🤖 What AI Actually Costs: Transmuting Shame Into Erotic Self-Respect — with Ayana Zaire Cotton

Amelia HrubyHello, and welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients or income or community in the process. I'm your host, Amelia Frooby, and this month on the show, we've been doing a series all about AI. I have been talking to creative small business owners, artists, and writers who are thinking quite deeply and intentionally about how AI is being integrated into their businesses and the AI tools that they won't use for many reasons that we've gotten into in these conversations. In addition to my chats with Mel Mitchell Jackson, Jackson, Casey Zabala, my spouse JJ Lang, and today, Ayanna Zaire Cotton, I also shared a few solo episodes. I walked you through my process for writing a thoughtful AI policy and talked a bit about why I think so many of us are so conflicted about AI use in our businesses.

Amelia HrubyToday's episode will be the last in the series for now. I think AI is going to become an ongoing part of our programming. But as I arrive here in this final episode of the series, I have to be honest that I still don't totally know how I feel about the technology of AI, and I'm realizing that I have so much more to learn about how it works. Every time I do a little more research into what a large language model really is and what it really takes to run one, I have more questions than answers. At the same time, I do feel very clearly about the current function of AI in our capitalist world, and I talk to today's guest a lot about racialized capitalism because we do believe that the tools owned by the most popular AI platforms are actively causing so much harm in the world, including to ourselves and people we love.

Amelia HrubySo I don't know if I believe the AI has to be so harmful. I think I've even been convinced that perhaps local AI or ethically oriented tools or tools with very specific scope used for very particular reasons could be helpful and have beautiful benefits for society. However, the way that AI is working right now, the way that the giant companies who own the most popular models are seeking profits, it seems pretty clear to me that these tools are doing more harm than good. And even though I stay open to future possibilities, I'm also not that interested in giving my money, time, and brainpower to investigating AI right now. So I will continue to learn and to listen to the AI landscape, but I'm feeling really good about my commitment to not using generative AI or chatbots in 2026.

Amelia HrubyAnd that honestly allows me the clarity and space to continue learning. I really worry that if I was just going all in on, you know, using chatbots and asking them everything, I would just accept their answers instead of doing my own research and asking my own questions. And that process still feels so, so important, dare I even say sacred, to me. So I hope that throughout this series, you've heard something that maybe made you want to reflect on your relationship with AI, with technology, with business. I hope that if you are not using generative AI tools, you feel like there's a community of creative small business owners that understands and is with you.

Amelia HrubyYou can definitely find us on that thread in the clubhouse. There are lots of us also inside of the interweb. And if you are using generative or agentic AI tools, I hope that this series has helped you think about how to do that in ways that reduce harm. I have heard from listeners who have canceled their paid or premium AI accounts, and, honestly, I really cheer that on. As I've said many times, I don't want to shame or judge anyone in this space, but I do really want us to step into our agency and realize that we do not have to accept the advertising, that AI is here to stay and that we have to use it just the ways that the marketing campaigns tell us.

Amelia HrubyTherefore, we better get on it before everybody else figured it out, and we're left behind. Right? I don't think we have to accept that messaging. I think we can refuse that messaging. I think we can reshape these emergent technologies.

Amelia HrubyAnd I want to encourage all of us to take this space, to pause, to learn, to listen, to connect with other people in that process. Whether you're using AI or not, I think that these conversations are so valuable, and I would love to see you join our ongoing chat in the clubhouse. I've got a post there that has some really thoughtful reflections on ways people are refusing AI or have stopped using AI or are still interested in AI, and I will link that post in the show notes if you want to join us in that conversation whenever you might be hearing this episode. I'm so grateful to everyone who's tuned into the show, and I'm especially grateful to Ayanna who's joining me here today to talk about an amazing essay she wrote called Transmuting AI Shame Into Erotic Self Respect on Listening to Your Body, Not the Machine. Ayanna's a return guest.

Amelia HrubyI will link her first episode all about world building in the show notes, and I hope that you will stay tuned to this one to learn her new methodology for erotic engineering as inspired by Audre Lorde. Thank you again for tuning in to our AI series. Next week, we're gonna be talking about money, so we'll move on to some different topics. For now, let's dive in to my conversation with Ayanna. Hi, Ayanna.

Amelia HrubyWelcome back to Off the Grid.

Ayana Zaire CottonI'm so happy to be back, Amelia. You have no clue how perfectly timed this is for all of us. We're all thinking about this topic so much. So just thank you for creating the space for us to think and dream. And we're all built alongside each other inside of this very timely conversation.

Amelia HrubyWell, thank you for stepping into this space and world with me. And could we open just a bit with you sharing, like, when and how did you start using Chat GPT? Like, when did this tool come into your world?

Ayana Zaire CottonYeah. So in that essay, I think I mentioned that I started in 2023 and, you know, it was one of those word-of-mouth things where I was like, okay, let me check this out. But there wasn't as much guidance by osmosis of, like, how to truly leverage it. And so I didn't return back to it. Like like, I played around within 2023, but I was kind of like, well, I don't even know how to use this exactly.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo it wasn't until 2025 that I picked it back up, and it started with, like, you know, building an itinerary for a family trip. Then it was like, oh, I have this plumbing issue, and I don't know what this weird connector piece let me take a picture of it. And then it told me, and then I was able to go to the hardware store and troubleshoot like and I was like, oh, wait a minute. And then it it very quickly transitioned into where can I use this in my work? Where can I use this in my business?

