“Pasts, Presents, Futures: A zine about Ancestral AI” invites you to reimagine what AI is and can be. It compiles 52 pages of creative contributions, thought-provoking exchanges, and discussions that delve into the relationship between time and technology.

Ancestral AI steps beyond the frameworks of Western modernity to challenge mainstream ideas about productivity and efficiency. It travels through non-linear and cyclical temporalities, prompting us to imagine how ancestral knowledge might inspire sustainable and resilient technologies by asking:

• Do “modern problems” always require “modern solutions”?
• What kind of AI could we create if we looked for training data from oral histories and personal experiences?
• Who is forgotten in discussions about the future of AI?
• How can we bridge the wisdom of the past with innovations for the future?

This zine is a hot compost pile of creative contributions, exchanges, and discussions from the Ancestral AI Zine-making Workshop hosted at Stadsarchief Amsterdam on August 10, 2024. It was compiled by internet teapot as part of the **Slow AI** project by AIxDESIGN.

A big thank you to all the workshop participants for their beautiful contributions! Rodrigo Turra, Ana Bender, Leensa Gheneti, Nadia Piet, Charlotte Lin, Irfaan, Jana, Jenny, Marie Goto, Winke Wiegersma, Anna Liedtke, Colina van Bemmel, Maria Ferraz, Ildikó Plájás, Sara Marios, Sarah Beye, Cecilia Scolaro, Mikara Naidoo

The Slow AI project seeks to unpack and reimagine alternative narratives for AI, moving beyond Silicon Valley ideologies. Inspired by countermovements like slow fashion and slow food, it aims to subvert corporate-first thinking by collectively exploring new perspectives as pathways to ‘imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, just as we dismantle the ones we cannot live within’ (Ruha Benjamin).

Ancestral AI is one of three pathways designed to unpack and inspire alternative visions for AI. See the others too.