The AI Black Box (La Boîte Noire de l'IA)

What can I learn?

An educational game, designed by Datactivist, that walks a general audience through the full life cycle of text-generating AI — from the extraction of minerals to the energy and water costs of data centres — and opens a structured debate on its societal, environmental and ethical consequences. It is built to be run as a facilitated group activity.

Core insight

A chatbot answer is not weightless: behind it sits a long material chain of mining, manufacturing, energy and human labour. Making that chain visible turns "is this useful?" into "is this worth it, and on whose terms?" — and helps people make conscious choices about when to use AI.

How to use it in daily work

A ready-made, low-tech way to run an AI awareness session with the public — no screens or coding required, just the game and a facilitator.

• Run the game at a mediatheque or community centre to spark a conversation about the hidden costs of AI with people who would never attend a "tech" workshop.
• Use the life-cycle framing to answer a client who feels guilty about using ChatGPT, giving them a concrete way to weigh the trade-offs.