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd I'm a queen of typos. Like anyone like the writing just floods through me and I don't catch the typo. So I started using it for administrative purposes, and then it quickly went into project management and, like, how, like, how to sequence certain things that I knew I wanted to roll out in my business. And that's how it started in the beginning. I mean, honestly, around stuff that I, like, wanna hire for, if I'm honest.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight. Admin and operations. And then, you know, we started seeing the journalism and the reports and our peers kind of calling us in to accountability. And then that's when I was like, oh, let's press pause. Like let's, let's actually see what is actually underneath this relief that I am experiencing through quote unquote collaborating with this tool.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd the ways in which it's extending my capacity and how that's almost, how that's almost making me feel safer in my output and what I'm able to accomplish. And that's when I was like, oh, wait a minute. Like, what is actually behind the ways in which this tool is actually extending my capacity to do more when my body deeply wants to do less? My body and my mind and my spirit.

Amelia HrubyRight? Yeah. Oh my gosh. So much you've already said that I wanna highlight and underscore. I think that that impulse to, like, hire AI instead of a human being

Ayana Zaire CottonYeah.

Amelia HrubyOr as like free or super cheap assistant. I'm so glad you named that because that is one of the most common ways I'm hearing from people that they're using AI. Right? It's checking the emails, it's making the launch calendar. It's doing all of this sort of operations and behind the scenes work that many of us find challenging or boring or uninteresting when we run our own business and when we're self employed and we historically have had to do it anyway.

Amelia HrubyAnd so it's like now AI can do this and I can do so much more. And something I've really been trying to interrogate is like, what is that more that I'm doing? Because there's now early research that's essentially like when AI is fully integrated into workplaces, no one's working less. It's not taking work off the plate. Right?

Amelia HrubyIt's just creating more pressure to do more work. Where you ended, you kind of said like, my mind, body, and spirit wanted to do less. How did you figure that out? I'm curious where that, like more versus less really started to come out in your experience.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo, you know, I think we chatted back in 2024 and I had like just launched the retreat inside at Cedar School. And there was like so much, it felt like generativity around and inside of my business, you know, on the other side of like launching something. And since then I have been stewarding a story, stewarding a novel. And I'm sure you can relate to this. I think as creative folks, as business folks, as intuitive folks, we start projects and it seems like, you know, we're entering into a dark forest of the newness and we don't know what's on the other side, but we know we have to embark on this idea.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd I found myself really being initiated by this project and it really requiring like a depth of slowness and stillness that for a long time I struggled with because it didn't feel safe to slow down in some ways, You know, so much of my work and the work that I'm always inviting us to do is, like, let's get really curious about this, like, relationship to external validation and safety and, like, overworking and safety. What beautiful, beautiful, beautiful practitioner Des Davis calls currency for connection. How and where are we using overworking, overextending, overdelivering as a currency for connection? And how does that actually kinda get in the way of the work that is like, the the the most, like, honest and erotic and pleasurable and kind of, like, initiatory work that wants to come through us. So it was that tension that clued to me, like, it was like my inability to like slow down in my business, to slow down the marketing, to slow down the free workshops, to slow down all the, like, list building things.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight? To slow down, actually, all of the places where I was like, low key working for free in the name of marketing and growth. Mhmm. Right? Like, I I think there's a fine line between building our list and just, like, feeding the engine and and and just going, going, going.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo I slowly started kind of reducing my client load. I slowly started reducing my workshops. I slowly started, like, not writing as many newsletters or as many podcasts. And I remember maybe kind of, like, tapping on the shoulder of AI that, you know, maybe I can use this tool and continue to write my book and continue to have my business and continue and continue and continue and continue. And I wanna kind of touch on that piece that you mentioned earlier around free labor and unpaid labor, because that is actually what the the novel that I'm working on kind of is about is this kind of reflection on almost what I'm seeing is, like, the mamification of AI.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight? Sonya Renee Taylor, she posted this what's up y'all. She does these what's up y'all's where she just offers these, like, really casually brilliant cultural critiques. And she has one called, like, where do I want a slave as it relates to AI? Like, that's the question that it seems like these companies are inviting.

Ayana Zaire CottonWhere do I want free labor? Where do I feel entitled to free labor? And what is with that entitlement that we feel around grasping and grabbing for tools that extend our capacity without any reciprocity. Olivia, Mikaela Ross and Jasmine Jones talked about this in an interview they did for polyester. I believe it was polyester zine around seeking may Mavis Beacon, this beautiful film they, they created.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd, you know, Olivia was like, we should be paying these mo there needs to be compensation happening somewhere. And then folks would be like, okay, well, they're not sentient. Does that matter? What about the planetary? The planetary extraction.

Ayana Zaire CottonIs there ever right relationship inside unpaid labor or labor without this expectation of reciprocity. I don't know if it's possible. Right? So I think that's also a very deep, very serious part of this conversation and we can, you know, get into care work and, right, all of the ways in which feminized labor is often unpaid and how we have a lot of these AI you know, they're they get these, like, feminized names. Like, this is a labor conversation, and I know you've touched on that in this series too.

Ayana Zaire CottonThis is fundamentally a conversation about labor and something that emerged inside of the the ways in which this novel has initiated me into slowing down and finding true sturdiness and, like, somatic safety inside of my own stillness is this this methodology that you alluded to earlier that I've been building out inside of Cedar School, which is erotic engineering. And that is simply the practice of aligning our desire with our capacity, which I truly is our own desire with our capacity, which I truly is our only job right now. Like, I'm like, okay, this moment feels so complicated. Well, how do we drop into focus, drop into our bodies and this framework of like, is it aligned with my desire? And is it aligned with my capacity?

Ayana Zaire CottonHow can I do this thing in alignment with both? And what if that's the only thing we need to concern ourselves with right now? And if there's misalignment with my capacity, how do I course correct? If this thing is misaligned with my desire, how do I course correct? And how do I, how do I drop into the belief that alignment is possible with my body as it is in this world as.

