more than 250 of them. 

These datacentres require staggering amounts of electricity to work. Each ChatGPT query uses ten times more energy than a Google search, not to mention the loads of energy used to train these AI models to begin with. Most power grids rely on fossil fuels, emissions which degrade air quality and release toxic pollutants into the air, harming the health of nearby communities. That isn’t all — as the datacentres disrupt local electric grids, one report estimates that residential electricity bills could more than double in Virginia by 2039. Innovation for some, once again, makes basic amenities unaffordable for others. 

Then there is water. Powering AI models generates immense heat, which is cooled using freshwater.

A 100-word email generated by ChatGPT comes at the expense of 16.9 ounces of water, in a world where nearly a quarter of humanity lacks access to clean water.

Meanwhile, the extraction of rare earth elements required to build AI hardware is mined through processes that are environmentally destructive and often exploitative. 

The environmental footprint of GenAI is immense, yet the information about it remains strategically opaque. This is because Big Tech benefits from selling AI as efficient, creative, and inevitable, while obscuring the material and ecological violence that sustains it. We haven’t even seen the full story. Behind the clean minimalist interfaces and cheerful subservient AI chatbots lies another hidden cost: that of human labour. 

Picture Mercy, a content moderator in Nairobi, working for Meta through an outsourced firm where her role is to process one piece of flagged content every 55 seconds over a 10-hour shift. Her life revolves around mundane, repetitive labour that helps train AI and yields little over a dollar an hour. Because of a lack of other opportunities, she persists. While reviewing a video of a fatal car crash uploaded to Facebook, familiar scenes flash before her eyes. Her neighbourhood, and the victim? Her grandfather. The same footage floods her screen from different angles, reposted endlessly. 

Think about Oskarina Fuentes, who joins one such outsourcing firm while finishing her master’s in engineering in Venezuela. Her country’s economic collapse forces her and her husband to cross over to Colombia. Hopes for good jobs disintegrate rapidly, as does her health, and soon, the task of labelling data is all that is keeping her afloat. The erratic nature of this task-based work controls her life, as she stops leaving the housing during weekdays and begins sleeping with her computer on full volume nearby. 

Then there is Sunita, sitting on the floor of her home in Jharkhand, India, drawing digital boxes marking up traffic lights and cars she has never seen in real life. Her clicks train Tesla AI systems that recognize objects in cities she will never visit. Do you notice a pattern? 

Across the Global South, these stories converge. Moderators and data labellers perform mundane tasks for hours for pennies, while others witness graphic violence, suicides, torture, and sexual assault for hours every day to make our feeds and our experiences with GenAI cleaner and more appropriate. Many have no idea how their work will be used, or other options to put food on the table, labelling data for military software for targeting killings in Gaza or helping Russian surveillance companies train facial recognition software. 

The AI economy mirrors colonial hierarchies, as data and labour flows from the Global South to fuel “innovation” and profit in the Global North. The work is framed as an “opportunity” for these workers, yet it remains underpaid, precarious, and largely unregulated. In the absence of unions and protections, these workers become trapped in exploitative conditions. Anthropologist Mary Grey has called it “ghost work,” essential and systemically invisiblized. If you knew that data labellers are committing suicide because of the harrowing content they label to make our experiences with GenAI safe, would you reach for it as easily as you do now? 

If AI feels inevitable, it is because we are trained to encounter it only at the level of convenience. Because magic works best when no one asks what is happening behind the curtain. 

This is why education about AI cannot be reduced to technical literacy. We must confront its environmental costs, its labour supply chains, and its geopolitical consequences. We must ask where the data comes from, whose knowledge is erased, whose labour, water, land, and time are hidden behind this “innovation.” Regulation should be a fundamental part of this reckoning. But without public understanding, regulation can be brittle — to be delayed and lobbied away. 

Education, in contrast, builds the conditions for sustained resistance. It gives people language. It gives us context. It gives us the ability to choose otherwise. And this discomfort might just be what is needed for imagining ethical technological futures. 

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Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us: [email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024

Simon Fraser University’s independent student newspaper since 1965.

Contact us:
[email protected]

© The Peak Publications Society 1965-2024