Stanford Critical AI

Who we are

Stanford Critical AI is an interdisciplinary group born of the shared conviction that the rapid development of AI must be met with equally rigorous critical inquiry into how these technologies reshape power, ethics, and governance. Members include researchers, undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty across computer science, communication, law, sociology, education, and arts and humanities, among other disciplines. We meet on campus to read, argue, and write together — and to imagine, and build, alternatives.

Our group was officially launched in March 2026 thanks to a grant from the McCoy Family Center for Ethics.

What we believe

• 01 AI is a socio-political technology.
  It is co-produced by the institutions, labor, and political economies surrounding it. Preventing AI harm goes beyond technical intervention. Evaluations, red-teaming, and benchmarks matter only when targeting the right social problems and paired with governance frameworks.
• 02 AI should be governed as a normal technology.
  Like electricity, aviation, or the internet — subject to gradual diffusion, sector-specific regulation, and human control, not as a rogue superintelligence beyond institutional reach or control.
• 03 AI’s trajectory is not predetermined.
  The dominant narrative presents AI’s development as a force of nature: inevitable, exponential, beyond democratic reach. We reject the grammar of inevitability.
• 04 To be critical of AI is to be reasonable.
  We ask who benefits and who bears the costs of this technology. We reject the charge of technophobia. Our critique is not a rejection of technology; it is a demand for accountability.
• 05 To be critical of AI is to question power and information asymmetries.
  It means asking the questions industry narratives often avoid: Whose interests does AI amplify? Whose futures does it foreclose? Whose labor does it conceal? And which alternatives does it render unthinkable?
• 06 The most important AI harms are currently hidden.
  Discourse is shaped by funders with conflicts of interest who elevate speculative risks such as AGI over material harms. We demand immediate intervention to address existing challenges: mass surveillance, militarization, data center environmental harm, sycophancy’s toll on children and vulnerable users, and exploited labor across the Global Majority.

What we do

• 01 Community.
  We are building an interdisciplinary community of critical thinkers across campus, ranging from undergrads to faculty. We nurture an environment where difficult questions can be asked safely, with compassion and empathy.
• 02 Research.
  We have launched working groups to advance scholarly AI research — currently investigating the political economy of AI, surveillance pricing, the history and ideology of tech manifestos, and alternative AI regulatory frameworks.
• 03 Advocacy.
  We are prototyping forms of resistance through workshops and convenings. We bring missing voices and debates to campus, and collectively re-write the language of resistance through our AI Solidarity Lexicon.

Read the Manyfesto  →

Team

Sacha Alanoca co-founder

Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow who co-founded Stanford Critical AI and Harvard AI & Tech Policy groups. Research published in ACM FAccT, Oxford’s Journal for International Data Privacy Law, and The Guardian; named one of the “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics.”

Ph.D. candidate, AI Governance · Stanford (MPA · Harvard)

Dr. Faye-Marie Vassel co-founder

Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford HAI & GSE. Former AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at NSF. Researches intersectional tech inequities in computing and AI ecosystems. Research published in Nature Communications and AAAI Proceedings.

Ph.D., Biology · MIT (B.S., Biochemistry · Stony Brook)

Chijioke Mgbahurike co-founder

AI & Law Research Fellow at LiftLab; former UNESCO Multilingual Access to Internet contributor. Research focuses on the sociotechnical implications of AI bias on marginalized communities, with a particular emphasis on language diversity and AI governance.

M.S., Computer Science · Stanford (B.S., Computer Science)

Dr. Aube Tollu co-founder

Wallenberg Postdoctoral Fellow in Stanford’s Ethnography Lab. Research sits at the intersection of criminology, critical theory, and surveillance studies, with an active artistic practice alongside academic work.

Ph.D., Sociology · Lund; MPhil, Criminology · Cambridge; M.S., African Studies · Oxford; B.A. · King’s College London

Archit Lohani co-founder

Research and policy advocacy at the intersection of AI governance, platform regulation, and digital rights, across global networks including DRAPAC, inSIG, and DFRLab.

LLM, Law, Science & Technology · Stanford Law (LLB · Symbiosis Law School, Pune)

Angela Nguyen co-founder

Student Liaison at the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society; President of the Public Interest Technology Lab. Research examines U.S. surveillance technologies and AI systems through ethics and policy, with a focus on marginalized communities.

B.S., Computer Science · Stanford

Adrian Gamarra Lafuente co-founder

AI researcher and engineer trying to imagine alternative futures. Research on low-resource languages like Quechua. Has published technical ML work at ICML and ICLR. Teaching assistant for CS329A; co-founder of Stanford Skates.

M.S., Computer Science · Stanford (B.S., Computer Science)

Advisors

Prof. Angele Christin advisor

Associate Professor of Communication at Stanford, Senior HAI Fellow. Studies the social impact of algorithms and AI; author of Metrics at Work (Princeton UP) and the forthcoming Gurus, Hucksters, Entertainers (U Chicago Press, 2026).

Prof. Michele Elam advisor

William Robertson Coe Professor of Humanities at Stanford; Senior HAI Fellow. Examines race, gender, and technology through interdisciplinary humanities; author of The Souls of Mixed Folk (Stanford UP) and the forthcoming Race Making in the Age of AI.

Prof. Cynthia Bailey advisor

Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Stanford; former AAAS AI Policy Fellow in the U.S. Senate. Creates courses on AI equity, governance, and the social impact of technology; recipient of Stanford’s Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award for exceptional contributions to undergraduate education.

Prof. Ruth Starkman advisor

Writer, editor, and digital media specialist at Stanford; full-stack programmer and bioinformatics specialist. Teaches biomedical and tech ethics, bridging classical foundations with contemporary debates on technology, privacy, and security.

Prof. Terry Winograd advisor

Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Stanford; founded the Stanford HCI Group, co-founded the d.school, and holds faculty affiliation at CDDRL. Founding member and past president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility; recipient of the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Research Award.

Prof. Fred Turner advisor

Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford; Guggenheim Fellow and LeBoff Distinguished Visiting Scholar at NYU. Author of five books, including Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America. Former journalist.