Amelia HrubyYeah. What's really coming up for me here on that last point is that if erotic engineering is this practice for aligning our desire with our capacity and AI is an artificial extension of our capacity, then when we use AI, we are disconnecting ourselves from desire. And when we do that, there are so many impacts and effects on our lives and our relationships and our creative efforts and dreams and visions and everything else. So it does really feel like AI is kind of breaks something in that relationality. And that goes back to your emphasis on reciprocity.

Amelia HrubyAnd where is there compensation for labor? I think the way you wove that together was so helpful for me to see that, like, okay, within this capitalist system we live in, labor needs to be compensated. And right now, that's through money. But if we break free of that system, even then, labor should be reciprocated with care, with other things. Right.

Amelia HrubyAnd so we can operate on both those levels. We can say like, Somebody's gotta pay for the chatbots y'all like someone has to do it.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd right now, it's the planet. Like, it's being exploited. You know? It's not it's not maybe necessarily a person. Well, there are people.

Ayana Zaire CottonThere are communities being exploited too. Let's be clear.

Amelia HrubyYes. There are people being exploited and the planet's being exploited. The workers who are talking about horrifying conditions of the factories, essentially, largely in Africa where they are training and processing data and tagging video and creating the things that train these models, basically. It's still human labor that's doing that. And there's a really beautiful effort called AI as African Intelligence that's really trying to uplift that, like, there's human labor behind these tools And as well as all the reporting on the environmental impacts.

Amelia HrubyI'm also thinking here of, as we're recording this, OpenAI has just announced they're shutting down Sora, their video creation app. And what I'm seeing in that reporting is like, there are so many layers of obscuring how money is being spent. Who's doing the work. Like these tools are presented to us. Like they're just cheap and easy and will give us free stuff for our business.

Amelia HrubyBut that's such a lie. That's literally the same myth that social media companies told us. And that was a lie then. And I think it's an even more destructive lie now.

Ayana Zaire CottonKate Crawford of, who wrote Atlas of AI talks about this in her book too, the kind of like in the chapter about labor. Like there is this kind of like guys of automation. I think the same thing happens with like, you know, Amazon prime. It like seems like this thing is like magically appearing on your doorstep within minutes because of robots or because of automation, when really it is human bodies that are feeling the pressure of this, like, marketing myth that we've all been sold that these, these, this is, this is magic. This is automation.

Ayana Zaire CottonThis is the future when really it's a it's human bodies holding this up. And there's a reframe that Karen and rose offers us that I have been obsessed with lately. And she calls it ancestral intelligence. And a lot of the conversations we've been having inside of Cedar School, there's this beautiful book by Ron Iglash called African fractals, modern computing and indigenous design and something I love, something that is actually making me feel so empowered in this moment is remembering that modern computing software itself started on the weaving loom. Started with an indigenous technology, started with like a making by hand, like, you know, a slow, a slow process.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd there's also the ways in which, you know, ones and zeros binary code, like that is all of that is kind of like at the heart of African divination and that tradition. And so I think so often, you know, even we can even think about core rope memory, how weaving core rope memory is the craft of that. Literally weaving wire was what sent folks to space. So if these indigenous crafts and technologies and divination practices are actually powerful enough to be at the heart of modern computing and AI and all of if we can do that with this technology, what is the more erotic move we can make? How do we actually use that same seed of innovation, indigenous innovation to do something that is more in alignment with our values, with our black feminist politics, with what our neighbors need, with what our body is calling for, with what our planet is inviting us into.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight. And we say people and planet as if they're two different things, but, you know, and indigenous folks know this deeply. You know, we think about clay, we think about fiber art that is nothing but interspecies communication and AI cannot exist without its water use. And without that too is interspecies collaboration. So how do we just, if the choreography of interspecies collaboration is present before the aims of exploitation, how do we just shift our head to the left and and point toward something else that actually is about belonging.

Amelia HrubyI really love how you're always helping us and helping me specifically, like, zoom out to the level of world building, zoom out to an interspecies, intergalaxy perspective, where we stop thinking of ourselves as separate from the planet or honestly as separate from AI. There's so much conversation, and I think even I have fallen into this myself of being, like, human or AI, human versus AI. Like, these are two totally different things. But this technology is also, you know, by us, for us, about us. Right?

Amelia HrubyLike, and I think that so much can happen when we stop seeing it as separation in that way. Not saying we need to like fully meld with AI or just accept the current, you know, colonial imperialist ways that AI is being sold to us, but I also think it's helpful and healing to not think of ourselves as separate from or against it. Right. I am loving all of this, and I also wanna take a step back a bit because something I really appreciate about your essay was the way that you sort of took us from the place where you were still using AI and feeling misaligned about it to all of these, like, brilliant ways you've reconceptualized the relationality of it. And you wrote about how you almost recorded this podcast episode called A Pure Politic on AI Feels Problematic and Boring.

Ayana Zaire CottonWhich I still believe, by the

Amelia Hrubyway. Yeah. Obviously. Right? Like, this whole conversation already shows that.

Amelia HrubyBut I I just related so much to the story you told there of just, like, coming up with this title, trying to write the piece to sort of justify or assuage your shame, and then realizing, like, this is out of integrity. Why am I doing this? Like, getting to something deeper underneath it. So could you sort of share with us the story of that episode, where it came from, how you worked through not creating it, and what happened next?

Ayana Zaire CottonWell, I first have to say, I think as business owners and creatives and storytellers, like there's as folks who may be talented at sales, which is just really talented at storytelling, we can sometimes craft very compelling arguments for our own bullshit.

