Living Data, Living Lands

Building on the inaugural Living Data, Living Lands, the 2026 NYU Climate Week centers the questions that the Global Indigenous Movement has been addressing for decades: how can Indigenous communities control the AI infrastructure itself? This gathering offers a platform for celebrating infrastructure builders around the world who have reimagined systems as a relational, living practice tied to land, kin, and responsibility.

AI is not optional. Our daily activities include a layer of AI, and the speed at which it is being used to monitor biodiversity is alarming. This is billed as efficiency and innovation. AI draws conclusions that seem statistically significant and presents results confidently, but upon a closer human look, these results are not always reliably scientifically sound. AI choices have real consequences. Left unchecked, they extend an extractive logic that absorbs material without attribution, provenance, or consent. By inverting infrastructure, we will highlight invisible interventions that shift power for good.