Van Jones: AI Disruption Must Include Everyone or It Will Fail

Civil rights leader Van Jones reveals why AI companies need marginalized communities more than they realize, and how intentional disruption can lift everyone.

Key Takeaways

• AI disruption should target systems like poverty, pollution, and prisons rather than just creating new technologies
• Black and brown communities possess political power, cultural influence, ethics expertise, and resource access that AI companies need
• The future will be written in computer code, not laws, shifting power from government to technology companies
• Successful AI adoption requires deliberate partnerships with traditionally overlooked communities, not just hoping benefits trickle down
• Building trust means creating working groups that help communities solve their problems while companies develop ethical frameworks
• Media representation through science fiction and pop culture shapes public perception of AI's potential
• Political unity requires positive populism based on solutions rather than blame and division
• Young people today will live in a fundamentally different civilization requiring new cultural narratives and educational approaches

Timeline Overview

• Opening Discussion — Introduction to Van Jones' creative side, afrofuturism, and Magic Labs media company; discussion of civilizational change and climate reality
• Science Fiction & Culture — Role of pop culture in shaping AI perception; "Make Wakanda Real" initiative with will.i.am; importance of positive sci-fi narratives
• Disruption Strategy — Reframing disruption to target poverty, pollution, prisons; communities as assets rather than charity cases; the "Next Deal Coalition"
• Trust Building & Partnership — Practical steps for AI companies to engage communities; examples like Recidivism and CodePath; working groups approach
• $100 Million Initiative — Van Jones' Bezos award; disrupting the $90 billion incarceration industry; untapped Solutions and other portfolio companies
• Climate Solutions — Electric vehicle charging in underserved areas; modular electric housing in Chicago; partnership approaches to green transition
• Media & Future Vision — AI's impact on Hollywood; Alex Rivera's "moverse" concept; indigenous peoples in AI development; positive populism strategy
• Political Unity — Approaching MAGA supporters with love; shared pain across communities; co-founding new human civilization

AI Companies Need Communities More Than They Think

Van Jones flips the traditional charity narrative on its head when discussing AI partnerships with marginalized communities. Rather than approaching these relationships through a "pity trap" where communities present their deficits and pain, he advocates for recognizing the substantial assets these groups bring to the table. "AI companies need four things: help from government, cultural adoption where people think they're cool and not scary, help with ethics and values, and a lot of molecules and atoms meaning lithium, cobalt, etc. Black people got something to say about all four."

• African Americans wield considerable political power after 50 years of investment, with representation including a black Vice President, two Senators, governors, and mayors of major cities including Houston, Chicago, LA, and New York
• Black communities serve as "the Supreme Court of planet Earth for culture" - when they declare something cool, it resonates globally, even reaching South Korea
• The black church and civil rights movement provide deep ethical and moral foundations that technology companies desperately need for values-based development
• Africa contains many of the rare earth minerals essential for AI hardware, giving African-descended people leverage in resource negotiations
• Similar asset frameworks apply to Latino and Native American communities, plus working-class populations in Appalachia and the Rust Belt who vote Republican but share economic needs
• This creates potential for a "blue red black white and brown positive coalition" that could work arm-in-arm with AI companies to solve problems together

The key insight here involves moving beyond traditional activism focused on government solutions toward recognizing that "power seems to be flowing away from States" and "the future used to be written in laws now it's being written in computer code."

Strategic Disruption Targets the Right Systems

Jones argues that disruption rhetoric often misses the mark by focusing on profitable systems rather than harmful ones. His approach centers on three specific targets: prisons, pollution, and poverty. "Let's make sure we disrupt poverty, let's make sure we disrupt pollution, let's make sure we disrupt prisons - there's some systems that need to be disrupted."

• The $90 billion incarceration industry represents a prime target for technological disruption, similar to how Uber disrupted taxis and Amazon disrupted retail
• California spends $100,000 per year per incarcerated youth with minimal rehabilitation outcomes - "at the end of that year you're got to have the same kid with new tattoos, that's all you got for $100,000"
• Alternative approaches like giving "one black grandmother and a tech bro the same kid and $100,000" could produce dramatically better results through home confinement with educational technology
• Companies like untapped Solutions (formerly Con Connect) use AI to match formerly incarcerated people with employers most likely to hire them, partnering with Microsoft and other major firms
• Home confinement with monitoring technology plus tablet-based education could "get a lot of lives turned around" while saving money and avoiding budget conflicts
• The approach requires "competition, innovation, and alignment of financial incentives" rather than just policy changes or charitable giving

This disruption strategy recognizes that "the best possible ally for technology that's disruptive are the people who need disruption" - those suffering under current systems rather than those benefiting from them.

Building Trust Through Mutual Problem-Solving

Rather than traditional corporate social responsibility approaches, Jones advocates for working groups where AI companies and communities help each other simultaneously. "Just as you are, as we say in the black church, Come Just As You Are - you may not have all the ethical stuff worked out, but you got good stuff and we got a bunch of problems, so while we're helping you become more ethical can you help us become more prosperous."

• Technology workers would be "stunned at how overwhelmingly stupid most of the systems are that determine people's lives" compared to sophisticated AI development environments
• Clementine Jacoby's Recidivism exemplifies this approach - engineers from high-tech backgrounds applying small amounts of engineering intelligence to prison systems and getting "300,000 people out of prison"
• Many people remain incarcerated months or years after serving sentences simply because "somebody lost the index card with their life on it"
• CodePath's Michael Ellison demonstrates how to eliminate scarcity in computer science education by putting "a jetpack on every teacher" and students, helping working-class kids succeed in tech
• These approaches "eliminate that scarcity" that traditionally knocked out women, kids of color, and poor students from upper-division technical courses
• Trust building happens through allocating "some mind share to people who are working on problems" even when it might slow competition with other countries or companies

The key shift involves moving from asking "How do we fix the problems of AI?" to "How do we use AI to help fix the problems of the community?"