Amelia HrubyYeah. Preach that. That's so real.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd that gets me in trouble. Like, there was one time I was having a conversation with my girls. I was like, I feel like y'all don't call me out enough. Like, I feel like y'all don't check me enough. I'm not getting read for filth by my friends or not, and I know I'm not out here being perfect.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd they were like, well, girl, you be telling us what you're doing and what the next step is. And it just sounds so good. So, you know, so I think we can get into these. If we are compelling storytellers, if we are compelling salespeople, we can kind of convince ourselves in these really like sometimes beautiful ways without checking in on our own values and the ways in which, like we want to be a cut because at the end of the day, that's our job. That's our job.

Ayana Zaire CottonYou know, we can be in community where, you know, the, the desire, the intention, the agreement is for other folks to hold us accountable. And I know for me, I talk about black feminism so much because I'm most interested in being accountable to black feminists. So it's very rare that I'm able to like be out here acting a fool. But I'll somebody said something. We, we all have to have a practice of kind of checking in with ourselves daily.

Ayana Zaire CottonMariam Kaba reminds us, you know, if we are closing the gap between our values and our actions every day, like if we're trying to close that gap, we're on the right path if we're closing that gap. And I think about that so often. So inside of my own AI use and inside of talking to other folks, you know, I was hearing. Black women talk about using AI folks who, you know, are tasked with holding way too much grief, way too much labor. Hortense Spillers has this quote in, it was mama's mama's baby papa's maybe in this essay, she said, my country needs me.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd if not, I would have to be invented. Like I would have to be invented if, if I wasn't here. So there is this way in which there are folks, women of color, queer folks who are really kind of like the social and care infrastructure of our communities and this country, The States. And I was like, you know, I don't blame them for wanting to make their load lighter. I don't blame the neurodivergent folks who are like, yo, we got four meetings a day and you want me to sit at this computer for how, like what it like, you know what I mean?

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd college students are the young people who faced COVID and faced isolation or inside of this loneliness epidemic that we're now talking so much about and are using character AI in these chatbots to like, for like social companionship. Right. I don't think it doesn't feel productive, helpful to shame us as it relates to that. For the folks who are in this labor market, you know, and there's entire families in this country and overseas that depend on their wallets. Right.

Ayana Zaire CottonWe got workers. Who like entire mutual aid campaigns are like built on this one single bar. You know what I mean? And that's a problem in itself. Right.

Ayana Zaire CottonBut I don't blame that person who, you know, maybe taking care of their family here and then taking care of extended family overseas. And, like, they find themselves inside of unemployment And now they're taking AI courses to stay competitive in this job All of that is happening And I was just thinking about okay How do we hold all that But then still also hold us accountable to, to a world where none of that is the case. Like we can hold the truth that the country that is declaring the loneliness epidemic is a collaborator in the loneliness epidemic. Right. We can hold the truth that single families, single individuals are being tasked with holding way too much labor.

Ayana Zaire CottonI heard you say in the most recent podcast episode, we're like entire worlds of audio that are now accessible to folks through AI transcription. Like let's hold all of that and let's not I almost stopped there. Do you know what I mean? And was like, let's not shame those folks because on the low I'm using this too. You know?

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd then I was like, well, wait a minute. Do I even want to be using this? No. So let's talk about the larger choreographies at play that kind of have us in this bind and how do we break free from it? Which is how I got to erotic engineering.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd I just want to say, I have to cite Audre Lorde. You know what I mean? Because that is where this comes from, that, that language of erotic engineering. And she says, I have to read this quote because this quote has been something that really has been a true part of my, like transmuting my AI shame into erotic self respect. She says the erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.

Ayana Zaire CottonIt is an internal sense of satisfaction to which once we have experienced it, we know we can aspire for having experienced the fullness of this depth of feeling and recognizing its power. This is the part in honor and self respect. We can require no less of ourselves. And that's from uses of the erotic in 1978. So I said, you know what?

Ayana Zaire CottonI can require no less of myself than self respect. So no, I'm not gonna publish that podcast as it is. What else might we say? What else might we offer this mama in self respect? What can we aspire to?

Ayana Zaire CottonWhere can we aspire to?

Amelia HrubyI appreciate how you are weaving together sort of different sites of shame. I think actually that come up like there's the act of shaming people who are using AI tools or other tools, or, you know, doing all sorts of things we may decide are wrong. And I think that that act often people find like a sort of moral superiority in it. They like develop a sort of pleasure out of that, like looking down on others. And that's where they perpetrate that shaming.

Amelia HrubyI'm curious also for you, like, about the other side of that. Because what I've heard from a lot of people who've been listening to the series is that they don't necessarily feel shamed by others, but they feel ashamed. It's like coming up within themselves, the sense of guilt or like they're doing something wrong. And I think that's where self respect and the erotic is an antidote, but maybe this is the moment you could kind of take us through how you charted your transmutation process from that feeling of shame to erotic self respect. Because it's beautiful to listen to the invocation of our self respect, but it can be really hard to cultivate and feel that.

Amelia HrubyRight? So could you walk us through maybe those stages of education, conversation, action that you use for this transmutation process?

Ayana Zaire CottonWell, I first want to say, I feel like shame does numbers on social media.

Amelia HrubyYou know?

Ayana Zaire CottonYeah. Let's just go ahead and name that. Right. So that kind of like hierarchy that you were talking about, the looking down like that polarizing impulse does so well on social media and where, whereas like the nuance and like the kind of, like, let's hold our hands through these things. Like, that does less well.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo, you know, I don't think it's an accident that some of us are feeling shame around this moment. But I think something else that my transmutation process of, like, you know, transmuting AS shame to erotic self respect, it was like three phases, education, conversation, and action. And I noticed for me, before I even go into though that process, I just first wanna also say that, like, we don't need anyone's shame. Like, it actually doesn't help. I think that can also be a comfort to me is like, no one actually needs this from me.

