Chapters

A chapter introducing AI Anthropology as an emerging subfield of applied anthropology, examining AI as a cultural artifact, leveraging AI-driven computational methods, and embedding anthropological insights into AI design.

This chapter examines how integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into anthropology education can prepare students for collaborative, applied work in an increasingly AI-mediated world. It demonstrates practical approaches for combining AI with traditional ethnographic methods to address real-world challenges, presenting pedagogical frameworks that emphasize hands-on engagement with AI tools. Through case studies of classroom implementations and…

Building an effective academic website has become crucial for anthropologists seeking to disseminate their research beyond traditional academic channels and establish professional authority in their respective domains of expertise. This chapter presents The Academic Website Building and Optimization Kit—a framework for creating a website that maximizes individual visibility and impact through effective communication with both…

This introduction traces the extensive but underrecognized history of engagement between anthropology and artificial intelligence, revealing a mutually influential relationship spanning seven decades. Rather than positioning anthropological interest in AI as merely reactive to recent developments, we demonstrate how anthropologists have consistently participated in shaping, critiquing, and reimagining AI systems since cybernetics research.

This chapter introduces co-becoming theory as a framework for understanding human-AI relationships as processes of perpetual mutual transformation rather than static design challenges to be solved. While Responsible AI and Human-Centered AI frameworks provide valuable foundations for ethical development, they often struggle to address the dynamic, emergent nature of human-AI interactions.

This conclusion employs an editorial forum format to explore the complex relationship between anthropology and artificial intelligence. Through dialogue, the editors evaluate present entanglements between anthropology and AI, examining what these developments mean for the field more broadly.

This chapter introduces the AI Anthropology Lifecycle, a framework integrating the critical study of AI, the use of AI methods in anthropological research, and anthropological insights in AI development. Through the ArtTech case study, I demonstrate how anthropologists can move beyond critique to actively shape more equitable and culturally informed AI solutions.

The chapter explores issues of algorithmic bias with machine-learning algorithms and discusses why traditional participatory design methods, including existing conceptions of design anthropology, are insufficient for addressing the issues. To address the problem, it argues that we need to reimagine design anthropology as a practice by co-becoming so that we can begin to think of…

What if an anthropologist had been employee 1 to 5, or better yet, co-founders of Google? In this introductory chapter, the editors of EmTech Anthropology use this question as a springboard to offer up their vision for how anthropologists can get involved with emerging technologies much sooner than they have traditionally done.

In this chapter, I present my efforts to develop a more equitable recommender system for an art tech startup using a multidisciplinary and mixed-methods approach. Through ethnographic research, I discovered that existing recommender systems amplify inequality by favoring creators with more economic, social, and cultural capital.