Synthetic Media and the Crisis of Truth
An interactive teach-in on how AI is changing our relationship to knowledge and our sense of what is real, with time for conversation and community building.
Join APEX Advocacy in Los Angeles at the Harriet Tubman Center for an afternoon exploring what AI is doing to our attention, memory and relationship to knowledge.
Movements build political consciousness by carrying the lessons of struggle forward. Generative AI can give us an answer without requiring us to encounter the knowledge behind it, which deserves serious examination for movements that have had to fight against the erasure and distortion of our histories.
Led by journalist and adjunct professor Christopher Sebastian, the session will draw from Pulitzer Center reporting on disinformation, deepfakes and the effects AI can have on mental health.
Participants will move through three rounds of small-group discussion using examples of AI-generated media to examine the ways this content works on our attention and can change our experience of time and what we remember. After each round, we’ll come back together to compare what we noticed and continue the discussion.
AI’s expansion requires enormous amounts of water, energy and physical infrastructure, and Black and brown communities are already fighting the environmental harms that come with it. Billionaires and some of the world’s most powerful corporations are driving that expansion. We have much more to examine about AI than one afternoon can hold, and this workshop goes deep on one part of it.
We’ll close by turning toward resistance and the possibilities for reclaiming our attention from technologies designed to capture and monetize it, redirecting that attention toward collective life and liberation.
There will be a 15-minute break with snacks and drinks, with more treats and time to hang out afterward.
Come for the workshop and stay for the delicious food and connection!
A few things before we gather:
During the workshop, we’ll break out into smaller groups to explore three pieces of pulitzer reporting together.
We’ve included a link to the PDFs below; if you have time before we gather, we’d love for you to read the articles ahead of the workshop. Having some familiarity with them will help us dive more deeply into the conversations during the breakout sessions.
Masking + accessibility
With airborne viruses circulating, masks are required indoors (we will have KN95 masks available at the door). We want to protect one another from getting sick and make the space safer for our disabled community members to be in the room with us. Thank you for caring for our communities by masking!
If you have any accessibility needs or questions, please feel free to reach out at
We’re really looking forward to this, and we can’t wait to meet you!