Ayana Zaire CottonYou know what I mean? This, you know, if I'm actually feeling shame around this being aligned, misaligned with my values and my values is communal care and liberation. And what, you know, Tony K. Von Barr says irresistible revolution. There is nothing irresistible about shame.

Ayana Zaire CottonYou know what I mean? Like, it's actually one of those things where like, if I feel ashamed for being misaligned with my values, then shame doesn't actually even get me closer to the thing I feel misaligned. So, you know, in inside the essay, I say, you know, shame is flimsy and we don't need it now. What? Right.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd so for me, it was education conversation and action because I noticed that maybe shame. And I think more specifically silence emerges in isolation emerges for me in moments of like true, you know, where there's like a true political opening or a portal opening, a world building possibility opening where there's, you know, I think the pandemic was one of those auto openings. I think the multiple genocides in Gaza and Sudan and Congo, like that was also a mo and then I think also this AI moment is one of those. And I think what can happen is like, we can drop into shame, silence, and isolation really quickly if we actually just don't know what's going on. So I'm always like, let's read a little bit.

Ayana Zaire CottonLike, let's look at the articles. Right? Like, cause that's what I need to do before I'm ready to like drop into conversation with folks. Like I just first need to assemble my own worldview around this thing. See how different, you know, thought leaders are talking about certain things, different scholars, different black feminist practitioners.

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat is their take? How do I calibrate that with my lived experience? How does it feel in my body? And then that gives me a level of, I don't wanna use the word confidence. Cause it's not that, but like that allows me to show up in conversation on just ground that I feel more familiar with.

Ayana Zaire CottonBecause I've taken the time to do a little bit of re and then there's a way in which the conversation becomes an extension of that research. Right? So there's a list of articles that I kind of like went through inside of the essay, but it was really around the kind of like ecological planetary right impact of AI, but then how there is like specific harm happening to black communities whether in in in how Atlanta, Georgia has like the high like, that's where like a lot of the data centers are going. And there were articles on, you know, Elon Musk's AI center, like, causing air pollution and all these, electric bills going up, all of these different things. So once and I read Atlas of AI, which was so, so helpful and returned to, you know, Ruha Benjamin's race after technology, returned to Simone Brown's dark matters, returned to Sophia Noble's algorithms of oppression, and just kind of, like, saturated and kind of like bathed myself and like rested and exhaled inside all of the scholarship that has already happened.

Ayana Zaire CottonI don't know if you feel this, but like, sometimes I feel like, Whew, thank goodness. People are doing this work. You know what I mean? Like, thank goodness you wrote that book. They can meet me in this moment.

Ayana Zaire CottonI feel so much gratitude around authors. And I think about what it took to be this early to the conversation. Right. And how maybe those same books that were previously published with, you know, what their book advance might look like, what their, you know what I mean? What their tours may have looked like.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd so often I feel like black feminists are so early to the conversations, and it's like a decade later we're ready. So I first kind of saturated with gratitude and deep reflection for a lot of the scholarship and intellectual labor and critiques around AI that already existed. And then I brought that to conversations with my loved ones. I talked to, like, neighbors and friends about and I'm gonna be honest. You know, I was using AI and I kinda saw the articles about the ecological harm at the corner of my eye.

Ayana Zaire CottonLike I heard the buzzing, but it wasn't until they were proposing a AI data center come to my county that I was in, you know, I am not proud of that, but it was definitely a not in my backyard type of thing. And I think that that was coming up for a lot of my friends and family. It was like, well, I ain't gonna stop using this, but, I don't want this data center here. It's Prince George's County that I'm I'm speaking of. It's the the place where the data center is proposed to be built is Landover Mall, which is if you're from this county, you know, like, that was such staple.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd, you know, this is not a celebration of malls. But, like, you have so many fond memories around this place. In the in the nineties, so many I have so many childhood memories from this place. I took a permaculture course. That was a site for us learning about permaculture and how the forest regrows after, you know, we abandoned as well.

Ayana Zaire CottonLike there was, I have so many memories connected to this place and that is where there's like a $5,000,000,000 you know, proposal. There's a lot of town halls, people with chronic illnesses and disabilities showing up being like, I don't want this here. So this is that's when the conversation started. And that is also when I was able to start to form my opinions alongside others. And that's honestly where the, like, depth of compassion emerged, because I was also having conversations with elders, you know, that were like, and I've heard you say this in previous podcast episodes around this like fear of getting quote unquote left behind or, or folks saying, well, people were afraid of the internet or people were afraid of cars, you know, like

Amelia Hrubypeople were afraid of books, right?

Ayana Zaire CottonThe printing press. Right. So it's like, yes. And at some point we do maybe want to consider what are the ways in which it's a mercy to getting left behind and excluded inside of people with some. And I don't say that lightly.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight. I say that as someone who witnesses has experienced and understands the violence of, like, what happens when racial capitalism counts you out and leaves you by. Right? Like, all of these things. But I do wonder, like, do we want to get ahead in capitalism?

Ayana Zaire CottonLike, do we want to win at this game? Some of us do. That's okay. Some of us do, you know, people joke. I feel like people on the left joke, like, you know, I don't want, like, who'll be like, I don't wanna dismantle capitalism before I get rich.

Ayana Zaire CottonLet me get rich first. Let me, let me get something first. You know, let me get out. Not having to worry about money before we just cancel this thing. And it's like, okay.

Ayana Zaire CottonBut what if, like, Fred Moten invites us to refuse that which was that has been refused to us. Right? And how that might be a practice of liberation and what we might build inside of that refusal. If we're no longer trying to get ahead or win inside of capitalism, how does that free up our capacity to practice different moves to run different experiments? So those are where a lot of the conversations that I was having.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd then I think that kind of leads us to the third step, which is action, which is really activating our agency, practicing AI refusal in all the ways that feel possible to us. Right? You can't even type in a Google search without getting an AI overview now. So it's like, yes. That's happening.

