How Van Jones plans on bringing AI innovation to underrepresented communities

CNN political analyst Van Jones wants to “Make Wakanda real” with his new initiative, the Dream Machine Innovation Lab. When it comes to overlooked communities, Jones believes artificial intelligence isn’t an access to hardware problem—almost everyone has a smartphone—but rather a matter of the heart and mind, a “wetware” problem. Alongside the U.S. presidential election, empowering who innovates with the next era of technology will determine our future. 

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

You’re launching a new initiative, this Dream Machine Innovation Lab, to address the impact of AI on underrepresented communities. Is there a connection for you between what’s going on in the political world and what’s going on in the tech world?

There is a big connection because if you’re waiting for politics and politicians to fix this stuff, you’re going to be waiting for a long time. In the last century, you could be excused for having a more state-oriented, government-oriented view of change. Because in the last century, you had politicians, political figures, Churchill, you know, JFK, FDR, Dr. King. These were political people who were either politicians or protesters trying to make governments work better, trying to get the New Deal done so working families could have some support, trying to get civil rights and women’s rights done so that we really all can be seen as created equal. 

These are all the tasks of government. What political figure is there on the world stage right now that you think is up to the task of even being a good dog catcher or city council member? Compared to the challenges that we’re facing: catastrophic global warming, the rise of all these authoritarian governments, the United States kind of falling all over itself and infighting . . . And the political class is not up to this fight.

Meanwhile, who are the people really shaping tomorrow? It’s not the politicians, it’s the technologists. The technologists are the ones who are basically creating a new human civilization right before our eyes. 

Look, I’ve got two kids from my first marriage. One’s in college, one’s in high school. But I’ve also, in my new relationship, I’ve got two little babies, 2 and a half years old and 6 months old. By the time they’re my age, they will be living in a different human civilization. Their first crushes or best friends might be AIs. When it’s time for them to have kids, they might use biotech tools to design their kids. They might be buried on the moon or on Mars. All of that is different than where I grew up. I was born in 1968. This is all Jetsons stuff. And yet, that’s what’s being created. Now, my local congressperson has very little leverage on that. I’m sorry, but there’s about 10,000 people in the AI community. They’re going to have a much bigger impact on all of that than any 10,000 politicians. 

And so, that’s why will.i.am and I got together and said, “Let’s launch a campaign to try to get the next generation of young minds, especially from Black and brown and other overlooked communities, get them focused on AI.” So we have a campaign called “Make Wakanda Real,” trying to excite the imagination of young people. What if you could use all these technology tools to solve problems? Wakanda being the incredibly technologically advanced super-nation in the superhero universe of Marvel. What if you could make that real? And so it’s a vote of confidence in the future in that we think that technology can be used for good. 

If the driving force of creating this future is tech, like Black representation in tech, Black people make up maybe 8% of tech employees and like 3% of tech C-suite executives. I mean, the creators of this future don’t necessarily represent all of us.

It’s bad. And it’s dangerous. It’s not, “Oh, it’s terrible for the poor Black people.” Though it is. “Oh, it’s terrible for the Native Americans and whatever.” Though it is. It’s terrible for everybody. The last time we let one little group determine human civilization, we had 400 years of slavery, colonialism, environmental destruction. You don’t want that.

But I’ll tell you this—and this is gonna get me in trouble with some of my liberal friends, at least at the consumer level—we call it the digital divide. We’ve been talking about that for 20, 30 years. It is no longer a hardware issue for a lot of America. I’m not saying you don’t have some deserts, [but] most people have a smartphone. They could download ChatGPT. They could download Midjourney. It’s not so much a hardware problem, it’s a wetware problem. 

It’s in your mind, in your brain, in between these two ears. “Do I believe that this stuff is for me? Do I believe that this technology is supposed to be in my hands? Or is it for someone else? Is it for the white folks? Is it for the rich folks?” That’s a wetware problem. Is it corny? Or is it cool? That’s a wetware problem. 

And so we’re trying to have a campaign that looks at some of these African American communities, Latino communities, Native American overlooked, underestimated, Appalachian. You’ve got creative people. You’ve got resilient people. You’ve got grit. You’ve got determination. You’ve got innovative people. What if you gave those communities the most creative tools ever imagined and told them, “This is not a hand grenade. This is a jetpack for you.” You don’t have to go to four years of college and then go beg somebody for a bunch of capital. A lot of what you’re doing now is you’re replacing capital with code.

For this presidential election, there have been strong words on both sides about the repercussions if the other candidate is elected. What do you think’s at stake?

I really do think you have very stark differences between these candidates. There always are differences, but I think the direction of society is at stake. If the very worst potential in Donald Trump would come out, I don’t want to find out in his next presidency, but I don’t want to find out because if it did, he’s already tested and strained American institutions to the point of breaking. 

The worst of Kamala Harris would be more aid and comfort to really obnoxious people on the left who think they’re better than everybody. And you know, talk down to people. That strikes me as survivable. The worst that comes from Kamala Harris is maybe too much government spending, maybe a tax policy that punishes innovation in a way, at least in the eyes of the innovators and entrepreneurs. That sucks, but you can then hire somebody else to be president in four years. It’s survivable. The worst from Donald Trump, I don’t know. That takes 50 years to fix, 20 years, 100 years. I mean, how do you fix that stuff? So I think it’s very, very consequential.

The state of the electorate is part of what makes me so anxious, that there are so many people who adamantly believe that one candidate is a crook, and you can find lots of people on both sides who will make that argument about the other candidate. I guess I was hoping that business leaders would take up the middle and mend some of that. But it seems like that’s kind of subsided, and business folks are just like, “Yeah, I don’t want to piss anybody off.“

I think that the business community, when [Joe] Biden was clearly incapable of running and certainly incapable of serving, and the bite of taxes at the very, very top created permission structure for a lot of people in the business community to move in directions that are just very scary to me. Elon Musk, he was an Andrew Yang supporter in 2020. So four years ago, Elon Musk was supporting an innovation-first Democrat. And now he’s clearly to the right of Trump, and I think imagines himself maybe being some kind of an oligarch in some more authoritarian country. That is terrifying to me. I like Elon Musk when he’s trying to figure out how to get to space and how to make clean cars and how to get innovation in government going with Andrew Yang. That’s a massive asset to humanity. I’d like to see a lot more of the old Elon Musk.

Well, power sometimes does strange things to people, right? 

I’d like to find out. If I can get some more power, I’ll let you know how it goes. But in the meantime, I just get to talk about the people who do have it. 

<hr class=“wp-block-separator is-style-wide”/> https://www.fastcompany.com/91176126/how-van-jones-plans-on-bringing-ai-innovation-to-underrepresented-communities?partner=rss&amp;utm_source=rss&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&amp;utm_content=rss