Kate Crawford is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a leading scholar of AI's social and political implications. As co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU, she has been at the forefront of interdisciplinary research examining how AI systems affect society, with particular focus on power, accountability, and justice.
Her book Atlas of AI provides a comprehensive mapping of the material, human, and environmental costs of building AI systems, tracing supply chains and labor practices that are typically hidden from view. The work challenges the narrative that AI development is primarily a technical matter, revealing instead how AI systems are built on foundations of historical inequality, resource extraction, and precarious labor.
Crawford's research bridges AI and social science, bringing together insights from critical algorithm studies, science and technology studies, and political economy to understand how AI concentrates power and reproduces existing hierarchies. Her work has been influential in policy circles and academia, shaping conversations about AI regulation and governance.