Ayana Zaire CottonBut again, what might it look like to take seriously the work of aligning our desire with our capacity and allowing that to be enough, not demanding any more of ourselves and each other. What might it look like to live there for a bit and get curious about what gets built inside right relationship with each other, the planet, our own bodies, and our desires. And our labor, I've been thinking so much about, you know, we have this term human resources. You know, and that was something, you know, as someone who used to work in tech, you know, we had an HR department and, you know, it was just something I took for the lane that, that language, I just took it for granted. And now I'm like, nah, let's get curious about that.

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat are our human resources? Right. How do we reclaim that? And what do we build with it? Right?

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat do we build with our human resources? So those were that kind of three step process of education, conversation, and action, I think, was core to my transmutation process.

Amelia HrubyYou know, I spent 2025 just sort of listening, learning. I was experimenting with the tools. I was trying to understand how does this work and what is at stake here. And the more I learned, I started to realize that my ignorance, like not knowing what is AI, what does it even do? Not reading the articles, not actually looking into it.

Amelia HrubyLike that was actually just this sort of shield I was constructing or like armor I was putting on. Because if I didn't know, it couldn't be that bad, which is so untrue. Right? If we're looking away, if you don't see it happening, it's not happening. Right?

Amelia HrubyAnd that's just not the case. But I think it's a common instinct, I would say, especially for white folks living under white supremacy or benefiting from white supremacy to just, like, not look at it. And so, yeah, I spent that year learning and then having conversations with people I know in my personal life, with elders, with folks in the interweb, like really getting a sense of how we're all grappling with this. And people across the spectrum. Right?

Amelia HrubyLike I have close friends who are building apps with AI and building whole businesses around that. And that's the choice that they're making. And I'm was listening to them and understanding how they're relating to it. I also have friends who have never once touched a chatbot and never will in their life. Like that is a strong commitment and conviction that they have.

Amelia HrubySo I was listening. I was learning. And then through that education, through those conversations, like that's where this series came from. And as people have heard from all of that, I decided to stop. I couldn't find alignment or integrity in the place of casual generative AI use anymore, nor going all in on it either.

Amelia HrubyAnd I think a lot still about those two questions I started with those, like what's happening here and what is at stake? And that takes me back to, like, I still do the AI transcripts because I I feel like now I understand there is a cost. And it's worth it to me in this instance. Like it is worth it to me to have the transcripts, to make things more accessible, to invite more people into conversation.

Amelia HrubyThat is worth the cost of the technology.

Amelia HrubyI don't actually think it's that helpful to, like, evaluate on a, like, instance by instance basis. Is this worth it? Like, that's exhausting. I would rather, like, come up with a set of values and principles and policies that I can just sort of rest in, as you've so nicely said.

Amelia HrubyHello, my lovely listener. Amelia here interrupting this amazing conversation because if you're enjoying this episode, the one you're listening to right now, I think you would really love the Off the Grid Clubhouse. The Clubhouse is a paid podcast, newsletter, and asynchronous community space for friends and fans of Off the Grid hosted on Substack. It's where I share bonus episodes about my hot takes, personal feelings, deepest, darkest, brightest, lightest ideas about online business, and more. I also send out a monthly link roundup called the click through where I gather everything that I have been reading, watching, and intrigued by with regards to Internet culture, social media happenings, and online business at large.

Amelia HrubyThat's also where I have been chronicling the many, many, many announcements I see lately of people taking breaks from social media or exiting platforms entirely, and all of the posts in the clubhouse have community comment threads where you can ask me questions, share your experiences, and chat with other off the grid listeners. It only costs $5 per month or $50 per year to join the fun, and I truly hope that you will head to the show notes and check it out. I look forward to seeing you on Substack, but for now, let's dive back into this conversation.

Amelia HrubyI wanna talk more about erotic engineering. You've already defined it for us, this practice of aligning desire with capacity. Could you talk a little bit more about how that happens and why do you believe that's our only job right now? You said that too, and I wanted to hear more about it.

Ayana Zaire CottonYou know, we talk about racial capitalism and we talk about building anti capitalist businesses and practices and worlds. And I I wanna be very clear that worlds do not happen without like, worlds need resources. And in this context, the worlds that we are building require investment and something that I think about a lot inside of, of erotic engineering and aligning our desire with our capacity is yes. We may, and many of us do desire more money for very, very, very, very, very valid reasons. And I'm always going to support.

Ayana Zaire CottonI started CIDA school because I was seeing some of the most brilliant creative minds. Like we were, I was seeing like beautiful ideas emerge out of art practices, out of world building practices and not seeing the same level of compensation. Right. Not it just be there being kind of discrepancy there and being like, wait a minute. The, the depth of ideas that I'm seeing, the depth of passion, work and labor that I'm seeing has the capacity to actually build new worlds.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight. I am seeing folks who are, you know, thinking at the scale of what do the next universities look like? What do the next hospitals look like? Right. What do the next libraries look like?

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat do the next healing centers and and housing cooperative? Like there were thinking people are thinking at the level of world building, but not getting compensated in a way that like allows them to actualize those worlds. Right. And so I got really, really curious about, okay, how do we drop into this belief that it is possible to build these new worlds, to actualize these creative ideas and to actually rest and return to the abundance, financial, relational, right. That is already always here.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd something that I see a lot is this idea that it has to be hard. Mhmm. I wanna see black feminists. I wanna see queer world builders. I wanna see erotic engineers casually stewarding seven figures, casually stewarding eight.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight? Like casually us building cooperatives that are stewarding and redistributing nine figures. Like I want to see that level of income redistribution and income generation. And what does it mean to shift our body, mind, heart, to believe that that does not have to be hard or exhausting or require us to compromise our values or our capacity. Right?

