We just spend the weekend volunteering on the Safety Team at PyConAU — one of the most queer-friendly tech conferences in the world. From pronouns on badges to gender-neutral bathrooms, they get a lot of things right.
What was especially refreshing was being a tech conference that wasn't saturated with AI hype. Sure, there were some talks on machine learning and large language models, but most of the talks that mentioned AI were skeptical or critical of it — and the keynote talks in particular focused on AI bias and social harms.
As streaming services push AI-generated music and chatbots put people’s lives at risk, it’s worth pulling back the curtain on what these tools really do.
And one of the best ways to get a second opinion is to ask queer people — who often have a more nuanced perspective that mainstream voices overlook.
LGBTQ+ People Are “Highly Skeptical of AI”
The first thing to know is that queer people in general are “highly skeptical of AI” — as are other marginalized groups like disabled and neurodivergent participants. A recent study by Oliver Haimson (author of Trans Technologies) and colleagues at the University of Michigan found that:
- Women were more skeptical of AI than men
- Disabled and neurodivergent participants had “negative AI attitudes”
- Non-binary and transgender people had the “most negative views of AI“
In particular, participants were skeptical of:
- facial recognition tools, especially those that misgender trans people
- healthcare systems that don’t take disabled people into account
- predictive policing systems with built-in biases
Why is this noteworthy? For one, marginalized groups are often the “canary in the coalmine,” feeling the impact of new laws and technologies long before everyone else does. Later, mainstream groups often have the same complaints once the impact of these new technologies affects them.
The second is that our societies should be built for everyone, and if AI tools are harming or excluding certain groups, we should rethink how we’re using them. When we center our conferences, communities, and workspaces around AI, we subtly drive away people who just aren’t that enamored with it.
As the study puts it, “Knowledge about how particular marginalized groups think and feel about AI can inform more equitable policies and reduce the disparities that these groups face when using – both with and without explicit knowledge – emerging technologies.” You can read the whole study here:
Haimson, Oliver; Mayworm, Samuel; Ingber, Alexis; Andalibi, Nazanin
The AI Hype Machine
Another common perspective on AI among queer people is that it’s overused and overhyped. It’s not that chatbots and algorithms don’t have their uses: LGBTQ+ people might use AI tools for certain activities, like data analysis or coding, but shun them for creative activities like writing and producing art.
Not only are generative AI tools built off of stolen writing and art, they can also be reductive and stereotypical in how they understand queerness and gender.
According to a recent article in Wired, “When I asked the best AI image and video generators to envision queer people, they universally responded with stereotypical depictions of LGBTQ culture.… AI-generated images frequently presented a simplistic, whitewashed version of queer life.”
Reece Rogers
At ESCKEY.CO, JD Shadel interviewed Alex Hanna and Emily M. Bender (authors of The AI Con) to get their take on the AI hype bubble. They question the idea that the widespread use of AI is “inevitable” and even that AI represents a discrete set of technologies in the first place. As JD puts it, “the problem begins with thinking about ‘AI’ as one super-powerful technology when it is, in fact, a marketing term that clusters together a lot of different technologies under one umbrella.”
JD Shadel
Earlier in the year, JD interviewed Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, who makes a similar argument. She points out that the use of the term “started as a marketing play [in the 1950s] and has become a quest shaped by the ideologies and agendas of different people and actors throughout the decades.”
When reading about a new AI tool, it’s worth considering who is making the claim that it represents an inflection point or paradigm shift in the first place. Red flags include “using ‘AI’ as a catch-all term” and “describing ‘AI’ like it’s human.”
Are There Queer People Working in AI?
All that said, it would be a mistake to think that all queer people are AI skeptics, or that there aren’t any queer people working in the AI industry. Some queer people do believe in the promise and potential of AI, or at least that participating in the development of these tools can alleviate or mitigate their harms.
One organization, Queer in AI, is focused on making “the AI community a safe and inclusive place that welcomes, supports, and values LGBTQIA2S+ people”:
In a recent paper on AI risk management, Queer in AI makes the case that “AI development, deployment, and monitoring framework that aspires to trust must incorporate both feminist, non-exploitative participatory design principles and strong, outside, and continual monitoring and testing.”
They also offer helpful resources on applying to graduate school, making virtual conferences queer-friendly, and changing your name in academic publications. Their Slack community currently has over 500 people.
Want to get a more nuanced perspective on AI? You can stream many of the talks from this year's PyConAU on YouTube:
- Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Reality by Lilly Ryan
- Skill Issue by Benno Rice
Looking for a queer-friendly tech conference? PyConAU is coming to Brisbane, August 26 - 30, 2026. Get your tickets now!
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