The AI Literacy Center is pleased to announce the second event in the winter term speaker series, Critical AI Literacy in Practice and Community, hosted and coordinated by AI Literacy Fellow, Dr. Anna Guasco, assistant professor of Marine Studies at Oregon State University. This online speaker series explores how critical AI literacy is being practiced outside the classroom - in practice, on the ground, and in communities. Topics the series will discuss include movements against data centers and community efforts to protect knowledge, rights, and safety.
The second speaker is Paz Peña, 2025 Mozilla Senior Fellow studying the socio-environmental impacts of AI data centers in Latin America, on Tuesday, February 10th, at 10:00 AM (Pacific).
A Toxic Cloud Over Our Territory: Resistance Against AI in the Global South.
Description: As the global economy rapidly adopts AI technologies, this talk--drawing on research from DataCenterBoom.net--will provide an in-depth analysis of the socio-environmental consequences of AI Data Centers in Latin America. It will spotlight local and regional resistance movements, and unpack the urgent geopolitical challenges these infrastructures pose for the future.
About Paz Peña
Paz Peña (she/her) is a 2025 Mozilla Senior Fellow studying the socio-environmental impacts of AI data centers in Latin America. With over 15 years of experience as a senior independent consultant, she explores the intersection of technology and social justice, working with governments, civil society, and international agencies. In 2021, she founded the Latin American Institute of Terraforming (terraforminglatam.net), a unique space for reflecting on the relationship between technology and the ecological and climate crises we face. In 2023, she published a summary of her research in the book "Tecnologías para un planeta en llamas" (Paidós). Paz is based in Santiago, Chile.