Ayana Zaire CottonSo at like that too is also at the heart of erotic engineering. Right? The the the invitation that Audre Lorde, what do we aspire to? How do we expect no less? And how do we believe we can engineer these worlds in alignment with our capacity, whether that is our capacity, it we're, we're a parent.

Ayana Zaire CottonWe have limited internet access. We are living in a disabled body, like whatever that capacity is. How do we shift to the belief that the worlds we are building and the money that we're calling in to build those words, that that is because here's the thing. I don't know about you. I actually don't want to build a world that is not in alignment with my desire and capacity.

Ayana Zaire CottonLike, you know, I don't want to succeed at that. Right. I don't wanna win at working hard and getting to the finish line.

Amelia HrubyI mean, as a person with a PhD, I have deep experience in how bad that feels and why it's not satisfying. So Yes.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo it's like, okay. How do we assume the posture we actually want to live it? Like, how do we assume the world we're trying to build now? And so much of that to me is what erotic engineering is. And, you know, I looked at the history of engineering.

Ayana Zaire CottonWe have symbol engineering, we have electrical engineering, we have aerospace engineering. We have right. All of these ways in which engineering has shaped our world. And now with AI, you know, there's software engineering, there's prompt engineering, and we didn't even get into AI agents. There's, you know, context engineering.

Ayana Zaire CottonRight? So there's all these ways in which we are using our human resources to engineer worlds, technologies, roadways, bridges. Why? Like, we are engineering the world, but what does it look like to engineer it in alignment with our desire and capacity, the worlds that we desire and the pace at which our bodies can hold and steward and maintain that desire. I think so much about, you know, Mark Zuckerberg's mandate inside of Facebook, like move fast and break things.

Ayana Zaire CottonLike, what if we repositioned and kind of like was like, okay, what if our our our our our the invitation right now is to slow down and steward. To slow down and steward. And not kind of like live in this anxiety or this, this belief that through slowing down or through calibrating our work with our capacity, that that means earning less. Or generating less. I don't even like the word earn, but like generating less income and experiencing scarcity.

Ayana Zaire CottonYou know, I think so many of us have anxiety around being left out of this AI conversation for reasons that kind of are sometimes rooted in scarcity. So what does it look like? You know, what does it look like for abundance to be true and rigorous ease to be true and a desire to be true and financial abundance to be true for all of it to be possible. Because if we're being honest with ourselves, that's actually the world we're building. What resources do we need to cultivate in order to live inside that truth?

Amelia HrubyI also think all the time about how, you know, as you know, I work with creatives and small business owners. And when I really start to dig in with people on what do you want to create, what can this be? Like so often when we get in there that there's nothing underneath the like smart idea, there's nothing underneath the clever strategy. And I think to build a creative business, to build resilient businesses, to make our art our living, we have to get all the way to the level of desire. I have not seen a creative business work that didn't have that deep connection to, like, the gut level, root level.

Amelia HrubyYou really want this. Not simply because it's smart, not simply because it solves a problem. Like, you can force your way through that for a few years maybe. Like, you can make it work, but you'll just end up back in that place of dissatisfaction and isolation and alienation yet again. So I love everything that you're speaking to and building.

Amelia HrubyHow can folks learn erotic engineering with and from you? Do you have an offering for this? Like, who is this for? Who do you wanna invite in? I would just love to hear a little bit about where it lives in your business.

Ayana Zaire CottonThank you for this invitation. So currently, I am offering one on one erotic engineering support through the powerhouse portal. It's a ninety day container where we work on erotically engineering some project that you just like, you just like, you want to seed. We work together on finding the most erotic action you can take. Really work on that and seeding a practice around that across ninety days.

Ayana Zaire CottonSo whether that's building an off an offer, whether that's seeding a book proposal or writing the first three chapters on this book you've been dreaming about writing, whether it's about seeding a newsletter practice or or some sort of creative homecoming, What's the desire? What's your capacity? Let's align them both across the next ninety days and let's see what happens. Right. And who this work is for.

Ayana Zaire CottonI mean, what I'm intuiting is that like so many of us, I know myself included, there are ways in which we put our faith and trust and the legibility of these older systems. You know, there were things I wanted back in the day, the cover of fast company and wired magazine and the pork party at their party and the promotions and the, and the degrees and the certificates and all of the paperwork of legibility and all of the ways in which racial capitalism, colonization, patriarchy, white supremacy, all of these things work because they promise us here is a path of certainty. Right. And, and we in this path is certain because of control and domination, all of these. And I think so many of us fear our desire or don't drop into right.

Ayana Zaire CottonThe unknown of the erotic, because it's so uncertain because it's so wild because it's so illegible, right? Too illegible to be safe, too erotic, to be safe, too dark, to be a place that we can build a business from a marketing strategy from a crumb, a thing that we are kind of pinning our survival on. Right. It's but what I am seeing shift is that it is actually starting to feel less and less safe to place our trust, faith and belief on these systems that are crumbling. And we're starting to feel on an embodied level that the safest bet right now is ourselves.

Ayana Zaire CottonThe safest bet right now is actually our desire is actually that unknown space is actually that ungovernable space, that wild space, because it hasn't been co opted owned yet. It hasn't been foreclosed yet. So it's full of possibility. And I think what we're craving right now is possibility. So I am really interested in working with folks who are curious about that sense of possibility emerging within themselves and their practice.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd there's maybe some too erotic to feel safe, but too delicious, not to do project knocking on their door. The idea won't let them rest ancestors. Won't let them go. You know, like we know we got to do it. So how do we not let it overwhelm us?