The $100 Million Disruption Laboratory

Jones received a $100 million award from Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez to deploy over 10 years, creating what he calls a "life-changing" opportunity to demonstrate new models of change-making. This "Courage and Civility Award" recognizes the difficulty of being "very very courageous while trying to bring people together in this kind of age of polarization."

• The funding targets disrupting prisons, pollution, and poverty through an incubator helping for-profit companies challenge the incarceration industry
• untapped Solutions uses AI to optimize job matching for formerly incarcerated people, preventing the cycle of rejection that leads back to crime
• Ten portfolio companies demonstrate various approaches to criminal justice disruption, from job placement to education technology
• The model avoids going "into anybody else's budget" by creating new economic value rather than redistributing existing resources
• CodePath receives support for "re-engineering the curriculum" at schools serving working-class, black, and brown students to increase tech industry access
• The approach recognizes that disrupting poverty means helping people "Leap Frog from the back of the jobs that are going away to the front of the line for the jobs that are coming"

Jones emphasizes this isn't personal wealth - "I don't have a new car, I'm driving my son's car he left here when he went to college" - but rather capacity for systemic change at scale.

Climate Solutions Through Community Partnership

The third pillar of Jones' disruption strategy addresses climate change and pollution through targeted community investments that create economic opportunities while advancing environmental goals. His work builds on his role as President Obama's special adviser for green jobs in 2009.

• Electric vehicle charging infrastructure needs strategic placement in dense urban areas where apartment dwellers cannot charge at home, rather than suburbs where home charging is available
• Uber and Lyft drivers represent crucial early adopters because they "drive six to 10 times more than me and you" and can charge premium rates for electric vehicles
• The Obsidian initiative creates joint ventures to deploy charging stations in underserved neighborhoods where people pay premium prices for convenient access
• Modular electric housing offers solutions for Chicago neighborhoods with scattered occupancy - houses that "snap together like Legos" with basement batteries
• These $250,000 homes can be manufactured in 6 weeks and assembled by neighborhood residents without traditional union construction requirements
• Projects create employment for formerly incarcerated people and unemployed neighborhood residents while replacing entire blocks quickly enough to prevent gentrification displacement
• NFL players in Chicago support neighborhood replacement projects, demonstrating cross-sector coalition potential

This approach avoids waiting for government action by creating direct partnerships between technology companies and affected communities.

Media and Cultural Narrative Transformation

Jones emphasizes that cultural representation through science fiction and media shapes public perception of AI's potential, arguing that "the entire short end for the future is through science fiction." Current dystopian narratives like Terminator, Matrix, and RoboCop dominate popular imagination while positive examples remain limited to Star Trek, The Jetsons, and Wakanda.

• The "Make Wakanda Real" event in Los Angeles with will.i.am demonstrates how to use pop cultural references to generate excitement about positive technological futures
• Alex Rivera's use of Midjourney AI to visualize his "moverse" concept - what space exploration might look like from Mexican/Aztec perspectives - shows how AI tools can empower previously excluded storytellers
• "Without Mid Journey he'd have been wandering around this town trying to sell this moverse idea forever" but visual AI allowed weekend creation of compelling images that generated Hollywood conversations
• Indigenous group "Always New" works on AI development from Native American perspectives, representing the "peoples in the loop" rather than just "people in the loop"
• Hollywood needs disruption to include more diverse voices and stories, with AI tools potentially enabling creators to bypass traditional gatekeepers
• The goal involves having "data plus wisdom combination" that includes "indigenous peoples in the loop, African peoples in the loop" and their distinct ways of knowing

Jones argues that "if we do cool stuff because it's good for people it's also good for the media" creating synergy between social impact and compelling narratives.

Political Unity Through Positive Populism

Jones offers a framework for political healing that moves beyond negative populism based on blame toward positive populism focused on solutions and shared purpose. His approach to MAGA supporters demonstrates how to build bridges without compromising principles.

• Americans across political divides experience "stolen past, unstable present, and stolen future" - Trump supporters feel liberals want to "take down statues, talk about slavery" while progressives see similar future theft
• Demographics show "old folks homes look like Switzerland and kindergarten look like the UN" creating cultural anxiety about rapid change
• Jones tells MAGA supporters directly: "I'm a black activist, I used to work for Barack Obama, now I'm on CNN, so three strikes I'm out - you might think I'm mad at you and you would be correct, but not for the reason you think"
• His message continues: "I'm mad at you because I need you - you're some of the best people in this country, many veterans, union members, small business owners, but I could take you 20 minutes to an American community where American kids are going to bed hungry and where the hell are you guys?"
• The approach calls people up rather than calling them out: "These kids need your strength, your values, your integrity, and by the way you need these kids - they're America's grandchildren"
• Positive populism avoids requiring people to "hate billionaires" or "hate immigrants" and instead focuses on "Solutions and working with people to get there"

Jones concludes: "Showing up with I love you no matter who you are - you're in jail, you voted for Trump, I love you nothing you can do about it - I think that's the only way out of it."

Van Jones frames current challenges as opportunities for conscious participation in civilization building. "People should see themselves consciously as co-founders of a new human civilization" comparable to how Dr. King's generation served as "final founders of a Democratic Republic" after 200 years of incomplete democracy. The decisions made in the next 10-20 years will determine humanity's entire trajectory, making this generation's work historically significant. Success requires moving beyond traditional activism toward partnerships that leverage technology companies' capabilities while ensuring traditionally excluded communities help shape the future rather than simply hoping to benefit from it.