CyberPunk: How Black Women Are Hacking AI And Reprogramming The Future

Artificial intelligence is running the world—whether we asked for it or not. It’s deciding who gets hired, who qualifies for a loan, even who gets flagged as a criminal. But let’s be real: AI has a bias problem, and that’s not by accident. When the people building the tech look the same, think the same, and move the same, the systems they create are just reflections of their worldviews. And that’s where Black women come in—not just to call it out, but to tear it down and rebuild it.

Dr. Timnit Gebru has been on that mission. She co-founded Black in AI to amplify Black voices in the field and was one of the leading ethical AI researchers at Google—until they pushed her out for speaking the truth. Her crime? Calling out how AI models are racist, exploitative, and deeply flawed. Instead of backing down, she launched DAIR (Distributed AI Research Institute), an independent research lab dedicated to AI that actually serves marginalized communities.

Then there’s Joy Buolamwini, the founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, whose research exposed how facial recognition software from Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft was failing Black and Brown faces. And by failing, we mean wrongly identifying them as criminals, or just straight-up not recognizing them at all. Her work forced these tech giants to take a step back and reevaluate their use of the technology—proof that one person’s research can shake an entire industry.

But the movement isn’t just about exposing bias. It’s about building. Reprogramming. Black women are stepping into AI spaces and making sure the future of tech isn’t just another tool of oppression. Angle Bush, founder of Black Women in Artificial Intelligence (BWAI), created a whole ecosystem to connect, train, and uplift Black women in the AI space. From mentorships to major partnerships with Microsoft and NVIDIA, BWAI is ensuring that the people shaping AI actually reflect the communities AI impacts the most.

And the next generation? They’re coming for everything. Ava Flanigan, a computer science student at Spelman College, is working on AI models that recognize and correct bias before it even makes it into the system. She’s part of a wave of young Black technologists who aren’t just getting into the industry—they’re reshaping it from the inside. Programs like Black Girl AI and AI4ALL are making sure Black girls don’t just learn about AI but have the tools, resources, and community to take over.

That’s where Black Girls Code comes in. Founded by Kimberly Bryant, Black Girls Code is raising the next generation of Black women coders, engineers, and AI specialists. Since 2011, they’ve been teaching Black girls as young as seven how to build apps, program robots, and train AI systems—not just to navigate tech spaces but to own them. With coding boot camps, mentorship programs, and hands-on AI projects, Black Girls Code is making sure the future isn’t just being written by the same people who built the systems we’re fighting against.

But let’s not get it twisted—this fight isn’t easy. Big Tech is still Big Tech, and it will always prioritize profit over people. Black women in AI face everything from corporate retaliation to blatant erasure. But that’s never stopped us before. These women aren’t waiting for permission to change the game. They’re hacking the system, rewriting the rules, and making sure the future of AI doesn’t look like the past.

So, what’s next? More disruption. More innovation. More Black women taking up space in AI, making sure the algorithms don’t just work for us—but that we’re the ones building them from the ground up. The future is being reprogrammed in real time, and Black women are holding the code.