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd how do we take the first step, the most erotic action? And how do we kind of tend to that seed across ninety days? That's the offer that I am inviting folks into right now. There's it, it, it consists of four biweekly sessions over eight weeks. You get your own powerhouse plan, and then you kind of work that plan.

Ayana Zaire CottonWe work together on that plan, and you work that plan across ninety days. And then there's a check-in at the end of the ninety days where we reflect on how you erotically engineered this project and maybe what you wanna do more of and what you wanna do less of and what you wanna rest in. That's something I'm really interested in inviting folks into. How do we release any idea that any of it has to be hard? Any of our desire has to be hard.

Ayana Zaire CottonIt will be rigorous. It will be rigorous, but none of it has to be hard.

Amelia HrubyBeautiful. I love that it's called the powerhouse portal.

Ayana Zaire CottonYeah. Cause I'm like, let's call it what it is. We power out here. Like let's just stop being shy.

Amelia HrubyYeah. And I'm really taking this invitation from you or a little bit, I think, of, of, like, a useful confrontation almost of, like, many of us, perhaps most of us don't believe that we could build a business from the seat of our desire. That feels unsafe or impractical or unwise based on what we're told. But what if that is the only place you can actually build a business from? And stepping into that space that Audre Lorde reminds us of between our sense of self and our chaos of our strongest feelings, like, that is actually where the spark and the magic that animates a whole business comes from.

Amelia HrubyAnd I know the people that who get to work with you through that process are very shepherded, held, and inspired beautifully, I'm sure. So thank you for sharing with us.

Ayana Zaire CottonThank you. I love that word, impractical. And and I I also love the word logical. I really do feel like our desire is our most logical and practical compass in this moment. But I am also someone who's like, we need the eroticism in the engineering.

Ayana Zaire CottonWe need the poetry and the plumbing. We need the spell and the strategy, the income and the intuition we need both. Right. So we need the practical and the code and code impractical. What happens at that intersection?

Ayana Zaire CottonI wanna see, and I wanna find out together.

Amelia HrubyBefore we go, could you read a bit of your essay to us? Because I would love to leave folks with some of your words that you wrote. You're welcome to read any section you like, but I had pulled out a section on these, like, central questions that AI is asking for us. And I'm wondering if you could read that to us and then offer any final thoughts you'd like to share as we finish today.

Ayana Zaire CottonThe central questions AI is presenting us with are, do we care more about productivity than we care about water? Do we care more about productivity than we care about black folks? Do we care more about productivity than we care about our own breath and clean air? Too simplistic? Maybe.

Ayana Zaire CottonMaybe not. What I know for a fact about all matters of racial capitalism is this, demanding nuance at every turn simply kicks the can down a road with the same destination. Black death becomes an acceptable trade off in the name of quote unquote progress. Two things can be true. We're all tired with too little time to grieve and care for our communities.

Ayana Zaire CottonAnd AI is being presented as relief while the entire of ecocide and necropolitics is hidden in plain sight. That's the crisis for workers. What about the possibilities? And I'm still holding that question. What about the possibilities?

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat about the possibilities when black death is no longer an acceptable trade off when women's labor is no longer devalued. And that's like, it's, it's no longer up that value is no longer up for debate. Right? What happens when our worthiness is no longer up for debate? Our desire is non negotiable.

Ayana Zaire CottonWhat are the possibilities when it becomes no longer acceptable to trade rivers, communities, breath for the promise of productivity, what becomes possible? And I think that's a question that I'm probably gonna be world building in alongside of this for a lifetime.

Amelia HrubyThank you so much for these beautiful invitations, invitations, questions. I'm really gonna hold true to that two things can be true sentence in your piece. That to me feels like what you were just saying about erotic engineering, the practical and the impractical, it all comes together. That's true about AI. It's true about business.

Amelia HrubyIt's true about

Ayana Zaire CottonTrue about

Amelia Hrubylove. I love this. I'm like, AI, business, hard things. And you're like, love, relationships, care. Yes.

Amelia HrubyThanks for bringing us to the the reasons why. Right? Like, the pleasures and the joys of life. I can definitely lean into the engineering side and be pulled back to the arrows and the erotics of it all. So thank you so much, Ayanna, for this entire conversation.

Amelia HrubyThank you for your writing and your work and for joining me again here. I truly hope that you'll be back on Off the Grid many more times and that we can continue to hear about the evolution of everything you do on the show and elsewhere. So I'll link to everything you mentioned in the show notes. I will also link your essay, which has a whole section of citations of its own. So listeners, all of that will be in the show notes.

Amelia HrubyBut for now, we thank you for spending this time with us, and we send you back into your communities, back into your desire, back into your capacity. And until next time, we will see you off the grid.

Ayana Zaire CottonPost a picture of myself. Sacrifices my mental health. Use your product time to tell. I would rather go to hell. Do you like this?

Ayana Zaire CottonLeave a comment? Can you share this? This? Do you like this? Leave a comment?

Ayana Zaire CottonOkay.

Amelia HrubyThat was an abridged version of Social Media by Surfer Boy and Rectangle. To hear the entire song, find Surfer Boy on Spotify or head to the link in the show notes. Thanks so much to them for sharing the song with us, as well as to Melissa Caitlin Carter, who sings our theme song that you hear at the start of every show. I'm your host, Emilia Frooby, and if you enjoyed this episode, I hope you will download the free Leading Social Media Toolkit at offthegrid.funtoolkit. Until next time, I will see you Off the Grid.

Amelia HrubyHi again, Amelia here. Remember me? You just heard my voice and now I'm back. But this time, it's with a very special gift as thanks to you for staying tuned in and being one of our very loyal listeners and fans. Today, I wanna share a few creative resources with you.